I think my dd has food/harm issues

[Memom]

Hi
Don't know where to begin. My dd is 14, a fortnight ago she hut/scratched her arm 20-30 times with a quilling needle, i saw the marks and she explained it was because she was upset.

I encouraged her to talk to someone if she felt she couldn't talk to me or her stepdad but she said she was fine. I have watched like a hawk for any other signs, thankfully there have been none.

NOW i have just discovered chewed chocolate in her bin and notes saying 'calories are just little things' written on notes on her bedroom floor. We are now aware she has been looking at anorexia sites and body dysmorphia websites in recent weeks (looked at laptop history).

What do i do? Do i confront her or will that make her self harm again?

Please help, i don't know where i went wrong.

Maybe you could offer to take her out for some quality- time girlie days out, pamper day, makeover day, (there are some good web offers) & try to give her lots of sincere compliments about her appearance;
or maybe take her out for an evg. concert or play, to enjoy time together & hope she'll feel able to open up to you? I wouldn't push it, or you might push her to seek comfort elsewhere.
Be attentive to her friends & influence she's exposed to, & what she reads/watches.
I don't think it's abnormal to be obsessed with appearance, but it's also not abnormal for the hormones to fly up & down at that age.
Also, perhaps leave some support leaflets lying around to give her the opportunity to get support when she's ready.

Honestly I think all you can do is make sure she knows that you're there for her, and that you'll listen and be understanding if she ever wants to talk. If you haven't already, educate yourself as much as you can about these issues now so that you can be as understanding as possible with her.

I have been in her shoes, and when my mum said something I was terrified and fobbed her off with stupid excuses. This was because she had a history of trivialising anything I was upset about and making me feel stupid when I was upset. So the fact that she was able to say to you that it was /because/ she was upset is a really good sign!

I think the suggestion about lots of 1-on-1 time with her is a really good one, as it ties in to making her feel supported and knowing that you are there for her. Maybe in a calm moment you could ask her how she's been feeling lately, say that you were worried about her dealing with her upset by hurting herself and just say that you hope she's feeling okay, and that if she's not you're there for her, that she doesn't have to deal with these things alone. Anything that leans towards pushing her will only make her more secretive, which will be dangerous.

Good luck to you, and your DD, I really hope that she'll be okay x

We had this with our dd. It turned out that she was very scared at school (there were some very intimidating girls in her class), that she felt different from the other girls having moved to secondary and she started to feel fat. She was a bit to be honest but had an early puberty.

We turned on love and did everything we could to boost her confidence and were very very tough about the food and made her eat something at every meal. We also had her referred to a paediatric counsellor to make sure there were no underlying problems. There weren't - it was the transition to secondary and some very nasty people at school. School were very supportive but weren't prepared to deal properly with dreadful behaviour. After two years, she moved school.

It's a dreadful thing to find out but it's not because of anything you have done wrong it's just hard to grow up in 2012. She needs lots of love and reassurance.

Lots of kids self-harm once, so it's quite 'normal'; but it can be so serious if it happens regularly that I don't think it should ever be ignored. My son scratched his arm nastily with a compass when he was 11-12 (lots of scratches, a little bit of blood). I was terribly shocked, was really worried about 'bigger' psychological problems. I told him I felt I wasn't able to judge whether it was 'serious' or not by myself and needed 'expert opinions'. I took him to the GP, and got a referral to the CAMHS too, for an assessment. He never self-harmed again (tho' arguably his drug use is a different form of self harm) and I'm glad I didn't ignore it.