Following are excerpts from my journal from the March/April timeframe as I continue to share my personal crisis.

Day 9 – I’ve been sitting with my thoughts since our first family therapy session. My mind feels heavy with what we’re discovering. Our first session was intense and SO insightful; more than I ever thought could be uncovered so quickly. Allison started off the session very positive, very factual about her work with the dietician and therapists, and some lighthearted things about living in a house with five other girls with eating disorders. (Yes, thank goodness she still has her wonderful sense of humor!) Then our therapist directed her conversation toward a different direction, toward the focus of her eating disorder. It was a place we all needed to be and that is to face that the disorder is a symptom of other issues in her life.

I could tell Al was squirming a bit, but with her therapist’s guidance and with Chris and me encouraging her to open up, she began what I believe was the entry to her inner core, the beginning of her “unlayering”.

We learned things we didn’t know before, we confronted issues that were difficult, and we all faced some “truths” that we had never discussed before.

I have to remind myself to get out of the way and not make her stuff about trying to find cause or blame. It serves absolutely no one to focus on the past or to blame. It does, however, serve “drama” and I that is a place I know for sure I do not want to be. I also realize that sometimes I’ve got to try and stop figuring everything out! It can be so exhausting and when all is said and done, all that matters is what SHE figures out or connects with for herself.

I’m feeling anxious for our next session when we take Ryan.

Day 12 – Sunday, weekly family visiting day. Today was good. Although Ry is out of town, the three of us spent the afternoon together. We sat in the house livingroom on the comfy couch and sat close to one another. She wanted to share her journal entry she wrote about her therapist, “S”. She journaled so honestly the “in her face” style that “S” provides her. She said it was so important that she be challenged and confronted on her stuff! It’s something she’s not used to but it is so powerful. It’s absolutely what she needs to peel her layers to uncover what is there underneath.

Today I’m feeling such hope and evidence of self-discovery from Al. I left her feeling so positive. And we all agreed ~ the eating disorder is well controlled now living in the structure of the facility and it seems so secondary (which it truly is) to the root discoveries of her thinking patterns and choices she has developed over these past years.

Day 13 – I saw Al briefly as we were attending a family support session at the facility tonight. She seemed SO HAPPY to see us… lots of hugs and “I love you’s”.

About 45 minutes after we arrived home that night she called. She was emotionally low. She was feeling sad, disconnected from her friends, her connections to the “outside” world. She shared how homesick she was feeling, how depressed and frustrated she felt being in the confines of the “house”. She went on and on just feeling sorry for herself. She is definitely in the stage of this process (a very hard place) that she simply doesn’t want to be in.

As hard as it is for me to hear her unhappiness, frustrations and inner struggling , I have to step back and be objective. All of this resistance ~~ the roller coaster of emotions ~~ the really hard and complicated emotions she’s got to face and deal with ~~ the inability for her to get her way… IT’S ALL FOR THE BEST. All of this is in the effort to reconnect to the person she knows is inside trying to find her way out.

I just have to believe this.