Author Interview from WOW! Women On Writing Book Blog Tour
August 1-Sept 4, 2022
1. Carolyn, What made you decide to write a memoir about your beautiful daughter Rachel and her struggles with diabetes, diabulimia, bulimia, and substance abuse?
Rachel’s extraordinary journals. Twenty volumes penned over ten years, her writing raw and exquisite. For a mother who’d just lost her only daughter, stumbling upon this trove was a godsend. Rachel was guarded, and her death was abrupt. These diaries would finally let me in. Answer all my gnawing questions. However, once I started reading, I knew Rachel’s secrets could not stay on these pages. They had to be shared. Parents who had kids with diabetes would need to know about diabulimia. All parents would want to know how a girl with severe mental illness had slipped through the medical cracks and why she’d kept quiet for fourteen years.
2. Your book, Reckless Grace, taught me how quickly your daughter's struggles with accepting her diabetes and trying to deal with puberty and wanting to be slim escalated to eating disorders and substance abuse. I have heard of anorexia and bulimia and diabetes but never of “diabulimia.” Before your daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, had you heard of “diabulimia”? Do you think the diabetes diagnosis and subsequent treatments were the catalyst for Rachel succumbing to her eating disorders and substance abuse disorder?
I had never heard of diabulimia, nor have most of my readers, even RNs who have been practicing for decades. Though other factors were involved, Rachel’s diabetes diagnosis was the catalyst. Up until then she was a happy, slender fourteen-year-old. With insulin therapy, she gained 15 pounds, her new shape clashing with the ultra thin female body type pop culture was pushing in 1998. Adolescence also played a part. At a time when Rachel’s autonomy should have been taking flight, diabetes, with its strict food and insulin regime, clipped her wings. Tragically, she rebelled by turning against herself.
3. Were there any aspects of writing your book that surprised you, either by being harder or easier to relate than you expected?
Nothing about writing this book was easy, except knowing in my bones that it had to be done. I expected it to be emotionally draining but never dreamed it would be so intellectually taxing or time consuming. I had to pore through hundreds of pages of Rachel’s journals, as well as thick files containing Rachel’s medical reports, court papers, and personal correspondences. From these documents, I pieced together a timeline of Rachel’s decline, following her diabetes diagnosis. Researching her mental illnesses was another feat, the body of data vast and complex. Many times, while trying to decode the technical language and quantitative results, my head would throb. Other times, hot tears flowed as I contemplated how much my daughter had suffered. Guilt taunted me throughout: I hadn’t played with, talked to, or hugged Rachel enough. Hadn’t kept her safe. How often I’d wanted to quit, but it struck me that Rachel couldn’t walk away. She lived with mental illness, like 44 million other Americans. I thought of the girls who at that moment were living in Rachel’s former torment and of their parents in my former ignorance. I had to share what little I knew because even faint light helps people who are walking in darkness. Figuring out how to fit this psychological content into a fast-moving story was another feat. I felt the research was crucial since that’s what helped me. But some readers likened my sources to “speedbumps.” Endnotes solved that problem. No less challenging was trying to reach both Christian and secular readers. Mental illness does not discriminate; therefore, I wanted to reach a wide audience. However, I did not want to minimize my or Rachel’s faith, nor, God forbid, to proselytize. I had to walk a fine line to find that sweet spot.
4. What has been the most gratifying aspect of publishing the book?
Hearing feedback from readers who have been helped by it. This week, on Messenger, a woman wrote: “I had a hard time reading your book at first since it hit so close to home, but once I got halfway, I devoured it. Your story resonates SO MUCH with me! Rachel’s journals are incredible. She was such a beautiful writer and expressed her feelings so amazingly. I can’t even tell you the emotions I went through because she articulated so much of what I know my daughter Lexi was feeling. Your story made me realize how much borderline personality disorder played into Lexi’s inability to handle life’s situations, and how it drove her to unhealthy coping mechanisms. It has opened my mind to what caused her struggles. And I can also relate to your role as a mother - the constant search for help, desperately seeking financing, hope soaring, then the disappointing blow of relapse time and again. I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing honestly and openly.”
5. How, if at all, did writing this memoir help you with grieving the loss of your daughter?
Doctor Charles L. Whitfield says the only way to overcome your pain is by going through it. Writing this memoir did help. Healing came not just from venting my emotions but also from understanding what had happened. Learning about Rachel’s illnesses helped me comprehend some of her strange thought patterns and dangerous behaviors. I finally grasped her attraction to drugs. Suddenly, it all made sense; and, though horrible, somehow this revelation gave me peace.
6. Your book showed me how easily signs of eating disorders and substance abuse can be missed by parents and by specialists and how easily victims can “hide” the signs too. What is the main piece of advice you would give to a parent in a similar situation?
I didn’t talk to my kids enough about substances. I would caution parents to discuss this subject early and often. By early, I mean third or fourth grade, well before kids are exposed or enticed and when they still think Mom and Dad know a few things. By often, I mean monthly or at least several times a year. Parents shouldn’t lecture. These talks should be short and light—simple statements, suggestions, and questions that plant seeds about the insidious nature of alcohol and drugs so their kids are less inclined to use them when they grow up.
7. What do you hope people take away from this book?
I want readers to close Reckless Grace with a clearer understanding of mental illness. I want them to know how painful it is for people—especially adolescents—to live with serious disorders. I want them to know how victims’ symptoms intensify, becoming more and more unbearable over time. I want readers to feel the voltage of that suffering so they’ll show those people kindness and/or get earlier mental health care for themselves or their loved ones. Finally, I hope Reckless Grace makes it to the nightstands of influential individuals, such as doctors and nurses and CEOs of health insurance companies, hospitals, and eating disorder (ED) facilities, inspiring them to review and improve practices and policies that would give young people with co-existing physical and mental illnesses a fighting chance to improve their health and live long, full lives.
