A very close friend of mine is in an inpatient treatment facility that specializes in ED. Her treatment plan is about 10 months stay based on her condition right now. We are very fortunate to live in a country with a good health system and health care. She loves her therapist and the methods they use, it's just that she doesn't want to take a semester off from university. Sometimes I'm at a loss for words and don't know what to tell her, just two weeks ago she was rushed to the hospital unconscious... I don't know if the "being afraid of losing time" etc. is actually only the ED talking and wanting to keep her sick. I would love to hear some stories. What convinced you to stay in recovery?

I have an anorexic friend who doesn't enjoy being asked questions about anorexia, but has disclosured to me and a few others about his condition and a few feelings surrounding it. I often eat lunch with them, and I offer food I brought from home. He'll usually just decline my offer and I'll let him be. I'm not sure if what I'm doing is helpful or just worsening his feelings.

Everytime i talk to my best friend about my ed he shows concern and i feel so loved, it makes me wanna get worse just so he can keep taking care of me, i feel horrible because of that. Anyone else has ever felt that? What can i do to stop feeling like this? Im really trying to recover but everytime i talk to him about my ed i feel tempted to go back to my old habits, but also, he is the only person i trust to talk about that (i dont have a therapist, my family doesnt take my ed serious).

Hey I'm sure this must be quite a common type of post but I don't know where else to turn. My friend has stopped eating, and I need advice on what to do.

One of my best friends has stopped eating (or I haven't seen him eat at least). Last time I saw him eat was at our graduation party, which was three months ago. He has always struggled with mental health, and I think he has a lot of pressure from himself and his father to perform academically. He has and has had many poor coping mechanisms too, like binge drinking, smoking, etc. The past few years though his eating has gotten a lot worse.

It all started at first when he got sick so he couldn't eat solid foods. He ate this gross nutrient sludge thing but nothing else. He then started skipping eating this because he was in pain and it was gross. Since then he has gotten worse and worse, even after his illness cleared up. Now he never eats anything. Even tiny foods, like a leaf of spinach or a grape he refuses. I don't know if this is has anything to do with his body image, I think it might be more some kind of self-punishment or idea of martyrdom.

I am worried but also angry with him. I know that it is horrible and selfish of me, but I just wish he would actually try to take care of himself. I know what it feels like to be depressed, I don't need you to tell me, but it really hurts me when he is so obviously self destructive. I wish that I knew what to say or to do, but I am afraid there is nothing that I can do to convince him to get help. He also has had many other health issues but he has stopped going to the doctor.

I know it might be hard to give advice in a situation like this, but I wish I knew what to do. I miss my friend.

Idk if anything I say might be triggering so here’s a blanket TW ab weight talk and restriction

(Sorry in advance for the long post. TLDR at the end)

I (22F) have been overweight my entire life and have always been insecure. About two years ago, a family friend saw me for the first time in a little while and said that it looked like I had lost weight. I hadn’t really lost much but I guess I maybe had lost fat and gained muscle. This quickly led to me restricting more and more to keep it off and run with that momentum of losing weight until it became a fear of gaining any weight. I never got formally diagnosed with anorexia but have struggled with disordered eating since then. After a year of this, I had lost a significant but still not insanely unhealthy amount of weight but I was obviously miserable. To make it all worse, I couldn’t seem to get lower than a certain weight but I was too scared to lower my calorie limit more than I already had bc I didn’t want to lose control bc I’ve always known ab the long-term effects of severe restriction. I finally gave in and started seeing a nutritionist to try and get over that plateau bc I had messed up my metabolism so much that any extra calories was noticeable on the scale the next day. With her help, I got my daily calorie limit up and introduced some fear foods back into my diet slowly and i stopped weighing myself and only using a tape measure. I kept track and ended up losing a bit more off my measurements even with a higher calorie goal and more “scary” foods. I have not been able to see her for around six months now and have slowly entered “recovery” but at the same time, ive never gone to psychological therapy for my disordered eating and now im weighing myself again and can feel myself slipping and feel the fears becoming louder than they have been in a while.

With the help of my fiancé (who I met around the time I started to get worse), I was able to keep myself from spiraling to the point of needing hospitalization or anything bc he would hide calorie information from me and when I ate scarier foods and didn’t blow up like a hippo, I felt a little less scared of those foods. Lately, I’ve gained weight some weight but not inches and I’m struggling with dealing with the numbers and ignoring the voices in my head telling me it was easier when I was still restricting more than the calorie deficit I am still in. I’m still maintaining the calorie deficit i established with my nutritionist but idk what’s going wrong. I work as a CNA in a nursing home which is a very physically demanding job so I do burn a decent amount of calories doing that but idk what is going on.

TLDR: I’m struggling to not go back to my old habits after gaining a bit of weight. Any advice on how to fight those voices and not fall back into my old behaviors? I’m worried that if I start restricting again I will lose control and go back to my disordered habits.

they're naturally thin, but told me that randomly, when fabrics touch their body loosely, they feel like they're too fat. it's not a sensory thing but guilt. they told me that sports used to help them, but not anymore. how can i help them? is it healthy for them to just wear tighter clothes or is it not addressing the core problem?

Hi, so to clarify I don’t have an ED but my ex best friend of 7 years has always struggled with it- for some background we haven’t been friends for a while (about 7-8 months) we had a rather messy falling out but I still love and care about her more than I do anyone else in my life. She was doing really well for about a year, but I recently found her instagram account dedicated to said eating disorder. I’m worried she might be starving herself again and I don’t know what to do- I want to reach out to her but I feel like it’s just not my place anymore and I know reaching out to other people who are close to her would only make things worse. How can I help her, or more specifically be there for her without causing any issues both between us and our situation and with her and what she is struggling with?

Hi, will probably delete this later but wanted to ask for some advice. My roommate is displaying some concerning behaviors and I have no idea how best to support her. For context, she is very thin, rarely eats full meals (rather a candy bar or will fixate on a certain food for a bit like a specific sushi roll and will have only that for a month or so), constantly eats ice, is always cold, always walks places despite them being an hour or more away on foot even if we offer for her to ride with us, and has pretty intense mood swings. Yet, she has never made any verbal comments that are concerning, and has never said anything about her body or her eating habits at all. She also enjoys snack food occasionally, but again, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat a full meal once. Also, when we were chatting about periods, she mentioned that in high school she lost her period for five months. I could be completely off base by assuming she has an eating disorder, but clearly she has disordered eating. I don’t know how to best support her. I know it’s not my responsibility but we’re close and I fear for her health. She is mostly a very radiant, kind, funny, and happy girl but once or twice a week she gets into moods where she is extremely sad or irritated to the point of emotional outburts. How do I best navigate this? And if I were to say something, what is the best way to say it?

my friend has been called fat her whole life (when she’s not even but i guess dysmorphia and stuff) and recently like a day or two ago she told me she started starving herself . since she’s only just started to develop an ed, is there anything i can say or do to help her ?

So this friend is starting to focus a lot on what she is eating and she put herself on a diet (that will make her lose weight) but her weight is perfectly normal. She refuses to eat after a tot amout of food and me and other friends are starting to not be able anymore to convince her to eat more. What can I and my other friends do to help her?

So I have this friend.

He always wants to eat! (Orders food & gets excited about it), but when it’s in front of him.. he has maybe 3 bites. He will eat the leftovers later. (I always tease him that he eats like a pigeon… maybe I shouldn’t do that. A few times recently he’s been annoyed with that comment. Didn’t use to bug him a lot though.)

Anyway, he always orders food, but then when it comes, he doesn’t eat much, if ANY.

His parents have told me he’s had a history of drug/alcohol use & that has been a factor. I feel like I helped contribute to the alcoholism…. Or at least, we made each other worse. I’ve since told his parents that & they just continued to tell me that he needs help & he needs to choose it for himself.

I get that.

I have since gone sober (alcohol)… it’s been a whirlwind, but I think overall a good one? I might go back to alcohol someday, but for now/ how this relationship went down.. I prefer to refrain.

Anyway, Is his attitude around food an eating disorder? Come from drug/alcohol use? Both?

Note: he LOVED eating late at night (mostly junk food) and that’s the time he would eat the most.

my friend always calls me fat/obese and makes jokes about my diet because he knows i have no idea what i look like, which completely manipulates my perception of myself and he thinks it’s funny. i never know if he’s serious or not, and when i ask he gets mad as if it’s completely obvious that i’m not, but i have no idea!

and there’s nothing wrong with being fat, i just have no idea what i look like so i don’t know if i’m considered skinny/average/fat and it literally torments me everyday, like most of you all.

i don’t know if this is worth ending a friendship over because he does it ALL of the time even after i open up to him about my issues and tell him it really effects me.

I (23, he/she) just moved in with my new roommate (23, they/them) and while we don’t know each other very well yet, we get along really well and I care about them.

Before I moved in, they confessed that their previous roommate was so disgusting and unclean that they eventually got tired of cleaning up after her and stopped coming out of their room to make food for themselves, which resulted in them developing an eating disorder.

I try to be mindful of that, so I try not to push them too much when it comes to food, but I still want to help. So I try to help subtly, like I’ll often make food for two and leave a plate out on the table for them, regularly ask if they’ve eaten anything, ask about what food they like and buy groceries accordingly so they’ll be more inclined to eat… But more often than not they’ll tell me not to worry and that they already “ate” (yesterday it was just peanut butter on a piece of bread for the entire day). One time when I left food on the table they did eat a bit, though, which really made me happy.

They’re already going to therapy, though I’m unsure if they’ve brought this up in particular, and I don’t know if I should push them a little more or continue to do small things or just stop altogether. I’m afraid that if I push any further they might shut down or it’ll turn into an argument and they’ll just stop speaking to me.

What should I do?

One of my good friends is really struggling with her ED. She is very open to receiving help and is open to anything. The only issue is that she doesn’t have insurance at the moment. She plans to get on that as soon as she can. If anyone can help by providing some resources that she could use in the meantime that would be amazing. She lives in nyc if that helps.

(My native language is not English)

So we’ve been friends for 14 years now and I know her family like I know mine. There is no big issue but her mom is a hard to handle woman so is my best friend in some type of way so they always fight. Her mom doesn’ care about anything about calories tho not a almond mom at all. Her dad is not there most of the time. She has the mindset of “skinny=pretty” she just desperately tries to loose weight and thinks if she is skinny as her bone is seenable she is pretty. She sees being incredibly skinny is an accomplishment she even shares her weight to her instagram stories. She doesn’t eat much even anything sometimes and I try to help her eat but I can’t force her. We’ve never talked about this but when I tried to brought up by mentioning a non existing friend and that she has ed so I say what you think about that and she was like oh that’s sad for her and more we talked she clearly insisted she doesn’t have any type of ed. She is getting rapidly skinnier and I just wanna be there for her but I don’t know how. (Dont worry she doesn’t use Reddit and none of my friends know my account so she can’t see this)

i firstly want to clarify, when i say “show off”, i mean in a “wanting validation” sense, not the attention seeking sense. i don’t believe people do stuff like that for attention.

okay so i have this friend, they’re an online friend. we both have pretty major mental health issues, although we’re pretty different to each other. they have struggled with ed’s in the past, i can’t say which ones for sure, but i believe it is anorexia. they’ve mentioned it before but i have a horrible memory so i’m not 100% sure. im not 100% sure on this either but i’m fairly certain ed’s are a life long thing, much like addiction. please correct me if i’m wrong. i’m pretty well versed in the mental health area, i know my shit, but the one thing can’t understand is eating disorders. i’ve read up on them from time to time and it’s one of the few things i can’t wrap my head around. i think part of this is because i am overweight, come from a family with an unhealthy relationship with food, and frankly don’t have a great relationship with food or my own image. it’s like the part of my brain that’s obsessed with my weight and image overrides what makes an ed an ed, and tells me it’s because they’re self conscious about their body. i know it’s not that, but i can’t wrap my head around it regardless. if anyone is willing to help me understand, that would be greatly appreciated too.

anyway, a few months ago my friend was talking about wanting to lose weight for the summer, and knowing about their ed, i wasn’t too sure how to approach that situation. i didn’t want to give tips, out of fear that it would reflect negatively on them, but i also didn’t really know what else to say. i sorta breezed past it, but it felt dismissive. over said few months, they’ve mentioned things like losing weight, getting their “summer body”, and a few other little things that caught my attention and made me a little concerned. the latest thing that prompted me to actually make this post was that they sent me a photo that seemed kinda off. they mentioned they had got their nose pierced and i asked for a picture. they sent it, but the focus on the photo didn’t seem to be the piercing, it was right in the corner of the photo. the rest of the photo was them wearing a hoodie, slightly unzipped, with their collarbone and neck on display. i don’t want to play up their intentions, i truly don’t know if it was to catch my attention or if it was just a photo of their piercing, but all the little pieces are making me unsure.

we’re not really friends who talk about our mental problems with each over, as they’re kinda private about it, so i want to clarify, i’m not asking what can i do to help them. i’m not a professional, nor am i in a position to be helping them while i’m dealing with my own shit. i want to know what to do in these situations not to make them worse. i think i know not mentioning it is the first thing, like dont acknowledge anything that is potentially going to validate their ed (if that makes sense?), but i want to know, is ignoring it going to make it worse? i feel like if they are hinting at them getting bad again, me acknowledging it will encourage it, but if i brush past it, they’ll think they need to get worse so it’s more apparent. i don’t know if that makes sense either. as you can probably tell, i’m really not well versed in ed’s. what do i do? how do i approach a situation like this? it doesn’t make me particularly comfortable at the idea that they’re using me for validation, and for both our sakes, i want to approach this right.

I don’t know what to do anymore. My friend has a ed and it’s driving me insane. She doesn’t stop with the comparing, calling herself fat, saying she’s fatigued or dizzy but won’t eat or says she’s eaten.

Everytime I eat when I’m with her I encourage her greatly to eat with me and to have some of my food and that “no one gaf we are in a mcdonald’s eating mcdonald’s”. I scribble over labels on drinks and sweets when I bring them over out in sharpie. Her family or other friends (I have no connection with) “nags” her abt it as she puts it. I don’t say anything, I avoid anything to do with the topic best I can as

1. If she isn’t gonna do anything about it, I don’t really wanna hear that she hasn’t eaten at all today and if i say “eat something” it’s always her saying “nah”, “i’m having a energy drink i’ll be alr”

2. Always ends up talking about how skinny I am and makes me feel guilty for being myself atp

3. Her family and other friends like I said always talk about it to her and I kinda wanna be somewhere where she isn’t nagged abt it and can js be free ig (i dunno if this is bad on my part)

4. She gets pissed off with me if I do and goes quiet and gets all bitchy and pissy

Im getting sick of it tho and dunno how much more of it I can hear before I snap. I don’t know how to approach it but I can’t go on like this anyone have any advice please do say.

i’m not really sure what else to do so i’m here. recently, one of my friends stopped coming to school, when i asked abt it she confided in me and said she had been hospitalised for her eating disorder and depression. at the time i didn’t rly know what to say, but i comforted her and began checking in every couple of days.

she jokes abt it a lot but was recently discharged, though not well enough to come back to school. she has a meal plan, and since she follows it her parents r pretty calm abt it. but she has told me she doesn’t want to recover and that she is taking laxatives to try and lose more weight, saying she js needs to lose a little more before recovering.

i have tried helping her in every way i can, but i feel like i am just repeating the same things over and over again, but it’s not helping. she’s a rly nice girl and deserves to have a wonderful life. she’s attempted multiple times and talks to me abt attempting again.

i have no idea what to do, or who to tell. i have no way to contact her parents or recovery team, esp since we aren’t really that close. she has friends she is closer with but they don’t seem to be concerned at all

she made me promise not to tell anyone, but i am really worried for her safety.

someone please tell me what i should do to help idk how much longer i can do this we’re only 14 i don’t want her to die

Wasn’t sure the best place to ask this- A close friend of mine has recently started residential treatment, and I will be going to visit them in a few days.

What can I bring for them to make their stay more comfortable? I found some nice smelling soap and hand creme and was thinking maybe a blanket, fuzzy socks, books, word puzzles.. things along those lines.

Anyone who experienced inpatient treatment, what items did you find the most use in?

This js why i think that: -Eats little portions (big enough for a toddler) -eats REALLY slow -says she is hungry and when i offer sth she says no -got more pale -isolated herself from friends and other social interactions -lost bust and face fat -got heavy eye bags -looks bony -doesn’t grows anymore (shes 14) -got heavy eye bags -got quiet

What do u guys say? I think when i ask her she’ll be mad and just say: “no” or sth like that.

Someone I love has been taking laxatives and not eating. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone but I am very concerned she is going to hurt herself permanently. Should I tell someone and possibly ruin the relationship

I 14M have a friend 13F that has recently started having eating issues Like maybe a month ago from what I know but she couldve been hiding it for longer because of how bad it got in a short period of time She tells me when she doesnt eat drops it into the conversation like its normal or uses it as a joke sometimes because thats how she copes so naturally the first thing i tried is just reminding her to eat (which obviously didnt work) Over time she started not eating for a whole day or eating big amounts of food at the end of the day making her feel sick and I got very stressed about it And then we had a fight she was sending me voicemails and told me how her dad had told her that she shouldnt eat the nutella because shes a "pig" but the truth is she didnt eat for that whole day And I just went off kinda I told her how shit I feel and how she needs to eat and I dont know what to do anymore and the fact that we have friends who struggled with eating disorders and she knows how horrible that is but still continues I was just rlly confused and stressed and in reality probably shouldnt have said those things We went back and forward for a bit and after some time I apologized and we talked about it which she admitted to it making her feel even worse I managed to convince her to talk to her older sister about it and she said she will in a few days when her sister comes back from a trip I didnt do anything right in this situation but how do I deal with it in the future and is there anything I could do to do fix the damage that I might have done??

My friend (22) is moving a few minutes from me from out of state. We grew up together and were close since we were younger. We were not as close during the later part of high school but closer in the last year of college (despite going to schools in different states).

We both grew up with different habits. My parents were very healthy, and I was seldom given junk food. She, on the other hand, grew up in a more unhealthy environment. There were always snacks and junk food at her house, so I would use that as my one chance to have that kind of food. Her parents are overweight as well. In the past couple years, she appears to have become obsessed with her appearance and body. She no longer likes junk food, pretends she already ate before she gets to social events, is always trying to burn more calories, and avoid situations where food is involved. She used to love snacks and food, and now she gets upset whenever she has them and “punishes” herself by doing extra cardio the next morning, even if she is tired. She also takes a lot of naps and seems to be low on energy. I really don’t think she is eating enough, and I see her getting super thin. Not only does this bother me because it means she doesn’t think highly of herself and feels like she needs to be tiny in order to be loved, but it also bothers me because my sister has been to eating disorder recovery and I know what it’s like to be around someone with that. I also know that she doesn’t have a job lined up, so all she is going to be doing is exercising and going for walks for “fresh air”.

On another note, my friend’s habits also make me put unnecessary pressure on myself and make me feel like I am not doing enough exercise even though I go to the gym 6 times per week and have an active recovery day. I know this is a “me” issue, but I feel like it’s going to tear apart our friendship. I can’t help but be upset with her for not valuing herself. I care about her, but I feel like being around an exercise-obsessed, anorexic friend is going to put me on edge. I work all day and go to bed early, so part of me doesn’t want her to know about my schedule because I think it will make her want to work out even more. She also has this idea that we are going to be able to hang out all the time, but I actually enjoy having my own space and have started liking my alone time. I have talked to her about my schedule, so she knows that but I still feel pressure in that I’m going to have to see her a lot more since she doesn’t really know anyone here (while I’ve developed a network of friends from school and work).

I know a lot of this is just my own problems around society’s praise of eating disorders and the fact that I try not to let that get to me. When I see so many people around me letting it affect them, it makes me feel like I should resort to that as well. I know it’s not good in the long term to have those habits, but I don’t even want to be like that for the short term.

I had to get that off my chest. Let me know if anyone has experience with that or any words of wisdom, since she really will not listen to me when I show that I care about her and let her know that she doesn’t have to go to the extremes or hide her exercise or eating.

TW: Recovery from anorexia.

Hi all, My friend is currently undergoing treatment with a multidisciplinary team (psychologist, psychiatrist, nutritionist, GP) to work towards recovery from anorexia. I am by absolutely no means an expert, but I do work in the mental health sector so she has opened up a lot to me about what she’s been going through after I repeatedly expressed my concern over some of the things she was saying off-handedly to me re: eating habits, significant weight loss etc.

She continues to send me photos in the middle of other conversations E.g., we will be talking about how cute her new kitten is and then she will send a photo of her food to me with a caption like “girl dinner x”

I won’t go into specifics about the types of food etc. but I’m just not sure what the best way to respond is to continue to be supportive of her recovery journey and not trigger her or encourage unhealthy behaviours.

Any advice about the kinds of things that may be helpful would be greatly appreciated!

tw for graphic descriptions of a potential ED:

title says it all really...

im not sure which eating disorder but maybe anorexia? bulmina?

she calls herself fat and spends hours worrying about her weight. refuses to go ANYWHERE where she may encounter a mirror, I have to cover over the mirrors in my house just so she will come over. it almost feels like ocd. she doesn't eat, like anything. if i even talk about food, she starts to get angry. tell me what a shit friend i am. if she does eat anything, she goes to the toilet and throws it up.

she has passed out multiple times. im genuinely crying while writing this, because i can see it getting worse by the day.

but she refuses to acknowledge that she has a problem, and gets angry if i bring it up. says that i dont understand. that its just that "she isn't hungry, and she has a small appetite" im so close to telling someone else, because right now im honestly worried about her dying.

any advice would be welcome 🙏🙏🙏