In late November this year I am presenting at a hypnotherapy conference on the practical use of clinical hypnotherapy as a tool to facilitate people to recover from eating disorders.
Last week during a group supervision call I asked the group if there were anything they would like to know about eating disorders and eating disorder treatment that they felt would be valuable for me to include in the presentation.
I always want to make my presentations, blogs and the information I share relevant, insightful, valuable and most of all useable.
One of the ladies attending shared that just a week ago her sister had passed away from an eating disorder.
Her questions were “how do you start a conversation with someone living with an eating disorder?” How do you address the elephant in the room? How do you get them to do something about it?
To be honest it was a hard story to hear, and my heart went out to this woman evidently wondering if she could have done more to help or if she could have changed things for her sister.
My heart went out to the rest of her family and the others her sister left behind who cared about her.
My heart went out to the sister so desperately lost and consumed by an illness that it claimed her life.
My heart goes out to everyone who has lost a battle with an eating disorder.
My heart goes out to everyone who has lost someone they love to a battle with an eating disorder.
It shouldn’t be this way.
No one should have to experience either side of this story.
What Do I Say? How Can I Help? Should I Say Anything? Do They Want My Help? Can I Even Help?…
I think many people if not everyone who’s ever loved someone living with an eating disorder find themselves in a space of asking themselves variations of these questions at some point.
Witnessing someone close to you struggling beyond belief with food and feeling utterly lost as to how to help them is terrifying, frustrating, exhausting, heartbreaking and a whole lexicon of other painful and unfair feelings.
Unfortunately, because of the stigma, shame and misunderstanding around eating disorders the help people do end up attempting to offer can often end up coming across as blameful or an attack and therefore in many cases end up being far from helpful and even at times harmful.
Which is a hard pill to swallow when your intentions were positive.
It is for this reason – that broaching the elephant in the room or bringing up the eating disorder in a productive way is often such a touchy subject – that the remainder of this blog is dedicated to the realities of initiating this conversation.
I am going to offer suggestions as to what I think are some of the most powerful and meaningful ways you can help someone living with an eating disorder if you think it’s your place to initiate that conversation.
But before we get to this I am first going start by including some points and perspective on the reality of what can be achieved or rather offered in that initial conversation and what cannot be achieved or what cannot be guaranteed because I want you to understand that even if you do broach the topic in the most perfect and recommended way possible you are still not responsible for their recovery.
They still may not recover.
What You Can’t Do
It’s not your role to wake them up to the fact they have an eating disorder/disordered eating/are doing some weird coping thing with food.
They know.
Believe me, they know.
If someone bringing up their concern was all it took to heal from an eating disorder many people would have healed 100x over.
If knowing you have a problem with food was all it took to heal from an eating disorder people would recover very quickly and certainly no one would die of an eating disorder.
Therefore, be realistic about your intention for the conversation.
Is it to point out something you think they don’t know?
Is it in the hope that “waking them up” or making them aware of the problem is all they need to change?
I truly encourage you to ask yourself “will my bringing this up with them help them?” “Do I have the time?” “Do I have the genuine curiosity and interested to listen to their story in a non-judgemental way?”, “Do I have the time and the capacity?”…
Most importantly “If I bring this up do I have something to offer them?” (and I really do mean OFFER, not force upon or come in thinking I have the answer to their problem if only they’d listen).
This one is important because yes, you can bring up that you are concerned about them but what then?…
If you have nothing to offer, and what I mean by this is suggestions of where to go for help in recovery, financial help to pay for treatment etcetera, it might be worth reassessing if it is indeed in their favour to bring the topic up.
Are they going to feel attacked?
Are they going to feel like you’re pointing out their “failings” or blaming them?
Is the whole experience going to end up leaving them feeling more ashamed, stranded and alone?…
Of course, the obvious thing you can offer if you haven’t yet got your head around treatment is your support, your love, your empathy, your ability to listen and care but don’t confuse this with what they need to recover.
Do not underestimate the value of being a curious and non-judgemental support to listen and be open to their story without trying to fix.
Because what you can’t do is fix them.
What you can’t do is make them change.
What you can’t do is change things for them.
What you can’t do is do the hard work for them.
What you can’t do is takeaway that it is hard work.
What you can’t do is convince them they should change.
What you can’t do is guilt them into recovery and health.
What You Can Do
What you can do is think about your intentions behind bringing up your concerns.
What you can do is let them know you are concerned.
What you can ask is if they would like to share with you what is going on for them?
What you can ask is if feel they need help.
What you can ask is what help they feel they need.
What you can ask is if they feel they know where to get the help they need.
What you can ask is if they feel they need your help to do this.
Most, most, most importantly, beyond initiating any conversation you can do your own work.
You can do your own inner work to overcome beliefs, your own diet culture influences or internalised fat phobia you may or may not even be aware that you have.
Because the most meaningful thing you can do is be.
Be the example of what’s possible.
This is more powerful than anything you could ever say or recommend because beyond coming at the conversation with good intentions, curiosity and genuine openness to their experience it really doesn’t matter what you say or recommend.
If you don’t believe it, live it or apply it to your own life it’s lip service.
It’s hypocritical.
The incongruency between what you are promoting and what you are living is what will be more powerful than your well-meaning words of support or advice.
The truth always shines through (even when you don’t think it does).
Your love, support and kindness toward them mean little if that love, support and kindness isn’t applied to yourself.
It may be hard to believe, you may not want to believe it because you may see yourself as a kind person, but it is true.
I truly believe through being what’s possible and therefore giving others permission to simply exist in their bodies we will change the future of eating disorders.
Summary
Their healing isn’t found in you starting a conversation with them.
It’s not in your “making” them realise they have a “problem”.
It’s not in your forcing, guilting or bribing them to change.
It’s not even in your kindness or your care.
It’s in your consistency, your steadfastness and most importantly your own healdness.
The most important thing you can do for anyone living with an eating disorder or at risk of developing an eating disorder is be the example of what’s possible.
Not be the example because you’re trying to influence them or their life but be the example because you’ve done the work and that’s who and how you are.
Be what’s possible.
The best thing you can ever do to reduce the likelihood of people developing eating disorder and improve peoples chances of recovering from an eating disorder is be an authentic and genuine example of what’s possible.
The other phenomenally powerful thing you can do outside of this is help them access treatment that is going to help them.
Their eating disorder isn’t for you to fix.
It’s not your responsibility.
In fact, it’s not about you or what you feel is best for them at all.
You can help by helping them access treatment or fund treatment and resources that they might otherwise have too low self-worth or insufficient funds to access but you cannot do the work for them.
No matter how much you love them and how much you want them to recover this is their journey.
It is only through their own empowerment they will reach full recovery and a life beyond the eating disorder because this is what it means to fully recover to become empowered.
To step into the driver’s seat of your own mind and life.
That is the challenge of recovery.
To become your own person.
Even after all the messed-up things that have happened to you.
Even when life will not be perfect in the years you get to live on the other side of an eating disorder.
Even when the world is full of unfair and impossibly hard things.
To give yourself permission to be you despite it all.
To give yourself permission to be an incredible and spectacularly fallible human being.
After all anyone who has ever recovered from an eating disorder, and there are a lot of us despite how many times you may have been told it’s an illness you’ll have to “manage” it for the rest of your life, will tell you that recovery is about so much more than just no longer doing an eating disorder.
It is the chance to become you.
With my whole heart I hope you found this information useful and inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
