When The Oprah Winfrey Show asked women what is missing in their lives, the number one answer was "love for myself." According to Dr. Robin Smith, there are many signs that you may be suffering from a lack of love for yourself. Eating or drinking too much, abusing drugs, overspending, working too hard or even gossiping could all be signs of a lack of self-love.
This self-hatred can even be deadly. Leigh has been married for 12 years, has two children, and is dangerously anorexic. She is 5-foot-6 and weighs 82 poundsless than an average 10-year-old girl.
Leigh says she used to work out two hours a day, but now after 20 minutes her weak body can't take any more exertion. Leigh says she's disappeared both physically and emotionally. "I used to be the life of the party," she says. "Nobody really wants to be around me anymore."
Leigh has begun worrying how her disease is affecting her 8-year-old son, Benton, who weighs nearly as much as his mom. "My children eat, but they see how I eat and [in turn] don't eat snacks," Leigh says. "It's not that I try to keep it from them, but I worry about my oldest and I worry about what he's going to eat."
In what Oprah calls "one of the saddest things" she's ever heard, Leigh's son, Benton, shares his feelings on his mom's health.
"I wish my mom could play longer with me. Because of her energy loss, she sometimes just doesn't feel like doing anything. I feel kind of sad because my dad usually gets onto her because she doesn't eat enough. And he always says, 'If you put on about 30 more pounds, I'll be happy.' I feel a little sad for her because I know she can't put on 30 more pounds because she doesn't eat enough.
"At supper, she usually eats way before us. Sometimes I would like to prepare supper for her so that she can eat a little more.
"When my mom and dad are in the arguments and I'm still awake, I get pretty scared when my dad yells. And my mom usually just says, 'This is the way I want it.' She asks me sometimes if she needs to gain a little more weight, so she knows that I'm thinking about it. Usually I don't ask her because I don't know if it will hurt her feelings or not. Telling her that she needs to gain a little more weight, that she needs to play with us more. If I asked her that, well, she'll probably say, 'I'm doing the best I can.'"
After hearing Benton say how sad he is about her eating disorder, Leigh tearfully says, "I guess they understand more than you think, don't they?"
Dr. Robin urges Leigh to understand the impact her anorexia has on Benton. "When you have children, we give up our right to self-destruct because there are people depending on you," she says.
Leigh's husband, Brian, also has been struggling with his wife's anorexia. He says that in the past he has begged her to eat. Dr. Robin is distressed by his attitude. "If the ship is going down," she asks, "do you plan on it going down with you and your sons in it?"
"Yes, we'll be there," Brian says.
"That's a problem," Dr. Robin explains. "We think love means, 'I'll go down with the ship.' If we have kids, some parent must say, 'If this ship is sinking, it will not take my children down with it.'"
Dr. Robin says that the origins of Leigh's anorexia can be found well before the date she actually stopped eating regularly. Leigh says that though she was adopted, she had a "wonderful childhood." Dr. Robin asks her to more deeply analyze her feelings about being adopted.
"Now I'm more okay with it," Leigh says. "But as a child you wonder, 'Why didn't someone love me?'"
"In many ways, you are still a child who is still asking, 'Why am I unimportant?' And how do I know that? You're evaporating, you are becoming invisible," Dr. Robin says. "You are willing to die and leave your children and your husband alone to prove the fact that she wasn't worthy to be kept."
Dr. Robin says that anorexics like Leigh, and people who otherwise abuse themselves, are refusing to feed themselves physically, emotionally or spiritually. "You are redoing that pain and showing yourself that you deserve to be rejected," she says.
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