MY FRIEND HAS AN EATING DISORDER.

[marthaa]

GUYS I KNOW THIS IS A LONG STORY BUT I REAAAALLYYY NEED HELP!
i moved this school year, so i havent seen my friends in months. but they have told me she lost alot of weight, but it wasnt till yesterday i saw pictures and even her fingers look boney i go really scared. so i told her this story that i wanted to stop eating but my mom makes me, this isnt true but i told her to see if she said anything, and she did. she told me since last summer she had been not dieting but just eating less, and that she had lost so much weight now her parents think shes anorexic. and that she feels really bad like she lost her period two times, she got colitis and they took her to a doctor who checked her mouth and things like that like for bulimia, and now they make her eat. and she says shes so affected that sometimes just by eating fruit she feels guilty. and i asked her if she wanted to keep on losing weight and she said no, nbut that this has like obsessed her that when shes eating something and she thinks that it has too many calories shell just stop. and she doesnt want to do it anymore, but her mind makes her do it like when she eats she gets mad at herself. she told me not to tell anyone so i cant turn to any of our other friends for help, so please please please help what should i do?!

[Just Peachy.]

Martha,

I think that it is great that you are wanting to help your friend. I have been where your friend is, and I wish I would have had someone to talk to like she has you. The best thing you can do in a situation like this is encourage her and be there for her. It sounds like she wants to recover but she doesn't know how. That's pretty common among people suffering from Anorexia, or any eating disorder for that matter. Normally, a person suffering from an eating disorder often times have some other things going on as well. Whether that be low self esteem, depression, anxiety, OCD. I mean, one could think that eating healthy again will fix it all, but at the end of the day, the feelings are still there. Eating is only have the battle.

I think that she would benefit from seeing a counselor. These internal issues that she has needs to be worked through. It would be really tough for her, but it would be a little easier if you were there with her to talk to her parents. She needs a support system in which she can trust. In order to fully recover she needs to deal with all issues. Putting them off isn't going to help her in the long run. It's only going to make her fall back into old habits and mentality. She still have a fear of eating, which means she has a bigger, deeper, more internal fear.

I hope this helped a little bit!
Take care,
-Lynds