I know I should not have done it, but my nearly 16 year old daughter is away & I decided to give her room major cleaning. I found her diary and while I have never read it before, and I am ashamed of what I did, something told me to read it - and I did. In it my daughter wrote that for the past year if she feels she eats too much she will stick her finger down her throat & throw up. She is average size & athletic and if anything, I thought she was gaining weight. I also suspect by what I read that she is in a bit of a depression but I am not sure how much is "normal teenage emotions". We live in a VERY small town & even though I work in school system, I have no clue where to turn. HELP!!!
Others may disagree with you about reading your daughter's diary, but I am also guilty as far as snooping and reading diaries. I have a 12 year old stepdaughter, but she is really mine. I have raised her since she was 3 1/2. Her mom, however, abandoned her and moved out of state without calling to say good-bye etc. When this happened she was 6 years old. I know about privacy and having your own business, etc. I keep a journal and definitely wouldn't want my family reading it, however, when my daughter starts acting moody or different, I will skim through her diary. She doesn't keep much in it but it has helped to see if there are any problems I could help her with.
I think that reading your daughter's diary might be a good way to find your daughter some help. Maybe you could even start keeping an eye out on what your daughter is eating, how she acts at meal time, etc. Since you have noticed some depression maybe that would be a good way to help your daughter seek some counseling. Good luck to you and your daughter.
I had a friend who was doing this and I knew it, she never confessed it to me, one day we were having lunch at her place and when we finished she took off to the toilet. When she came out I said to her "I know what you are doing and if you want to kill yourself lets go and I will help you do it properly. This scared her so much into realising that she was going to die from what she was doing and she stopped. Now she is a very healthy person. I am not saying do this to your daughter, but maybe take her somewhere to see people with anorexia and show her what it can do to you if she keeps it up.
