This Crazy Life

My daughter called the other night very upset.  She had to tell me about what happened at breakfast that morning.  Part of her breakfast was French toast sticks and syrup.  When she was finished, she still had syrup on her plate.  She was told to scrape her plate.  She did not want to be marked down for a redirection, so she did.  Then a different employee came and stopped her and said we do not clean our plates and you need to resist the urge to clean your plate.  She then took her spoon and told her to put her hands in her lap.  She said if she couldn’t resist the urge, she would take her plate from her.  My daughter of course took this to mean she was binging (which is the eating disorder my daughter will tell you she has).  I got off the phone very upset.  I emailed her dietician immediately who took it to a couple of managers and talked to several people, including the employee.  I do feel they handled the situation adequately and were going to keep working on making sure employees are properly trained and they were going to have more supervision to make sure employees are following procedures.  I know there has been a lot of employee turnover everywhere and eating treatment centers have been hit hard like a lot of other industries.  2 days later I received a call again from the clinic manager.  They had reviewed the video footage and while it doesn’t have audio, they couldn’t tell there was a direct confrontation between my daughter and the staff.  My daughter was cleaning up the syrup with her finger and was asked to use her spoon.  She did receive a redirection.  It’s so hard to know who/what to believe.  In my brain I know the eating disorder can be so tricky and wants more than anything to get out of this situation.   In my heart I know my daughter is the sweetest kid and would never lie.  It’s so hard.  So hard to trust random strangers to care for your 12-year-old daughter.  She tells me a group of girls are bullying her.  No one on the staff has witnessed this.  Is my daughter’s eating disorder making this all up to try to get home?  I’ve told her multiple times and I know she understands that even if I would pull her from this center she can not go home.  She is fully aware of this.  Home is not an option.  She is not planning on eating at home.  I’m taking her home to end up in the hospital and wash rinse repeat all over again.