Hello there! I would like to join and learn how to support one of my dear friends who was brave to tell me about his condition.
Support : Hello there! I would like to... - Talk ED (eating d...
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an1515
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What ED does your friend have?
He has anorexia.
That is really sad 
I hope that he gets better. How are you finding ti being his friend because ED's are difficult on everyone involved and not just the sufferer
Thank you for your reply. Well I am just myself and trying to open my horizon and read books and blogs and try to not say the wrong things.
If I may, can I ask about you?
Yes of course. I am 19 years old and a university student studying Psychology and I have developed bullimia non-purging subtype after I started university. Before starting Uni, I binged a lot. But when I started uni, I was determined to start eating properly. I tried to eat healthily. I adopted a vegetarian diet and swapped sweets and cake for fruit. I started to eat a lot less because I started to feel conscious that people were watching me. I was also moving about a lot more. I up losing lot of weight rapidly without even realising. When I stepped on a scale though, i realised and became really obsessed with food and weight.
During Christmas, I went home. I ate so much and started to feel really uncomfortable and when I started back at Uni, I became obsessed. Counting calories and dieting and eating less and deliberately restricting. I stopped eating around people and things just went bad from there. But I was only restricting to 900 - 1200 and so I thought it was completely fine. Like I was not starving myself. Then things got a bit better. I managed to stay a tiny bit stable. However, nearer to my exams, things got worse. I stopped eating carbs and meat and cheese and I was restricting calories and it felt bad. Then, I went from that to stopping eating meals. Like eating 300 calories and I ended up restricting and bingeing in the evening.
Now I am a bit at a stable point. I am trying to eat properly.
So, yeah, that is me. I do not have anorexia so obviously do not understand exactly what your friend is going through but I do understand what it is like to have an ED voice and also I have friends who are anorexics, so yeah, hope this helps.
Thank you for sharing. It must be quiet a journey for you too. I admire you and how you are in better control now. Keep it up!
Meanwhile I started reading this book:” overcoming binge eating” by Dr Christopher Fairburn. What do you think?
How are you supporting your friends who as anorexia?
So, my friend with anorexia, she is recovering at the moment. I make sure that I never mention her weight. I never put pressure on her when it comes to food. I will not ask her if she has eaten. Also, I treat her ED like it is not a big deal if that makes sense. I will ask her how her ED is and how she is coping. If she tells me something like i.e. she is not eating enough, I accept it. I know that it if I react like, why are you doing this or like, omg, that is bad, foremost, that is hypocrytical of me and also, I know that it will just make her feel bad. Also, the think you have to think about ED is that as bad as they are, they are coping mechanisms. It is a way that people deal with emotions. So yeah. If that makes sense. Also, with my friend, I do not treat her like she is a eating disorder. People are complex and complicated and no one is just symptoms. So, when we are not talking about food, we do not make it about food if that makes senses. But yeah.
Thank you for your thoughts and comments.
It is very helpful.
What do you think about the book I started reading?
“ Overcoming Binge eating” by Dr Chris Fairburn
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