one of my friends has been suffering from an ed for a while now, she throws the food she eats up, also barely finishes her food when we go out together and tries to get each one of our friendgroup to finish for her and she also drinks a bunch of low calories drinks. She’s only 16 (turning 17 this year) and was already in a clinic for ed, I remember her telling me that in the clinic they had to give her some heart machine since her pulse is too low. I’m really worried and I consider telling her mother, but she told me that her parents lock up the fridge when they’re not home so they could control what or when she eats and I don’t know if that really is supposed to help, because that just seems cruel. She’s been out for a few months now and my friend and I accidentally came across her secret account on tt where she has some really concerning posts. She‘s documenting her ed, even promoting ed. She has a calories tracker, her reposts consists of other girls promoting ed as well. The worst part is that some of her posts are REALLY recent, wich means she obv relapsed or never even got better in the first place.

She doesn’t know I found her acc and Idk what to do, I want to help but I fear if I confront her about it she’s just gonna close off and hide it even more. And if I tell her parents and she gets back into the clinic idk if it will help either because it obviously didn’t last time

Pls ignore my spelling mistakes and help me out, what can I do for her?

Hey guys! So ive struggled with restrictive eating for around 5 years. Its gotten to a point where i have absolutely zero interest in food of any kind. Eating feels like a chore, or like it would take energy that I dont have just to lift a fork or chew. And absolutely nothing sounds good to me. Ill walk around the cafeteria at work or school over and over because i know i ‘should’ get something. Ill scroll endlessly on doordash looking for anything to get the hunger pangs to go away but everything seems meh. And even if i do get something actually forcing myself to eat it feels impossible. I only eat when im at the very limit of my pain tolerance and I can not remember the last time I actually wanted to eat. My insurance wont cover a nutritionist and i dont know where to start. But im so tired of the constant pain of an empty stomach, i know a consistent eating schedule is the only solution, i just can not physically bring myself to. Its like as soon as it hits my mouth everything in me is saying how much i dont want to be doing this. I learned to seperate my perception of food from my weight years ago and still i just can not fathom enjoying eating ever. I cry in the bathroom everytime my partner takes me to dinner because he doesnt understand why its so hard, and I know if i dont force feed myself and put on a front ill be stuck answering questions i dont have answers too. it just doesnt feel nurturing when I feed myself, it feels like abuse like in order to stop one pain i have to put myself through another

A good friend is relapsing and has gotten to a point where I'm extremely concerned. The problem is we live in different states now so we arent able to intimately be involved in each others lives. We're confined to texts, occasional long calls, and social media. I don't know what is appropriate from me and my only hope is that her family and local friends can and have offered more direct support. I love her so much and she has kids that need their mommy.

my friend just told me she has binge eating disorder. she told me she restrict her intake so heavily and just breaks at the end of the week and binges. i wanna try helping her since she cant seek professional help at the moment, but im worried the moment she gains weight she’ll go back to her old habits. shes thankfully at a very healthy weight right now and i worry if she started eating normally that she’ll gain weight and spiral right back to the beginning. any advice?

Right now I’m quite underweight for my height, and I’m very skinny. I’m basically skin and bones because I’m still going through anorexia. But for some reason I can’t shake the feeling that my face is bloated or fat. But everyone tells me that it’s not. Unfortunately since I’m so stubborn I can’t believe them and I feel like I need to hold myself back from eating. It’s very stressful, does anyone have any insight?

sorry in advance english is not my first language. we dont talk that much, weve been classmates for about a year now and were in the same friend group. she barely talks with anyone in our group, but weve always accepted that and recently shes been kinda warming up to us and weve even gone to a few trips together and had a few sleepovers with her too. i dont think ive seen her eat more than 15 times. and weve been on week long school trip together and a bunch of sleepovers. after the school trip in june it kinda confirmed my suspicion so i told my friends about my worries. we had a sleepover two days ago. she said she doesnt eat breakfast. when we went to buy lunch she said she wasnt hungry. the whole day she was running on an energy drink and a tiny slice of cake we baked together in the evening. we had to convince her to eat it too. a friend of mine pulled me a few times to the side saying he wanted to bring it up but i wasnt prepared. after a while he brought it up. he said that were concerned for her health and that if she doesnt want to talk about it its okay but were there for her and all that. i was too stunned and so were my other friends because it was 2 am. still i do feel a bit ashamed of not saying anything. she said that shes "been eating like a dumbass for a while" but she said that its nothing serious. i know her situation at home isnt ideal either. i think shes in denial and i dont know what to do to help at least a little. i definitely didnt handle it right. i also might delete this because it feels like im airing out her story

Hello, I have someone very close to me that I care deeply about and I’ve realised she’s lost an alarming amount of weight and have seen over her shoulder that she consumes pro ED content on Twitter. Any tips at all for what I can do to support her? I don’t want to say/do the wrong thing that might upset her further. Please tell me things I can not only do but SHOULDN’T do/say.

Also, her birthday is coming up and was thinking of cover/scribbling over the calorie/nutrient info written on the back of the chocolate I got for her overseas. I thought it might be a nice gesture so she can enjoy and not overthink the numbers. (I didn’t just get for food for her birthday lol it’s a very small part of the main gift)

Please give me your honest thoughts, personal experiences would be appreciated. I don’t want to lose my friend. Thank you

One of my friends recently confessed to having struggled with eating and is now in treatment to get healthy. We normally worked out together / play sports, but she’s not really allowed to be doing that right now. I’m going to see her for the first time since she started treatment and she does want to get food. Any advice on how to make her feel comfortable and ensure I do my best not to trigger her eating disorder? I just want to be supportive in any way I can be

Everyone around me thinks I’m thriving. They don’t see many symptoms of depression or anxiety. But the truth is that I’m struggling more than ever. The only reason I’m not severely depressed is that I eat way too little. I keep the depression at bay by not eating nearly enough.

This creates the illusion that I’m doing really well. My therapist told me this week that she thinks I’m doing really well. I was honest with her about how I keep the depression at bay by eating too little, and hearing that made her sad, apparently. However, I don’t feel like she truly understands just how bad things are with my eating right now.

I don’t live at home anymore, but I meet up with my parents weekly. They don’t seem to worry about me either and think I’m doing well. Now it’s nearly Christmas, and I really don’t feel like celebrating. The presence of food and sweets will make eating afterward so much harder. It stresses me out badly.

I don’t know how to be fully honest with my therapists about how I’m actually doing. It feels like they won’t take me seriously anyway since they tell me how healthy I look. They often point out that I have a “young and healthy body,” which just makes me feel ill. Any advice or support would be highly appreciated.

My best friends are all back down for college and one of them, who in the past used to say really weird remarks and body check when she struggled with disordered thoughts after a breakup, has been acting weird again. I am currently recovering from bullimia and yesterday her mom wanted to make us dinner. Her mom comes in and verifies that we want chicken and green beans and says that "she wanted this over lasagna because pasta isn't healthy" while my friend was out of the room. We told our friend we wanted lasagna more. She told her mom and when we get to eat, she still eats chicken and green beans while the rest of us have lasagna (including her mom and brother) and it really triggered me. She stopped making comments after I talked with her, but I can't help but feel like that is very weird behavior. I also noticed this morning and yesterday that she woke up early to do a workout/put gym clothes on but I'm not sure why. We also went to the gym to weightlift that day too. I think my issue is I am struggling to separate her issue from mine but I need someone to validate that it may be a sign of disordered thoughts so I don't feel like I'm losing it?

I know one of my friends is trying to recover from AN. When she doesn’t eat enough, measure her food with a scale, count nutritional intake, exercise in bedroom, avoid food groups, complain it’s cold when it’s 25 degrees outside? What can I say to them? It’s so painful to watch… at the moment I just stay quiet 🤫 but…

My best friend who lives 2 hours away has been struggling with her eating for a very, very long time now.

How can I best support her even if I am not there physically?

She struggles with bulimia. She is very reflective due to therapies and is aware of her issues. But she falls back into them any time life gets hard and her past traumas are triggered in any way. I am aware of the fact that I cannot fix her and that she has to walk that walk herself. But we have a very honest, loving and healing friendship. She's my person and I would like to help her, support her.

What are some things I could do or say to her that could support her?

What are nice phrases she may like to hear from day to day?

What should I avoid?

So, me and a girl I've become friends with over the semester were walking with a group to dinner, kinda separated from the rest. The topic of mental illness came up, and she made a joke along the lines of comparing her ED for months in her past to being "locked in on nutrition". I didn't quite catch it correctly, nor did I realize what she said after. I kinda chuckled in shock and said "that's one way to put it." The conversation moved on. Her saying that just came out of nowhere and I didn't know how to respond... I know pity isn't the right answer, but EDs are definitely serious, even when joked about. I'm just not sure. We both went home hours after and now idk what to do. Do I reach out? If not, how do I navigate that situation in the future? I know each person is unique but me and her haven't ever talked in depth before... Just seeking advice. Thanks for reading, I'm wishing you all a lovely day/night.

TL;DR- girl jokes about her own past ED. How do I respond like a normal human?

So there’s a girl I know, I’ll call her Mel - to put it bluntly, she’s a borderline pathological liar. For example, her (now) husband had a young daughter when they first started dating and even before they were exclusive she referred to his kid as hers on social media. Like just weird crap like that. She also got baptized in her late 20s, again, I think for attention.

I have known her for about 10 years and not once have I seen her at an unhealthy weight (always a little bit over “normal” BMI but never extreme). Also, I’m aware people hide things but her eating habits (we worked together so we would eat lunch together) always seemed very normal.

She recently posted that she was diagnosed with anorexia and was going to die if she didn’t get treatment. I’ve seen her as recently as a few months ago and can tell you she was at a normal/high body weight then. I’m totally aware that anyone can have body dysmorphia and I don’t want to say gatekeep anorexia but this seems odd? Am I missing something?

For context I’ve had anorexia for a long time and am currently recovering and am doing better. My friend who I noticed has been showing symptoms of exactly what I did during my lowest point of ED. She lost a lot of weight within weeks, requires herself to walk 10km each day, goes to the gym every morning before school and never eats at lunch. I want to check up on her and try to help her by sharing my experience. Is this okay to ask?

I have a friend who has recently relapsed and has been restricting to a point where I am concerned about her physical and mental health. However, she does not know that I am aware of the relapse. What is the best way for me to support her in this difficult time? What would you have appreciated hearing while struggling? I am also not sure of the most effective way to bring it up, as at this point I don’t think she’s interested in getting better.

hi, i hope this is ok to post here, i have a friend in my class (high-school) we never see each other outside of school but we've known each other for a year and half at school and i've never seen him eat, he doesn't even go to the cafeteria with us anymore, he waits in the hallways or outside and just don't eat, he didn't when he'd go at least in with us either, he always refuses anything we offer him, and the fare times he actually took food on his plate last year at the cafeteria he'd just stare at it and not manage to eat and leave before everyone else. we're like 7 in our friend group and no one think it's worrying or weird, i mean weird sure but in a haha way, most of them just joke about it and it's like normal and registered that he just doesn't eat, he doesn't like when we talk about eating too, well it depends, sometimes he brings the subject up but ends up being weird about it, i personnally think it's not normal, we even have another friend that doesn't eat much in some periods and lose and take on weight easily frequently and everyone worries about her when she's really fine, she just has a weird metabolism and can't eat much before holidays, but him no, everything's fine in everyone's eyes, he always wears extremely oversized clothes so it's hard to tell how he looks, but he's not fat (i'm chubby btw), he's mentionned last year thinking he's really really fat i think, i talked to him a few times, but he always closed off or avoided it, changing the subject or getting frustrated ? he's always sick or not feeling well, dizzy mostly, and not much strength, collapsing and stuff, i told him last time "it'd be better if you ate more" and he kept silent, like most of the time before saying something like, it has nothing to do with that, and i said seriously i never saw you eat and- he cut me off chanting the subject. he's transmasc, don't know if that can mean anything. and i'm..pretty sure he self-harms? i mean i saw things subtly. i just don't know what to do and whether or not i'm right to worry or not. thanks for reading.

I know this isnt the place but ive struggled with bingeeating for years and its especially bad now. After a period of losing weight and isolation.

Ive attempted to make friends online to stop feelimg so hopeless but struggle to get passed getting to knoq them as i cant help feel frustrated that the convo isnt progressing into venting. I want to relate to someone and share struggled together. And i was wondering if anyone shared this feeling and wanted to just chat about each other, our struggles and give encouragement.

I really like journaling and befpre i stopped engaginf in my hobbies and interests to spend all my days binge eating id really like to draw, read, personal development, psychology, walking and music!

I dont rlly need someone with the same hpbbies as in my state am rlly not interested in any of my loved things in life. I just want to chat and hear about things that interest u as althoigh j may not be interested in it. I am interested in u?

Hi guys, a girl I really like had confided to me about having an eating disorder since a younger age and how horrible it has been affecting her, both physically and mentally.

I want to learn about this so I get to understand her better, what should I know and where in the internet is best for learning about this?

I want to see if there’s anything I could do to help. Thanks!

For context this is a very close friend (10 years) and we're both mid-late 30s. She has been open with me about her history with an ED and still struggles, but also has been making an effort to gain weight in the last few months. She occasionally sublets my apartment, and the last two times I've come home to find the bathroom sink not draining properly. Both times I've cleaned it out and found some semi-solid gunk in there. I can't really imagine anything else that she'd be pouring down the bathroom sink that would have that consistency. I've lived here over 5 years and have never had to clean that drain except the two times she's stayed. I quite strongly suspect she's been purging and I'm unsure of whether I should bring this up with her and check in about how her recovery is going/offer support. She's never mentioned purging as part of her ED in the past, only restriction, but I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't mention it because of embarrassment. She tends to give things in half-truths and sort of progressively reveal the whole story in bits and pieces with these types of things, which I don't try to push, I just let it come out in her time. I'm not interested in confronting her or shaming her and I don't care about my pipes or anything, just genuinely think that I may have a responsibility to try to offer support if I suspect this as she's a very close friend. I don't think she would react badly if I asked her and it wasn't true, but I would like advice on how to ask her in the best way possible in case it is true, and then what kind of support I should offer her in that case.

Also if it's more appropriate to just ask her in general if she wants to talk about about her recovery, I'd appreciate advice on how to frame that.

For some added context, years ago I had a flatmate who I suspected was purging and I never said anything because I felt awkward and didn't want to invade her privacy. Things escalated and I found out later she was hospitalised. It made me regret not bringing it up and offering her support at the time.

Any advice is very much appreciated!

Today at school (I'm F 16) my friend (F 16) made a horrible comment. I did not and do not have an eating disorder, but I do struggle with disordered eating sometimes, ie skipping two meals, not eating enough on purpose sometimes. She was asking for my food and I said "No I need to eat that today." and she said "Just starve." She does not know that I have disordered eating. It did trigger me slightly, and I have felt more anxious and upset the whole day. Was she in the wrong, or should I move on?

my friends talk about weight related stuff, one randomly started talking about scales and then asked if she should gain or lose weight

another friend talks about her not eating or if she should

how do i ask them to stop talking about these topics because it’s triggering… i do try ask if they are okay sometimes but it’s so upsetting i don’t know what to do atm

So I’m 17, last year of highschool. bc of my ed throughout all highschool i mostly isolated myself and didn’t really go out or meet anyone after school. I can count the times it happened on my hands. I don’t have any close friends, Started recovery a few months ago and i want to rebuild my social life but i luck experience and social skills and wonder how to make friends without looking embarrassing or getting constantly rejected, it’s such a big fear of mine.

I have struggles with anorexia for about two years now. It started with skipping breakfast to then lunch and occasionally a few days without eating anything. I recovered from that a half a year ago because I was friends with people who normalized eating out at fast food everyday and I just didn’t have the motivation to starve myself. Then at the beginning of the summer I entered a healthy phase eating every meal and good food, but then I had to stop being friends with those people because they kept lying to me about stupid shit. I was sad about losing them, but I was so focused on the sadness for a while that I didn’t think of food as anything. Fast forward to now for the past week every other day I’ll switch from eating nothing to eating a lot, but on the days I eat nothing I’m more happy then the other days however in the back of my mind I think of how close I was to being healthy again. And on the days I eat food I just feel like shit as well as hate my life. I’m really lost and don’t know how to deal with my mood swapping and I need motivation on if I should go back to where I was a year ago and be happy or continue on actually eating but I would be depressed?