such that they just can’t do it. It wouldn’t sit with their way of being a parent.”
I can see that last idea reflected in our own family. For me, some of the hardest moments this year have come while we watched Kitty’s illness unfold. FBT appealed to me because it’s all about doing something, which fits with my parenting style. James Lock believes most families have the capacity and the impetus to do FBT. “It’s really not rocket science,” he says. “Families just have to accept that it’s going to be hard. There’s going to be a lot of push-back. They’ll be on, 24/7, until the behavior is disrupted.”
He’s right, of course. But I wonder what he or any other doctor imagines goes on at home in between therapy sessions. I wonder if they can have any idea of how hard it really is.
In any case, our path at the moment is clear. I call Ms. Susan and tell her that Kitty will be taking a break from the lunch group, though she’ll keep doing individual sessions. Maybe she’ll go back to the group at some point. Or maybe, by the time she can see clearly again, she won’t need to.
Without the overt triggers of the group, Kitty’s eating goes a bit more smoothly. But there’s still drama to spare at our house. One day in mid-January, when Jamie has a job and I have to go to work and Emma goes to a friend’s house, Kitty stays home alone for part of the afternoon. Her anxiety spikes, and she spends much of the evening in tears, which prompts Emma to make a rare outburst. “I’m sick of you always crying!” she shouts at her sister. “All you do is cry!”
Kitty immediately goes into paroxysms of apology. She makes a halfhearted attempt to run away, fumbling with the front door until Jamie leads her gently upstairs. I feel furious at Emma because I know that it will take hours to calm Kitty down again. I make Emma apologize, which she does, sullenly, and then runs to her room and bangs the door shut.
I sit at the kitchen table, tears of self-pity stinging my eyes. So much of the time now I feel like a bad parent to one or both of my daughters. I’m more or less checked out at work, doing just what’s necessary; I’m lucky my boss is understanding. I’m sick of shopping and planning meals and cooking. I’m sick of thinking about food all the time. I’ve become obsessive about food myself, always checking calorie counts, always calculating in my head: Is this enough? How can I get more calories into this? I’m sick of it all. If I never cooked another meal, I’d be quite happy.
The truth is, I’m wrung out. Used up. Exhausted. I don’t know if I can hang on until Kitty’s better. How long will it be? We’re only five months into this—many families spend years fighting the demon. I don’t know that I have it in me. I really don’t.
I sit at the kitchen table, where we spend so much of our time now. I’ve run my finger over every nick and dent in its chrome rim, memorized the patterns of black and white dots on its Formica surface. I’ve scraped oatmeal and ice cream, fried onions, bits of lettuce—every kind of food imaginable—from the space where the two halves of the table don’t quite meet. I sit there for an hour, until Jamie wordlessly turns out the kitchen light, helps me out of the chair, and guides me up the stairs to bed.
When this is all over, I’m putting this table out on the curb. Let some other family use it. We’re getting a new one.
And it’s only two or three days later—can that be true?—that we have a really good day, a stellar day, the best we’ve had in eight months. Kitty comes to work with me, and we spend a peaceful morning sitting side by side, each of us engrossed in her own task. Eating her pumpkin chocolate chip muffin after lunch, she asks, “Did you do something different with the recipe this time? It tastes much better than usual.”
I want to leap onto my desk and do a little dance because Kitty isn’t worrying about what’s in the muffin; she’s enjoying it. She likes it! It tastes good to her! She still insists that she never feels hungry, that she hasn’t felt hunger since sometime last spring. But