Eating Disorders: A Perspective on the Road to Recovery

A frightening discovery

For Beth Taylor*, the realization her 16-year-old daughter Ellie had an eating disorder struck as she read the April 18, 2008 issue of People Magazine. The entertainment magazine profiled Chloe Lattanzi (Olivia Newton-John’s daughter) and her battle with anorexia nervosa. Beth says, “I knew Ellie had lost weight, but as I read that article, the light bulb just went off in my head. The article was Ellie.”

Beth scheduled an appointment with Ellie’s pediatrician, who diagnosed her with anorexia and recommended the OSF Saint Francis Eating Disorders Clinic in Peoria, about 45 minutes away from their hometown of Bloomington-Normal. Ellie immediately began treatment in the Eating Disorders Outpatient Program, weighing just 96 lbs.

“Ellie is a perfectionist; always a straight-A student, she put a lot of pressure on herself to be perfect,” says Beth. “For her, anorexia was about control – control over food, when she couldn’t control the other things that were going on in her life.”

Finding a way out of the darkness

As part of her treatment program, Ellie worked with a nutritionist, doctor, therapist and psychiatrist. In addition, the family began to attend Support Care Group sessions on Wednesday nights to learn more about eating disorders and meet other patients and families sharing the same challenges. Beth remembers her feeling of helplessness at the time: “You just want to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel…that things are going to get better.”

For Ellie, who was preparing for her junior year of high school, getting better meant making a decision: trying to recover while being a full-time student or entering the Partial Hospitalization Program at OSF. Finally, she acknowledged she wouldn’t be able to recover without full-time help. After six weeks of outpatient treatment, Ellie began the Eating Disorders Partial Hospitalization program. In order to keep up with her classmates, she was tutored one hour out of her treatment every day; although school posed a major challenge, she was able to work through the first quarter of being an upperclassman.

During Ellie’s treatment in the Partial Hospitalization Program, Beth says she began to feel as though the staff were a second family: “We spent so much time there, and everyone was so friendly and supportive.” She also began to learn more about anorexia. “It’s almost as though these kids are brainwashed into thinking untrue things about their appearance. It’s amazing the kind of control your mind can have over everything you believe and do.”

Beth credits the Eating Disorders staff and the support groups with helping Ellie recover. After roughly 10 weeks in the Partial Hospitalization Program, Ellie was discharged weighing 117 lbs. The family continues to attend Wednesday evening group sessions periodically to show other patients and their families there truly is “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Recovery as a process

After her discharge from partial hospitalization, Ellie has worked hard to maintain her weight and live a healthy lifestyle. Although at times it has been a challenge, after two years she continues her journey on the road to recovery. Ellie, who enjoys encouraging patients in the Eating Disorders Program, is entering the University of Illinois this fall with a major in psychology/social work. She is ready, she says, to begin a new chapter in her life.

Beth can now look back on her daughter’s ordeal with a new perspective. She and Ellie recently met another former patient and her mother for lunch; the girls sat at one table, the mothers at another. After the meal, the waiter returned to notify the mothers that the girls had ordered dessert and inquire whether it was okay to place the order. Beth laughs in delight at the memory: “Just two years ago, this would have been unthinkable for these girls. It’s amazing. We’re doing okay.”

*Names have been changed to protect patient and family privacy.