Blog #12
What should a woman do if she has a friend whom she suspects to have an eating disorder? What if the friend denies it?
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”
Knowing if someone has this disorder is really tricky because first off my friend in my younger days hid it pretty well. The real trick finding out was when she came in to see my Dentist that I was working for at the time! From an outward appearance she was just very thin; however, when he examine her oral cavity she had erosion of the enamel surface of all her chewing surfaces of her teeth. She claimed that it was because she use to suck on lots of lemons, but my employer said these were the signs of vomiting over and over, and the stomach acid had eaten away and pitted the enamel off her teeth.
Eventually, I did confront her but she denied it! I let her explain her rationale, but I told her what my Dentist told me and she finally admitted it. She said she had been like this for many years and said she was fine. My personal opinion is you can suggest they go get help and leave them information or give them some phones numbers. You can’t do much other than suggest!
My girl friend is still around and she has other problems now, but she is still very skinny and she can't seem to ever gain weight!
4 comments:
I would break my heart if my friend denied my help. I would do what you did and try to help her as much as possible. You are so right bout them being very defensive and closed off. I also love the quote that you said and how we can not make them better. They are going to have to come to that decision on their own.
Hi Kathleen,
You have a good point! You can inform them of the risks and consequences but whether they do try to get help or not is mainly up to them. They'll eventually come to reasoning when something awful happens in their life but until then, they will probably continue their destructive life-cycle patterns. I hope your friend would get therapy soon before its too late. The best thing to do would just be to continually keep in touch with her. That way she knows she can count on you if she ever decides to get treatment.
Good for you to confront her! You finally got her to admit to the eating disorder and maybe in time that will be a step that will help her. She did at that moment face it.
I know it is frustrating to see a destructive behavior hurting a friend and feeling helpless to help her. I think your confrontation my be all you could have done, the next step is for her to take.
Lisa
To All Who Posted,
Thank you for all you thought's! She was a very special friend indeed! She now is better, but now smokes pot, and is doing better on the eating disorder, but she just traded an addiction for another. She is my BBF! Sad but I love her unconditionaly.
Post a Comment