Losing your Sister: How to Explain Eating Disorders to Younger Siblings.
By Elizabeth Mary Cummings
What do you do when someone in you care about is hurting, when their behaviour is making it worse? How can you help them if you are the youngest and no one is listening? These are tough questions to ask and tougher when you are living through the trauma of a loved one suffering an eating disorder illness. When our family found ourselves dealing with these issues we discovered that there was little in the way of literature to help us tackle the distressing topic with our younger daughter. As a result, I came up with the concept of a children’s picture book aimed at empowering and educating the very young about this long-term illness and its impact on family life.
Finding the right illustrator to create the right sort of images was a crucial factor and the choice of second year Sydney University Arts student; Johanna Roberts; was no mere coincidence. Johanna was not only a top HSC Art student at the time but was my ill daughter’s best friend. Having an insight and a personal experience of how far-reaching the effects of eating disorders were gave Johanna a deeper understanding of the situation when designing the images to fit the manuscript.
This moving yet hopeful account of a family helping a loved one recover their health uses simple language and stark imagery to reflect what is every parent’s worst nightmare; long term illness of their child. Eating disorders are often misunderstood illnesses. People suffering are not choosing to live a certain lifestyle. They are very ill and need long-term support and care. This has major impacts on normal family life.
So how can such a picture book be of value? In the mental health area in general there are continued calls for discussion, forums and opportunities for carers, sufferers and professionals to share and work together. You only need to be on social media platforms such as Twitter to see the call to action and the cries for help. We need to use our powers of communication to get the message out there so more people understand what we are dealing with and how we can best help support.
Positive reviews of the book have been validation of the choice to broach this highly sensitive topic. Tony Smythe of Eastside Radio commented; ‘As a dad of a daughter it really frightens me … thank you for sharing and writing this book.’ As well as this notion of education, the sense that someone is getting their “side of the story” out there is a moving one. I have had heart-wrenching feedback from many adult readers who tell me that they relate to the sibling bond and the secrecy surrounding the illness. There is a tremendous sense of relief, gratitude and emotional outpouring in response. My daughter doctor wrote to me after she received a copy saying; ‘Elizabeth it is with deep respect and humility that I received The Disappearing Sister. Reading it brought me a whole range of emotions – sadness compassion, and perhaps a deeper understanding of you and your family and what all of you went through during your daughter’s illness.’
‘How wonderful to focus on the sibling who gets lost in the turmoil and yet is such an important part of the healing process.’
‘I believe this book will help make me a better doctor and respond to the whole family in a better way with any disease process, particularly in mental health.’
Writing “The Disappearing Sister” has been an unintentional cathartic journey but getting the message out there in order to help others is the key purpose of the book. If I can help even just one family then this has been worth the effort. I am now seeking to promote the message of hope and education in schools and related health services. The book will be the subject of a launch to be held in early August. For further information please see links below:
LINKS:
Find “The Disappearing Sister” by Elizabeth Cummings at:
http://ccdgroupftp.co.uk/elizabethcummings/
The Butterfly Foundation
http://thebutterflyfoundation.org.au/
National Eating Disorders Collaboration
by Elizabeth Mary Cummings
FOOTNOTES:
Eating disorder illness is a topic that has traditionally come with a stigma of poor lifestyle choices and association with the glamour of celebrity circuits. However the truth is much less glamorous with the total social and economic impact being substantial. Eating disorders rank 12th in mental health hospitalisation and are the second highest costs next to bypass surgery being recently estimated to be at around 913,986 * costing the community in terms of social and economic impact in excess of $69.7 billion.
*Deloitte Access Economics, from “Paying the Price: economic and social impact of eating disorders “ report.
The report also estimated that the mortality rates are almost twice as high for people with eating disorders than in the general population – with up to 1,828 deaths from eating disorders in 2012 (515 males and 1,313 females. Paying the Price: economic and social impact of eating disorders report. (Extract taken from the Butterfly Foundation website)