Dr. Drew is an expert on treating addiction, so this is surely to hit close to home.
He has nothing but love and admiration for his daughter and, now, the 21-year-old Paulina Pinsky is opening up about her 7 year battle with anorexia.
And, as an addiction medicine specialist, he knows all about what goes into a fight like this, but a lot of her issues seem to stem from her upbringing, especially her mother, his wife of 22 years, Susan Pinsky. In fact, what Paulina says about the pressures her mother put on her are even tough to read.
In a statement, Dr. Drew said:
“We are so proud of Paulina and her outreach to help others and particularly empower women. When she recognized she needed help she sought treatment and actively engaged in the process. And now she is using her insights to help others.”
We’re proud of her too, for what it’s worth!
This is such an amazing thing for her to do, to reach out and help others. It probably isn’t easy at all, but she wrote and honest and open column about her issues on the Columbia Daily Spectator├óΓé¼Γäós website. As a junior at Barnard College in New York, nothing about this isn’t hard.
Among other pressures and reasons, she specifically noted being a competitive ice skater and a huge amount of pressure from her mom, Susan. She writes:
“My ability to listen to my mother … had disappeared when I had hit rock bottom four months prior and had put myself into therapy. Purging eight times in one day to cope with the emotional stress of being home during spring break had finally scared me enough to take action.”
Paulina is a triplet, and spoke about admitting her problems to her mother, saying:
“[I said to her,] ‘I├óΓé¼Γäóve been throwing up since the seventh grade.’ After a silence that lasted far too long, she responded, ‘Well, get your teeth checked.'”
Are you kidding us?? That’s DISGUSTING that her mother would react like that!
Paulina continued:
“[She] needed me to be perfect … I was the pretty blonde girl who was a cheerleader and an ice skater. I got good grades, had a boyfriend, and was thin … But I was suffering under the weight of ‘perfection’ in a way that even I didn├óΓé¼Γäót completely understand.”
Oh, and that’s not even the half of if. Paulina opened up on a different website about a family dinner convo surrounding Kim Kardashian‘s pregnancy weight:
“I hadn├óΓé¼Γäót even completed my thought about how disgusting I found the media├óΓé¼Γäós emphasis on her weight gain├óΓé¼ΓÇÜbefore my mother interrupted me. ‘Yeah. She got ├é┬¡really fat.’ I looked at my father.├óΓé¼ΓÇÜHe just mumbled his medical opinion under his breath, saying, ‘You know, it├óΓé¼Γäós very unhealthy for the baby to gain that much weight. Could be eclampsia.'”
Insanity. We can’t even imagine a household like this, it’s no wonder Paulina had such a negative body image of herself!
Luckily, she’s on her way to getting better — recognizing the problems and taking them head-on! She revealed:
“I am a year and a half into recovery after a seven-year battle with bulimia and anorexia, and this spectacle makes me furious… This public shaming is making the world a harder place to live in.”
Get it, girl! You can do it!
We wish you nothing but the best!
We just really wish things could’ve been different, and that your mother could’ve been something else instead of all the negative things she clearly exudes.
[Image via Twitter.]