Since my last post, I fond out that Noah was turned in to the college for having an addiction to online pornography. The sister of his best friend had suspected for years. She went to Emily for confirmation. She was very concerned about her brothers who spent a lot of time with Noah and his brother. She then went to Noah's faculty advisor, the Dean of Men and her father, who is a Deacon in the home church which both her and Noah's family attend. Noah was supposed to be an intern there this summer. Not a fit role model for the youth of the church. The consequences at school would be that Noah would have to drop out of the Bible major and if he handled the disciple without the proper repentance, he would be expelled. We don't know at this point which way it turned out. Emily thought for sure that he would call and blame her, harassing her again. The only calls she has gotten have been from Noah's mother and thankfullyEmilye has been strong enough to resist answering them.
Speaking of Noah's mom, she was the one who first noticed Emily's gaunt appearance. Noah's 16 year old sister, with whom Emily had become good friends, came to the college for a visit in February. She was scheduled to stay in Emily's room. She had no relationship with Noah to speak of. Regardless of that, he decided that he didn't want her staying with Emily and at the last minute made her change her room assignment. She took a bunch of pictures of Emily while she was there.
When she returned home, she showed the pictures to her mom and commented on Emily's thinness. Noah's mom said right away, "Emily has anorexia." Emily had gone from a size 10 when she visited them in November to a size six in February. Noah's mom and Emily had carried on a relationship after the break up. This makes no sense to me nor to anyone else I have spoken to (except Emily). When a relationship ends, the relationship with the family ends, too. It was so weird that they still spoke at least weekly.
Noah's mom called Emily and found out to a limited extent what Emily's relationship with food had turned in to. She encouraged Emily to get help from a school counselor and to TELL HER MOTHER. Noah's mom called regularly and re-emphasized the importance of this. While I have really bad feelings for the woman for hiding her son's addiction from Emily, I deeply appreciate her trying to help Emily when Emily felt she couldn't turn to me for help. When Emily refused to get help on her own, Noah's mom called the Dean of Women and explained to them what was going on. They said they would check in to it.
At this same time, several things were happening. One of Emily's roommates had spoken to her several times about Emily's vomiting. When Emily just got angry at her, the roommate went to the Dorm Supervisor and told her what was happening. The Dean of Women instructed that same dorm supe to speak with Emily. When Emily told the dorm supe she didn't want to talk about it, it was dropped. I have since spoken to the Dean of Women and suggest that since there is no way that Emily could be the only girl on campus suffering an ED, maybe it would benefit the college to have a policy in place to follow up on these reports more aggressively. She said she would suggest it at the next meeting. I am not hopeful
Emily had kept one good friend during this ordeal. I am going to call her Carrie. Emily had told Carrie everything as it was happening. She was the only one who knew the whole truth, She tried to get Emily to eat and then stayed with her for a while afterward so she wouldn't purge. Carrie would break the rules with Emily to spend ours in the middle of the night in a quiet place in the dorm just talking everything through. Carrie even attended one of Emily's early therapy appointents to get some ideas as to how to best help. I am so thankful for Carrie's friendship and love for Emily.
Also around this time, Emily discovered that when she did eat, she couldn't keep food down even if she wanted to. My sister is a medical professional (I won't say what her degree is to keep her anonymity protected). She and Emily are very close. Emily is also very close to her Uncle and cousins. When Emily was unable to keep food down (again, this was mid-February, over a month since her return to school) she called her Aunt. Even though we tease my sister about being backwards, she is very smart and takes no shit. She dug and pushed and prodded until Emily confessed most of what was going on. My sister told Emily that she needed help immediately and if she chose not to get it, my sister would fly down to school and take Emily out of school and return her home to us. My sister found a psychologist/nutritionist with 30 years' experience. She set up an appointment for Emily with a local doctor to get medicine so she'd be able to keep down the food that she wanted to. Keep in mind that my sister is thousands of miles away.
When Emily started blacking out, my sister (with the help of the therapist) got her to a hospital for an EKG and blood panel, then back to the doctor's office. The therapist, to whom I owe so much, went with Emily to all these appointments as well as seeing Emily in her office twice a week. My sister and her husband paid for everything. I had no idea any of this was going on. Emily told me during our phone calls that she wasn't sleeping well but that everything else was fine. My sister told me that she and my niece spoke to Emily regularly. I found out later that my sister had sent Emily some size four clothing and that it was too big on Emily.
In early April my sister and her husband were going to be down south on a trip for their 20th anniversary. They would only be a four hour drive from Emily's school, so they scheduled an extra room at the B & B where they were staying so Emily could spend a night and day with them. If I had know that Emily was having blackouts, there is no way she would have made that four hour drive.
While they visited, Emily ate small meals and didn't purge. My sister told Emily that it was past time to tell me what was happening. They planned to call me while they were together, but Emily chickened out. The following weekend my sister called me and told me that Emily had given her permission to talk freely to me about what was going on with Emily's ED. There aren't words for the physical pain I felt upon finding out how deeply my daughter was suffering. We had spoken for hours and hours after Noah broke up with her. I had assured and reassured her that none of what happened with him was her fault. That she was worth being treated like a princess and worthy of unconditional love. That he was not worth her tears. That he was a liar from the beginning and that she never really knew him. I knew she was having trouble letting go of Noah and his family, but no idea how much she was punishing herself for his sins.
When I finished speaking to my sister, I cried and cried and cried. Then I pulled my self together and called Emily. She was walking to the libraryto work on a paper for a class she had always done very well in but was now struggling in because her brain was starving. I asked her if there was a bench nearby and had her sit down. The first thing I told her was that I loved her more than she could possibly imagine.
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