Hello. I know this is kind of off topic, but you all helped me tremendously with my marriage in the past. I don't know what to do, so I thought I'd see if I could get any help from the board.
My neice is 15 and I believe she is suffering from anorexia. My mom noticed she had lost weight on a visit to my brother's house and asked my brother about it. My neice barely ate the whole time my mom was visiting, and rationalized that her tummy hurt and so she didn't want to eat. All she did was drink green tea, diet coke, and coffee.
Then about 2 months later, my brother came for a visit and I saw my neice. She is only about 5 feet 2 inches, so she's small to begin with, but she can't weigh more than 85 pounds, at the most. She was wearing baggy clothes, which she always does lately, but when I hugged her hello, I could feel every bone in her body. And her cheeks are sunk in. We all went to dinner, where I found out that she was now "vegetarian", so there wasn't alot she could eat. She ordered a salad, which she maybe took 2 bites of and spent the rest of dinner pushing her food around on her plate. Her sisters tried to get her to taste their virgin margaritas and she put the straw to her lips and said "Yum, that's good" and handed it back. I was sitting across from her. She didn't even suck on the straw or taste it!
Then I spent the next day with her and she didn't eat all day again. Apparently she tells her parents she's eating, or that her stomach hurts, or has some other excuse, or they think she's eating, and they'll find food stashed in her room that they thought she had eaten. I don't know if it has affected her menstrual cycles or not, but I'm so very worried about her.
They have tried to do something. They took her to their medical doctor prior to their visit with me, and the dr. told them that she was probably just a light eater and that was her normal body weight?! The parents have talked to a counselor, but have not taken her, because (according to her sister, my other neice), my neice doesn't want to go?! I think they need to make her! After their visit with me, they did look into a treatment center, but were told that it costs $1200/day and that she needed to be in for 30-60 days and it wasn't covered by insurance. I told my brother that there has to be some other options out there, and that they need to do something soon. But they believe it's getting better and it appears that they think it's going to fix itself. They talked to my mother this week and they told her she was doing better, yet she had been staying at a friend's for the last 2 nights, so they really couldn't even say if she was eating or not. I would think they should be watching her every move? Am I wrong? I want him to do something, anything. I think that they are really just not sure what to do. They are worried and love their daughter, but I don't think they realize how serious this is...that she could die from this, or cause irreversible damage to herself.
I call my brother every other day to find out what's been done and still nothing. I'm afraid it's being taken too lightly. How can I get the message across to him? And what are his treatment options? It's been a couple of months now, that we know of anyways...and I'm so afraid for her.
Thank you so much for your help.
