Eating through my daughter

[rachelsroses]

I was desperate for my daughter not to have my disordered eating that I’ve made her overweight by buying her all the things I don’t eat.
I have orthorexia and I buy all my forbidden foods for my daughter and now she is overweight.
I eat a healthy meal while she is at school and make a plate of my forbidden food for her for when she gets home.
I know it sounds ridiculous but I’ve only just realised what I’ve been doing and now I don’t know what to do because I don’t want her to have my restrictive diet but I also don’t know what is normal eating.

Who do you have supporting you op?

Oh I’m sorry to hear that OP but it’s great you’ve recognised it.

You say you don’t know what normal eating is but you also say you have a healthy meal in the day? What sort of thing are you eating for your healthy meal ?

Firstly, congratulations on recognising that you are doing this.
Your daughter depends on you & loves you, and now you know that you can model the right dietary behaviour for her.
It’s definitely time to change & you recognise that can only be a positive.

How old is she?
Does she have access to food & nutrition studies at school?
Perhaps you can seek some guidance from your GP practice & develop a healthy eating plan & exercise with your daughter.

I only have my husband but he’s got his own eating habits as he only likes things like pizza and crisps so he comes home from work later in the evening and he will just put a pizza in and eat it to himself and then snack.
I don’t think we have much to do with each others eating.
He doesn’t know about my eating disorder because on the few days a week I eat anything I make sure it’s in the evening when he’s home and he thinks it’s just a snack.

Just make her the healthy meals you make for yourself to bring her weight down and research healthy low calorie meals for a balanced diet, usually includes lots of protein.

I don’t eat anything mon- wed and then on Thursday I just eat a few slices of cheese of maybe some nuts.
Another day I may just have a tin of tuna or something and then most days I will eat nothing until the evening when I’ll sit with my husband and eat cheese and nuts so he thinks I’m greedy and still hungry after the imaginary meals I’ve eaten.
I eat omelettes sometimes but I don’t eat anything else.

Oh wow no part of that is healthy, taken as a whole rather than the individual foods. I'm sorry, that's very difficult for you.

I would be inclined to find a 'normal' meal plan and follow that for your daughter so you aren't bringing your own issues into it.

But clearly you also need help for yourself.

You don't eat anything for periods of 72 hours straight OP? Have I got that right?
Goodness, I'm not sure what to advise. But it would be really good to explore how you can get support for this.

Orthorexia is about "clean" eating? Restricting your food quite severely so that everything is "good" and potentially cutting out some food types/groups altogether?

So when you say you're eating a healthy meal at lunch, you're actually having a meal which is restricted by your eating disorder and the average person might well say, "hey that's not actually healthy to eat everyday"?

What are your restricted foods that you're giving to your DC? Are you having any help with your eating disorder? Are you getting any advice from a NHS dietician? How old is your daughter? Can you ask for dietician advice for her specifically via her school nurse/gp? If you were given a framework to follow for healthy eating for a child would you feel able emotionaly to cook, prepare and serve the food? Is this just a problem of not knowing which can be fixed with education or do you need more help than that?

Is your daughter actually overweight?

Making sure she has healthy meals is a great idea, I would start with a cookbook, Jamie Oliver has some great ones, 30 minute meals or family classics might be a good place to start. Then just pick a recipe and cook it for her.

OP you need proper help. This isn’t a life for you. Please see your GP and contact BEAT. You deserve better

Your daughter will eventually pick up on your disordered eating. You need to get support for yourself first and then it will filter through.

dont you spend any time with your husband? How does he not notice? What about holidays?

This is a lot for you to deal with alone. How do you think your DH would react if he knew about your eating disorder? Is he a person who you feel would support you in finding help for yourself and also caring for your DD?

I suffered from binge eating disorder for many years and I went through a series of binge/ starve so I decided to go cold turkey on the things I binged on and now I’m stuck in starve and only eat certain foods but I’ve been here for years now.
I just find myself giving it all to my daughter instead which strangely gives me the same satisfaction as eating it myself.

I agree.
The realisation you've had is a great step forward, and you won't be the first mother to overcompensate with her daughter, but you do need professional expertise here.

You definitely need to get help for yourself.

What is it that you feed your daughter? Is it possible you are actually giving her a normal diet? Do you have a trusted friend you could ask to see whether they think she is overweight?

Maybe for your dd you could ask Chat GPT to plan you a weekly balanced menu (with recipes) of breakfasts, after school snacks and dinners for a child her age then just follow it to a T.

This is really serious and it’s good that you’ve recognised it.

You have a serious and entrenched eating disorder which I’m afraid is pretty inevitable that you will pass on to your daughter.

My mum was the same and I’ve struggled for decades.

The thing that has really helped me is the desire to break the chain and make damn sure that this doesn’t pass on to my daughter.

Ive done counselling and a lot of work on myself and am currently in my longest settled pattern for years.

I had to make and follow a rigid meal plan which felt very very uncomfortable but my daughter sees me eating normal food, regularly and enjoying it.

Can you commit to getting some urgent help for yourself?

You can speak to your GP or look up a BEAT recommended therapist.

You need to take responsibility for this and get some help, as giving your daughter your 'forbidden foods' is seriously fucked up and part of your eating disorder.
And, I really do understand EDs, as someone who had severe Bulimia for 30+ years.

You really need help to understand why you're in this pickle. For yourself and your DD. Please go and see your GP, you really need some mental health support.

You've recognised something really important. You're having an emotional reaction to your daughter eating your binge food. The same satisfaction you feel eating it. You're using your daughter to get that emotional satisfaction, without doing the eating yourself. It's emotionally and physically harmful to her to be your proxy. Maybe it's about nurturing her as the child versus nurturing the child version of yourself that exists in you and your memories, I don't know. It's not currently an eating disorder for her, although you recognise the potential and don't want it for her. But it is currently being too enmeshed in each other. She's not eating a balanced diet because you need to feel emotional satisfaction of seeing her eat what you can't allow yourself to eat

I’m sorry you went through something similar and well done for coming out of it, that’s what I hope to do.
I think it started with my mother too, she was always commenting either oh you’ve put on weight or you’ve lost weight was always the first thing she said and she was always so thin and judging my weight even at size 8 she’d think I was big because she was smaller.
I only saw her a couple of times a year as we lived 5 hours apart so I’d starve myself for a few weeks before I saw her because I was anxious about her comments about my weight.
I like to buy food though and cook but I just don’t want to eat it so I give it to my daughter instead.

Reach out to BEAT charity. They will have advice.

And a PP is right that one of the main ref flags for someone to get an ED is if their mother has an ED. So do speak to professionals about it.

I think maybe in some weird subconscious way I thought I was loving her unconditionally by letting her eat all the things I couldn’t and not letting her weigh be a problem.

You don't have orthrexia

You have anorexia.