«VI go again your smile, your resourcefulness, your joy of living. But the memory of my terror is still too strong in my heart so that it can be calm, I feel like a radar always on alert and I would like to keep you close to me ». Margherita’s mother, a girl who told her battle against eating disorders in a book, wrote a letter to her daughter, published in the same volume. His is the poignant, shiny, without discounts, of a parent who suddenly sees the world collapse And he does not know if he will be able to reconstruct him. In the case of Margherita, the story has had a happy ending.
In Italy it is estimated that three million people suffer from eating disorders, and in particular 8-10 percent of the girls and 0.5-1 percent of the boys are involved. 59 percent are between 13 and 25 years old, but there is 6 percent of Under 12 (ABA IST-SERVATORY data). “It is a gender pathology, even if the male cases are increasing,” says Leonardo Mendolicchio, director of the Department for the treatment of eating disorders of the Italian Auxological Institutewhich has been dealing with it for 18 years. “The path of care generally lasts between 2 and 5 yearsfrom the acute phase to the recovery, but today it is shortening ».
These are very long times for those who cross them. How do parents live them, and what scars do they leave? In the National Fiocchetto Day Lilla (Today March 15), dedicated to eating disorders, we asked the father and mother of two girls who have passed us to remember the darkest period with us. And how they came out.
Eating disorders: the sudden discovery of parents
Often, it all starts with a diet: a little girl doesn’t like it, he feels a few more pounds on him, asks mom for advice. From there, the calories, to count them, to hide the food, begins to decrease. When he gets on the scale, he secretly adds some small weight to not give thoughts. Parents don’t notice it. Until the evidence is to hit them. “My daughter Veronica had a sudden drop. We discovered it at the end of September 2014, with the change of season. He wore his old pajamas, fell on her. She cried, she felt alone; The professors limited themselves to telling us: “Veronica is disappearing”. It seems incredible, but we hadn’t understood it, “says the father, Pasquale.
A teenager with problems of eating disorders. Getty Images
For Barbara, daughter of Caterina, anorexia arrived in 2007 after a tormented adolescencewith depression and a slight personality disorder. «At one point he simply stopped eating. He only took salad. Husband, doctor, didn’t know what to do. I took the reins of the situation ».
In front of such a dramatic discovery, “The most frequent reactions are two»Says Me policy. “The first is a feeling of impotencethe parents feel at the mercy of their children’s disorder, delegate everything to the therapists. They don’t realize, sometimes they ask us: “Can we go on vacation?”. The second is anguish,The total alarm that translates into a hypercontrolle also of the care path. What we want to do, on the other hand, is to make them participate, ensure that they come back connected to the children as they were before the disease “.
Senses of guilt that overwhelm
“We were a quiet family, I always pampered and embraced my daughter,” recalls Caterina. “When we noticed that Barbara was dying, a nightmare began. What were we wrong? They always told me it wasn’t my fault, but we were desperate. Today my husband and I changed, as our point of view on the world changed ». If Caterina’s wedding held up to the discouragement, the same did not happen to that of Veronica’s father. “With my wife we had different approaches,” says Pasquale. “I saw anorexia as a disease, she continued to believe in” if you want, you can “. Everyone reacted in his own way, but the load of emotion was too strong to bear. The moment of meals, which at home was once serene and convivial, had become an opportunity for control and suspicion. The couple did not hold up».
For Pasquale, parents must learn to look inside, if they want to help those in difficulty and start again: “We are among the causes of the discomfort but we are also fundamental for the recovery”. MenDolicchio adds: «It is very nice to see how parents and children reconstruct their relationship. We advise dads and mothers to imagine that the disease is not a cross but an opportunity to help children grow and find a new parental dimension “.
The path of eating disorders, between successes and repercussions
When Barbara stopped eating, in 2007, there were no specific services for eating disorders in Cagliari. He knew little about it, he didn’t talk about it. The mother asked the friends of the feminist collectives for help: «I called Silvia Vegetti Finzi, in Milan, who advised me a community of Todi, one of the first in Italy. While we were on the waiting list, we hospitalized Barbara at San Raffaele. She wanted to leave at all costs, fortunately a very good psychiatrist convinced her to do the day hospital».
Even later, when a place was freed in Todi, the girl refused to sleep in the structure; The mother then took a room in a convent of nuns and in the evening she hosted her daughter.After the return to Cagliari, Barbara fell into a bulimic phase and was hospitalized in a structure affiliated in Lombardy, where she finally healed. Caterina has always been next to her, just as Pasquale has been close to Veronica. Even in her case, it was not easy to find the best path.
“We shot many specialists, often unnecessarily. We lived in Brianza, I have bad memories. When Veronica moved to Varese to study medicine, we hoped that changing air did well. At the beginning it went like this, then he started again: refusal of food, bulimia, also self -harm. As long as he became aware, he asked us for help and hospitalized it in Varese ».
Finally, healing
Today Veronica is 28 years old, she is about to graduate in medicine, she lives with her boyfriend. He wants to specialize in psychiatry. Barbara still lives in Cagliari, is 40 years old and is looking for her balance. She made the selection to become sailing instructor, she is often on the boat with friends, she is in love. “But we remain traumatized parents,” concludes Caterina.
“Those evenings in the hospital, playing cards with mom”
In A suspended thread (San Paolo Edizioni) Margherita Vaccari, 21 years old, tells her battle against anorexia. Won thanks to a “click” that took the fourth hospitalization. And to a constant presence next to his bed
«I started to feel bad in 2021. We had left Brazil, where I had been very well for four years, and following dad’s work we moved first to Turin, then to Germany, in the last year of high school. The continuous movements have eradicated me, I struggled to create new friends. In autumn the ties I was tightening were crumbled, I started to feel alone, depressed. I could not keep friends under control, but I could succeed with the weight. I had started a pandemic diet, from there the situation worsened.
My mother noticed it immediately, left only dad and brought me back to Piedmont, where I was hospitalized in a nursing home. A bad experience, the day was empty, I saw the psychologist little and nobody really helped me. I spent time walking, in the room, and hid the food. In November they put the tube to feed me, the world collapsed on me. I increased the steps, I made 40 thousand a day, always closed inside. I was desperate, I called mom every evening and I told her I wanted to die. After a few months the situation was so critical that they hospitalized me at the Molinette hospital in Turin. Mom came every evening, we played cards, he helped me distract me.
In the hospital they saved my life but once I got home I had a relapse. At that point They put me on the waiting list for a community in Bologna, and after a few months they took me. There began my healing from anorexia; I took a “click”, I understood that I wanted to get out of it, that I was losing many opportunities. I was not allowed to walk frantically as before, I could only enter the room with a badge but one day they asked for it. I cried a lot but I stopped hyperactivity. The day was full: group psychotherapy, individual interviews with an educator who helped me rediscover my interests, yoga, pilates. The kitchen was excellent, not hospital. I stopped counting calories, I made myself friends.
Now I’m fine, I study in Madrid. Mom and dad have always been next to me, even helped by a psychologist. Indeed, I can say that I will always be grateful to my mother because she immediately understood the seriousness of my situation, thanks also to my sister ».
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