I knocked. Long moments passed, waiting for something to happen, for something to be said. “I’m sick,” came her quiet response to my silence outside the door. Click, click, click: the snapshots from our dinner started coming into focus, fast and furious. After a moment frozen in time, I reacted, shrieking, “What are you doing in there? Open this door!”
Normally, my husband and I are careful, thoughtful parents. We don’t yell; we explain, we reason. That night, my fist hit the door. “Open the door,” I said, in a calmer, yet far more threatening voice. The door opened.
“What are you doing?” I repeated, knowing the answer, yet somehow hoping for a less horrible end to this scenario. Nothing. A blank stare, her eyes studying me for a clue. How much did I know? How much could I guess?
“I know what you’re doing,” I said, with conviction, because I did, very unfortunately, know what she was doing. As the former senior producer of a long-running talk show, I had done many shows on eating disorders, anorexia, and bulimia. “How long have you been doing this?”
This line of questioning continued until finally, when she ran out of excuses, Taryn started talking. “I haven’t been doing it that long,” and “I hardly ever do it.” “It’s just something I’ve tried,” and “It’s not a big deal.” I listened, and in that moment, my relationship with my daughter changed forever, my trust in her crumbling.
When I insisted that she would have to talk to a therapist, she was incredulous. “Are you kidding?” she squealed. “Mom, you’re making way more of this than it really is.” But then, maybe too quickly, she acquiesced.
Related Story: Interview with Lorri and Taryn
This is an excerpt from Distorted: How a Mother and Daughter Unraveled the Truth, the Lies, and the Realities of an Eating Disorder, by Lorri Antosz Benson and Taryn Leigh Benson.
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