And Then It Happens

Our lives in a world of unlimited options are exciting. We have more choices than ever before — in small things, like shopping at the supermarket, and in the big ones. We are freer in our career choices than at any point in history, can reach every corner of the world, change our appearance and even our gender as we please. We are accustomed to being able to choose, to change or leave a situation when it no longer suits us. Quantum physics tells us we can transform our lives through our thoughts, by aligning our thinking and feeling toward a future goal we wish to reach. Unlimited possibilities. We are world champions at dreaming, we love flexibility, contingency and keeping our options open. We are used to shaping our lives according to our plans. Or at least we think we are.

And then it happens.

Something we did not anticipate. Something we did not plan for. Something that has no place in our carefully arranged, often meticulously scheduled lives. Something unforeseen. Unplanned. Some events make us stumble and pause for a moment. The sudden death of someone we love. We lose our footing, we grieve. The loss of a job. We doubt ourselves, feel sorry for ourselves, feel angry. Then we pick ourselves up, reorient and move on. What we experienced leaves wounds that heal.

But sometimes life has a will of its own. So wilful that it can no longer be steered by us. When it comes to health. When something inside us stops working as it should. Or when our partner, our mother, our child falls seriously ill. When it is also an illness for which there is no medication and no chemotherapy, one that cannot be cured within any reasonable timeframe — then we gradually come to understand that we have nothing under control anymore. That life is more than a game in which we plan move by move to eventually arrive at a destination we defined in advance. Then we understand that life is more than that.

We learn that we sometimes have to adapt to life.

For many of us this is a deeply uncomfortable experience, having learned — and mostly experienced — that we are responsible for our own happiness. I thought so too. Until one of my children developed anorexia. Anorexia nervosa. The mental illness with the highest mortality rate. A insidious, brutal disease for which there is no medication and no therapy that promises a guaranteed recovery. According to current studies, only 30% of those affected recover fully. Many children lose their youth to the illness in hospital stays lasting months, sometimes years.

Never before in my life had I felt so helpless.

When fear becomes all-pervasive, life loses its appeal. Colours fade, music falls silent, strength drains away until only hope remains. We never gave up hope. After many months of searching disoriented for the psychological causes of the illness and finding none, we came across Family Based Treatment, a family-centred therapeutic approach from the English-speaking world. We finally found the right information, learned that there is a genetic predisposition to anorexia triggered by an energy deficit. And that food was the only medicine. We understood that our child did not refuse to eat out of choice, but out of inability — and that she needed our help.

We went through hell together.

And learned that hell has an exit. We longed desperately for our old life back — the life in which we had set the pace. In which we had dealt with the small frustrations of everyday life. Instead we were forced, day after day, to fight the battle our child could not fight alone. A battle that pushed us as parents to our limits — and beyond. Our old life was on pause while our new daily existence revolved entirely around cooking, sitting with her at meals, catching panic attacks and preventing self-harm. We had only one goal: to bring our child through this deadly illness.

We did it. We learned that there are situations in life in which we have to let go of control and surrender to what is. Even when it hurts. That things unfold differently from how we planned, and that we can grow through it. Our child is today fully recovered and completely free of all symptoms of the illness.