Ah, sweet Jesus. If I were religious, I’d pray for this. Here’s the lowdown: I’m friends with a younger girl, who in turn has a bit younger friend with some very big mental and physical issues which she denies. The girl is 14, but looks like a Holocaust survivor. She’s bullimic (sp?), as well as in denial. She excersizes near constantly, in an obsession to be qualified for dance. She hasn’t noticeably grown in a long time, and still wears children’s sizes. She tries to get as little as sleep as possible, and fears that her friends may die from sleeping too much (!).
She says she won’t let her parents get her help because that’s not their business, and that she has no issues. Who do my friend and I contact about this? Police? Child protective services? A hospital? Help!
One option is to go down to probate court and fill out the forms for involuntary commitment to have the girl picked up for an evaluation by the county mental health hospital. Call the probate court and find out what’s required. In GA, you need 2 witnesses who have observed the patient within the past 48 hours. There is also a small fee, I can’t remember but it’s like $25 or so.
They can keep her for up to 72 hours for observation.
have you actually talked with the parents? I know it must seem obvious to you that she needs help and they ‘must’ know, but it would be a good idea to at least touch base w/them.
Besides being bulimic, she is also obviously anorectic. In some states you cannot commit anyone involuntarily unless she is a danger to herself or others. She really has to start helping herself. Perhaps you and your friends can convince her to see a psychotherapist, “just to get a professional opinion,” you can tell her.
I don’t think forced treatment is likely to do her any good, and it is likely to do some harm, ranging from a lingering sense of betrayal to things like permanent brain damage, inescapable psychiatric labeling, and career mental-patienthood.
Talk to her parents, talk to her school principal- sometimes they can get therapists involved. She sounds mentally ill in several different ways. Get her help, soon.
Yes, having her kidnapped would be the sensible thing to do. No negative repercussions there.
Ugh. A friend of mine had the same done to him right before his senior prom. While a bit of a socially inept geek, like many of us were, he wasn’t any daneger to anyone, including himself.
Dao, I hope you find a way to help this girl, but there has to be a better way than that. Your OP is phrased like your info is second hand, how well do you know her or her parents? Contacting child services would probably be a good start, depending on what they’re like. Convincing the parents to be the parents would be even better.
Police??? Do we HAVE to run crying to mommy government for everything, before we’ve even tried any other solution?
She’s a minor. Why can’t her parents make her get treatment themselves?
Don’t bring the govt. into this unless you absolutely can’t get her relatives (or teachers etc.) to do anything themselves.
If you do, she’s gonna see it as being arrested and imprisoned for something that isn’t even even illegal. It’s only going to make her more rebellious (I don’t know if rebellion has anything to do with being anorexic, but it has everything to do with being 14) and she’ll certainly never trust whoever ‘turned her in’.
I speak from personal experience, not with anorexia but with being confined for doing something that would not have been a crime if I had been an adult.
Let me see, I trust between the people here and your own very obvious concern for this poor girl that you have enough google searches and therupy link so I will provide what I can cuz this one is personal. I met a girl online who had a younger sister, after asking for this girl I one day got curious who the sister was. When I talked to the sister she was happy for the attention and was quite nice. She let me know that her older sister that I was long friends had cancer and was anorexic. Being the younger sister she adored her older sister who also modeled. I think she adored her sister so much that she became bulnemic herself… family life wasn’t the greatest and they were all quite distant except the two sisters. I ended-up dating the younger sister, while her older sister was my very best friend, a brilliant writer and poet who inspired me to start writing it myself and we shared it quite a bit. When I dated the younger sister I realized how much of a program with weight and eating sh-e had as well. It does no good to point these things out to them as they do not think in the same way. Like driving a different car, you have to cater to how the car handles and not think the car will accomodate your driving needs (bad analogy but you get the gist) They don’t really see it as hurting themselves even though my girl ( the younger sister I dated) had mental problems of her own and cut herself when she felt anguish or guilt… I did my best to help them both out of this problem, but ultimately I lost contact with the sister and me exgf and I broke up… mostly cuz I just couldn’t handle so much of that. I put it this way to her though one day when she became curious why it bothered me that she had just made herself throw-up an entire dinner (whole dinner’s were rare for her) …you’re driving along and see a baby in being pushed in a stroller by it’s parents and pull up next to them take the baby out of the stroller and strap it to you radiator as you hear it scream all the way home… (Disgusting I know) I make a connection though… because she could relate to how horrible such a thing is to happen and to me, it was just as horrible for her to hurt herself like she did constantly. These two counted calories and lied to themselves about how many the “average” person should eat each day… 500 I think was their limit. It’s quite a disturbing world to remain it, I hope it’s pretty plain to anyone why I had to pull out… What’s more disturbing though is no-t being able to pull out of such a world… My best friend recognized she had a problem but would still use diet pills and lazatives and the whole nine… she was binge and purger and was quite proud when she lost another pound… as was her sister… I don’t know if recovery is possible from such a problem, I only know that two girls that I cared about more than the world were always killing themselves in front of me and I hope thay are ok today wherever they are. I hope something in there helped in some way… I just hought maybe a personal account of this might help you understand what you’re up against, especially if you plan to become personally involved… I also agree with the others in their advice to talk with the parents… if it were me, I’d invite them to dinner without their child of course. Try to get an idea about their attitudes before you through in how much you feel they are being bad parents… it may be true, but it won’t be taken lightly and saying it that way will not get you any greater cooperation from them to help their own child. Good luck my friend, God be with you.
If you talk to the parents, and they deny there’s an issue, I’d say contact whatever the child protective services agency in your area is.
You never know about the parents, though. They may have been beating their heads against the wall about this for years, or they may not have a clue, or anything in between. Sometimes it’s amazing what parents don’t notice. One dear friend of mine, before I met him (ages 14-15), did so many drugs that he says there are entire months of high school that he doesn’t remember at all. His mother, who is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in treating adolescents, had no clue that any of this was going on, in spite of the obvious signs (social withdrawal, skipping classes, etc.)
My friend, upon realizing that all his druggie buddies were all either dead or in rehab, cleaned himself up, and has been drug-free for many years now.
In any case, it sounds like this girl desperately needs some kind of help, and that the other people around her have been unable or unwilling to provide it. Good luck.
Enough of the arguing. This isn’t GD. No new updates yet, but I did remember something of relevance- her period has allegedly stopped (and she’s not sexually active). I don’t know why I neglected to mention this the first time.
You believe your friend needs help. Said friend is a minor.
Minor’s parents are abusing her - call Protective services.
Minor is abusing self, unclear if parents are aware: contact parents.
you have no way of knowing at this point if the parents are aware of the problem and working on it, aware of problem and don’t care or unaware of problem.
I fail to believe that Daoloth could possibly get this girl committed simply by going to court and filling out some forms. He has no “standing” - he’s not her parent, guardian, relative, or even a friend - it doesn’t sound like he actually knows her; he only knows a friend of hers. (If it’s truly possible [but I seriously doubt that it is] in GA for a virtual stranger to get someone committed by “reporting” them, frankly that is scarier than any terrorist.)
She is her parents’ responsibility. If you think they are unaware of her problems, and it does sound like she needs professional help, then you could express your concern to them. But whether she gets help is their provenance, not yours, assuming that they aren’t neglecting or abusing her in some way, in which case you should notify child protective services.
Kudos to you, Daoloth, for taking the time to try to get some help for this girl! I wish that there were more people who were willing to take an active role in helping troubled kids like this - it breaks my heart whenever I see a child that could have been saved from a major life screw-up if only someone had taken an interest.
It doesn’t sound like you have any sort of first-hand relationship with this girl, so the best thing for you to do is to get the information before someone who does, in a verifiable manner. It seems to me that the girl’s parents should have noticed that something was wrong long ago, so I doubt that any effective results will be obtained by talking with the parents; they are either in denial about the problem, oblivious to it, or uncaring about it, and will likely tell you to butt out and go to Hell if you approach them. Fortunately, Texas has laws and regulations requiring that educators report suspicions of abuse and neglect, and we are routinely advised and reminded of the consequences of non-compliance. From the ATPE website
So, here’s what I would do in your situation:
Make a highly detailed list of your concerns and the specific factors which have led you to them, including any physical manifestations (sunken eyes, protruding bones, etc.), behavioral manifestations (bulimia, obsessive calorie-counting, obsessive and excessive exercise, etc.), and physiological manifestations (sleep deprivation, lack of growth, etc.). Reorder and edit this list until you feel that you can present it in a logical manner over the telephone.
Call the Counselor’s Secretary at her school and ask to speak to her counselor. The secretary may ask about your relationship to the student; if the secretary gives you any static at this point, the ‘magic phrases’ are “concern for a child in an obvious crisis”, “abused or neglected child”, and “legally required report under the Texas Education Code”. If the student’s assigned counselor is not available, do not settle for leaving a message; in that case, insist on speaking with the head counselor, the senior counselor available, or an administrator. (Counselors are a much better choice than administrators in this situation, however.)
When you get the counselor on the phone, have them spell their name for you. Make a note of their name, the date and time you spoke, and what the person says that he or she will do about the situation. If you feel that the person is unresponsive to your concerns, first ask him or her to repeat back to you what you have told them about the case. If they can’t, start over again, being sure to address them by name and using the ‘magic phrases’ listed above. If you are still unsatisfied with their response to your concerns, thank them, hang up, call the secretary again, and repeat the process with the head counselor.
The counselor will probably not offer to make you aware of the results of the investigation (if you’re not a parent or guardian of the child) but go ahead and give your name and phone number if asked. If they reveal information about the student to you, it’s not your fault. They should not reveal your name to the student or parents.
If after all of this you are still not satisfied with the responses you get, you should call the Child Abuse Hotline yourself at (800) 252-5400 and make the report.
That’s about it - by presenting this information to people who are professionally trained and legally obligated to investigate and deal with the situation, you will have admirably discharged your moral responsibility, and probably done this girl one of the best favors she will ever have done for her. By the way, feel free to ignore those who speak against this sort of intervention. All people are divided into two categories; adults and children. It is the responsibility of the adults to care for the children, whether the children like it or not. If an 18 year old wants to starve herself or beat her head against a wall, that’s one thing; if a 14 year old behaves that way, it’s time for an adult to act. Parents and guardians hold the primary responsibility here, but too often they fail to act out of fear of alienating their children and making the children hate them. Trust me - by taking action here, you’re doing the right thing.
As long as she’s under 16, her parents can commit her involuntarily to a mental health facility. Period. She must go, because whether or not anyone wants to be blunt, the kid is killing herself.
Over 16, the child must make the commitment to a mental health facility himself or herself. With a LOT of hassle, a 72-hour involuntary commitment can be done, but after 72 hours, the kid is basically back to square one. If you’ve got someone in such horrendous denial, 72 hours isn’t long enough for the professionals to get the kid to go along with a voluntary hospitalization.
WHATEVER you do, you are running out of time.
~VOW