From the Woman Who’s Seen It All with Ibbits Newhall
Taking the first step toward treatment is terrifying, and riddled with information overload… and that’s where Ibbits Newhall comes in.
Ibbits Newhall runs a consulting business as a treatment resource consultant. She works with individuals and families on treatment planning and what to do when navigating recovery – like step down options, residential programs, after care plans… any point of recovery. She’s the person who can connect people with whomever they need to connect with for treatment.
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Ibbits Newhall is really well connected with a lot of different programs and people. She was a founding member and secretary of IAEDP-New York, which is our lovely IAEDP chapter. She served on the advisory board of CSAB (Center for the Study of Anorexia and Bulimia in NYC) and on the board of the Binge Eating Disorder Association. Currently, Ibbits serves on the Advisory Board Health 2021. She has worked with dozens of families and individuals to help them find the right treatment plans.
Maybe you’re struggling with disordered eating, or you’re the family member of someone who is. Today, we’re talking about what to do when you’re in these positions. When you have no idea what to do, what to look out for, and you’re terrified… Ibbits is going to share all her wisdom (along with her really entertaining stories).
What Ibbits Newhall Does
After many years of outreach and working with teens, she saw how families struggled to understand all the different components of treatment and how long they would take.
She felt these families needed someone to hold their hand through all the different information they were getting so they could think clearly about the next best steps.
She was also able to draw on all of her contacts across the country to line up treatment, no matter what type of specialist they needed. Ibbits can act as the beginning, middle, or end of the recovery process; people often reach out to her at different points along the way, but she thinks it is most helpful if she can help a family or individual from the beginning.
But it’s never too late – she can help at any point. Basically, she’s the “who knows what and who” of the ED treatment world.
How She Got Here
Ibbits Newhall was originally an actor – she did commercials and theater for 25+ years. She suffered from anorexia in her 20s. She described being a driven and competitive personality, and found that the more weight she lost, the more exhilarating it was.
She cycled in and out of that for a number of years, and after marrying and getting pregnant, that was the start of her recovery. She started eating intuitively and listening to her body, because she had to eat. (Although, perhaps don’t try this at home! It’s a lot easier said than done.)
Years later, she saw her own daughter begin to restrict and lose weight when she was a senior in high school. They felt like they were able to pull her from the brink – she was able to recover after a number of years of cycling in and out of disordered eating.
Years later, she discovered Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center when her husband began working there. She thought about how she had wished she and her husband knew about this when her daughter was struggling, and what a relief it would have been.
So, she talked her husband into hiring her (yes, really). Ibbits describes how many people mentored her here, and got her where she is today.
In the end, she saw families were looking at recovery as a one-time ordeal; she wanted to help them understand the time and energy required for a treatment plan, and work with them through that process.
What’s Most Important to Know
Since Ibbits has been on both sides of this – as an individual and as a parent – she has a unique perspective on all this.
As a family member, it’s important to understand the seductive power of an eating disorder. If they can possibly begin to comprehend – although Ibbits notes it’s very difficult unless you’ve been there yourself – that power permeates every part of someone suffering from an ED and it’s terrifying.
Even if the individual knows logically how destructive the eating disorder is and what it’s taking away from them, it is terrifying beyond belief to think of taking that first step of recovery… especially if they’ve been through this before.
For parents, it’s important to understand what a huge undertaking recovery is. The individual looking out may feel like everyone is against them, and it can feel like no one understands them.
Parenting is not a perfect science and it’s really important not to point fingers. Sometimes, the biggest mistakes parents make are because they love their children.
Ibbits encourages the individual, as best they can, to think about their “before” life and think about what they want to be able to do. Sometimes, there’s not much room in their brains to even think about that.
Ibbits has seen it time and time again: amazing individuals with so much potential will only see a tiny, narrow possibility for their life… it’s hard to focus on anything other than an ED when you’re in the throes of one. She emphasizes that there is a world of possibility out there, once you start finding healing from an ED.
More of What You Need to Know
It’s important for the family to understand what it feels like inside that person’s body and brain. Of course, we can never say what someone is thinking and feeling if we don’t ask.
But generally, an individual can really feel under attack from all sides, and they’ll need both some prodding and some understanding.
Ibbits recently joined forces with Parent Coach Becky Henry, and Wendy Wright LMFT, CEDS Supervisor and Financial Therapist to create The Recovery Roadmap Series for Families. They combined their collective specialties to offer a learning series with the important information families need when seeking treatment for a loved one but no one tells them. The series is designed to cover topics from Admissions to Aftercare in language that speaks to families and their needs.
And on that note, it’s normal to feel a sense of grief and loss. It’s ok to feel angry as the disease begins to take things away from your loved one’s future. It’s normal to grieve what could have been.
Ambivalence
Everyone is ambivalent when approaching treatment – no matter how logically they understand how bad the eating disorder is.
It’s important for individuals and families to understand that someone will never be totally and fully on-board with treatment. There is always going to be something about it that’s scary.
Ambivalence is normal. Ibbits wants families to understand that sometimes, there might be a tiny piece of an individual that knows they need to begin recovery, but we’re probably never going to get full buy-in.
Resistance
Ibbits says the scary thing is that sometimes, when someone resists treatment for so long and then realizes that they must do something, it comes too late.
She encourages anyone who is suffering to imagine a life that isn’t so painful. One of her favorite stories is about her first client.
This client had a very serious trauma history. She had been in and out of many, many programs. The client decided that she was tired of being in and out of programs for years, and that she wanted to figure out how to recover on her own – and of course, Ibbits and the team were not happy about this.
Amazingly, she did it – and Ibbits believes she did because she always had the tools to recover.
After recovering, the client said to Ibbits, “People told me when I got to the other side, I’d see how good it was. And I didn’t believe them because I was always in that middle period of recovery… and suddenly, I realized one day, I was there.
“And without knowing it or realizing it, little by little, I was no longer planning what I would or wouldn’t eat, or how much I would exercise. I wasn’t spending all those hours that were taken up by the eating disorder…” and she finished graduate school, got married, has a baby, and will become a clinician.
Now, if you want to graduate or not, get married, stay single, have kids or not, whatever – that’s not the point of the story. The point is this:
There is a life that’s possible on the other side. It’s not one “ah ha” moment; it’s an “oh,” moment when you realize, little by little, there’s the absence of those planning thoughts.
You look around and realize you’re just doing life, and not obsessing over meal planning, exercising, and so on.
Families who are Resistant
Ibbits Newhall says there are a lot of factors at play when someone is thinking about treatment. Often, there’s the push to get back to school, or parents are worried about their child not getting an internship or job, and so on. It can be very difficult for parents to understand the forces at work.
Sometimes, they’re worried that treatment can be damaging. Other times, they’re afraid their child will be mad at them.
Ibbits says there is a lot of education involved here, and she has a very blunt approach to this. As a parent, she tries to put it in context, as she knows what it is like. She tries to emphasize what the individual who is suffering needs now, and how if it’s not addressed right away, it can grow to something extremely serious.
She compares it to cancer. If your child had cancer, you wouldn’t say, “Oh, you only need to do a little bit of treatment on that.”
She often refers to Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani’s book, Sick Enough. The book removes the relationship dynamics out of the disorder, and looks at the science: the way the body and brain are fueling the ED back and forth.
Ibbits will warn them that she’s going to tell them what they don’t want to hear… because her only focus is to help that individual get well and strong. That’s the most important thing.
Tweetable Quotes
“As a family member, it’s important to understand the seductive power of this disease. If they can possibly begin to comprehend – although I think it is very difficult unless you’ve been in that brain yourself – how that seductive power permeates every corner of that individual’s being.” – Ibbits Newhall
“For the individual, [treatment] is terrifying. Even if, intellectually, the individual knows very well how destructive this disease is and what it’s taking away from them, it is terrifying and scary beyond belief to think of taking that first step. And if they’ve been through this a number of times, thinking of taking that painful step yet again… and for parents to understand what that undertaking is.” – Ibbits Newhall
“There’s this narrow, tiny pinprick of light through which individuals are looking, and they don’t see any other path [for their life]... and there is a world of possibility out there.” – Ibbits Newhall
Resources:
Ibbits Newhall’s Consulting Website
Recovery Roadmap Series for families
More From Rachelle
Hey there! I’m Rachelle, the host of the Understanding Disordered Eating Podcast. As a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, I work with clients to make sense of life’s messy emotional experiences.
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