I mentioned this in the Bam thread, but the people who keep crying about how Eugenia's parents should not allow her to starve herself is absolutely terrifying to me. What is it with Gen Z and the constant crying that mommies/daddies should have ultimate control over their adult children's lives?
To be fair, reddit isn't very representative of the population, there's a definite overrepresentation of failed human beings who believe their parents have a duty to let them mooch indefinitely. That being said, the trend does exist. Millennials basically extended adolescence by a decade or so, Gen Z is even worse because of the internet and "mental health awareness." It's the same bullshit as the Millennials, only with far fewer opportunities to learn social skills thanks to overreliance on phones/social media/mobile apps, and 95% more crippling "anxiety disorders" (that are actually just normal "I'm nervous because I've never done x before" feelings that never go away because they've never been forced to grow the fuck up and get over it).
Eugenia is a Millennial but it's obvious how stunted and immature she is. I'm sure the malnutrition doesn't help, but that cannot totally account for her literally having the exact same life she did as a spoiled-as-fuck 15 year old. If Eugenia was suddenly expected to fend for herself, as in be completely responsible for getting her own place, paying all the bills, doing all her own cooking/cleaning/basic home maintenance, arranging her own transportation, and all the rest of it, she would not have an easy time. She has money so that makes it far easier, but even so. Her mother may have had the best intentions by taking care of anything that Eugenia finds hard or intimidating, she might just find it hard to watch her child struggle (plenty of good parents do), but regardless of how pure her motivations are, all she's done is create a permanent dependent. Anorexia nervosa is fueled by feeling a lack of control in one's life, and Eugenia's existence (whether she understands this consciously or not) is fucking stifling. Her mother probably does all the "adulting" for Eugenia and more or less runs her life, having convinced both of them that Eugenia is far too fragile, naive, and retarded to possibly do things for herself. It's the same reason why AN is so common among young adolescents, and why they so often recover spontaneously once they move out and get a job, relationship, etc of their own.
Obviously Eugenia's social media following and whatever perverse attention she gets for her weight make her case a lot more complicated than the average AN basketcase with forced overdependence on an overbearing mother who neglected to teach them life skills. But I'm still confident enough that family dynamics are a huge enough part of this that there'd still be a solid chance Eugenia would stabilize on her own if she left to live independently and started to enforce some strict boundaries with her family.
The only way Eugenia's parents can "force" her to get help is by playing hardball and telling her that if she doesn't make satisfactory progress with treatment that she can get the fuck out of their house and figure things out on her own. It's pretty ironic that this is Eugenia's best chance at actual recovery, not because forcing her into treatment would do a lick of good, but because dedication to her disorder is the only motive strong enough to make her ever choose to leave.
