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friend with bulimia. PLEASE HELP
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
i recenty found out that my friend has depression, and bulimia. she is currently seeing a psycologist regarding the problem. However, when i'm with her, after she eats she goes to the toilet strait away. i know that she is vomittimg, as she has addmitted it to me. i feel like i should be stopping her, or doing somthing about it, but i don't know what. i don't want to piss her off, but i fell like a bad friend if i sit back and do nothing. she says that it's not my problem and i shouldn't be the one to stop her. she says that i CAN'T stop her. she says that i should just imagin i don't know. what do i do? should i stop her, and how?
shiz
shiz
0
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If she's seeing a psychologist then she's getting the professional help she needs, so all you can do is be there for her. There's no point trying to stop her being sick because she'll find some way of doing it anyway, like any addict will. She'll stop doing it when she's ready, and while you can show your concern and be as good a friend as you can, her illness is the sort where if you try to stop her doing it it may well damage your friendship, however good your intentions are. Let her know that you'll always be there for her and that you'll support her in her therapy.
take care
yup, she's right there. if you try to stop her, it won't make her stop, it'll just make her better at lying to you. it's better if you just ask her to be honest. even if she tells you she's still throwing up, you knowing there's a problem but not being able to help is infinitely better than you thinking there's no problem and her spiralling downward with no one to look out for her.
don't feel bad for not actively helping her. this will probably sound harsh, but it's not your problem. be there for her, hear her out, ask her how she's doing. but try not to get sucked in. cause at some point (hopefully) she's going to realise she has two choices, stop or die. and when she wants to stop (totally stop, not just fart about in therapy pretending to be better - i know the deal), she's going to need all the help she can get. and after she's made that decision (for herself) that's when you can step in.
Just thought it might help for you to talk to someone about this because being there for you friend through this can be pretty stressful for you too. The Eating Disorders Association have a youth helpline which is for under 18s and is open from 4pm-6.30pm weekdays, 1-4.30pm Saturday. Its: 0845 634 7650
Hope this helps. Keep up being the good friend that you are xx
What i would do is keep him occupied as long as i can (basically stop him from eating) then when we was both starving we would get something to eat and he wouldnt bring it up because id make him so hungry. I know its cruel but it did help.
Another tactic i used was trying to turn the tables. I would say that I was depressed and that his eating problems were bringing me down. He then felt guilty and started eating properly to make me feel better.
But the best thing is to let her know your there to support her. If shes got a real huge problem with eating then try to encourage small snacks...Instead of eating regular meals try encouraging a bag of crisps then an hour or so later a small sandwich then an apple a couple of hours later. Get the drift? Try to encourage small foods and eventually it should move on to meals.
Hope she gets better soon
RB
One of my best friends suffers from eating problems and also self harms, so I can sympathise with how you're feeling. I know how hard it is to just sit by and watch what's going on, but really it's all you can do. I've spent far too long in the past thinking I could change my friend's behaviour, but I realise now that the only one who can do that is her. And although it's taken a long time, she is finally starting to do that. If your friend's going to therapy then that's a really good step too. With my friend, I don't try and stop her vomiting/self harming etc, I just listen to what she has to say. It's hard, but I know that if I tried to stop her she'd just lose her trust in me, and it'd be a lot harder if she stopped being honest with me.
One big thing though - don't let yourself get dragged down by all this. That doesn't mean you can't be there for your friend, but you need to look after yourself too. To begin with I got far too involved with my friend's problems, and I really payed for it, and in the end that was no good for either of us. It only got better when I took a step back. It was really hard, I won't pretend I found it easy, but it made things so much better. Now I'm as close to her, maybe even closer, as I was before, but it's also a much better relationship because we both know that there are boundaries that have to be respected (i.e although I'll listen to her, I'm not her counsellor, and there's some things that are just too much for me to listen to, no matter how much I might want to try and help).
Look after yourself x
It really helped me. Allthough it is still going to be hard for me to sit back when i know she is making herself sick, I now realize that it's not my problem (not to sound harsh). I guess when somone is sick they have to want to get better themselves before anyone can can even start to help. I'm in no place to tell her what to do as I have no idea what she is going though. Also thanks for the advise about distractiong from eating and small portions, I'll deffinatly give that ago!
Thanks again!
shiz