What My Loved Ones Need to Understand

To Those I Love,

         There are things I need you to understand.  There are things about this eating disorder that don't make any sense.  There are things I cannot control.  I need you to listen.  I need you to understand.

         I need you to understand that I am terrified.  Even though I may admit to needing help or say I am sick of being sick, the prospect of losing the eating disorder is frightening.  My eating disorder gives me security and control in a world that is anything but safe and predictable.  Logically, I know that ED is killing me, and I know starving myself, purging, bingeing, etc… is not normal, but emotionally the world of the eating disorder makes so much more sense.  Losing this comfort feels wrong, like I’m being asked to dive from a cliff to my death.  Please understand that because of this, I may become ambivalent about, or even opposed to, recovery.  After all, my most “effective” coping mechanism is being stripped from me.

         I need you to understand that it’s not about food.  Abusing food is simply a symptom of a greater emotional distress.  I cannot articulate why I do what I do—I just know that when I restrict, binge, or purge, the storm within me subsides.  Facing food—eating it and keeping it in—means that I must face a tempest raging with all-consuming violence.  At each meal, with each bite, I relive this experience.

         I need you to understand that I am not my eating disorder.  With each step closer to recovery, ED barrages me with verbal assaults, trying to convince me that I am unlovable, unworthy, and undeserving so ED can survive.  The noise in my head is deafening, and sometimes, oftentimes, I believe what ED tells me.  So, I will fight with anyone who tries to keep me on the path to recovery.  I will say nasty things, I will lie, and I will manipulate, but understand that this is the eating disorder, not me, lashing out.  See past my behavior as challenging as that may be.  Remind me that I’m still in there.  Remind me that I’m not the eating disorder, that the voices in my head are manifestations of my illness.

         I need you to understand that I didn’t choose this path.  No one chooses an eating disorder.  I can’t turn it off.  An eating disorder is a biologically-based mental illness, not a cry for attention, not a stage that I’ll outgrow, not extreme vanity, not a tantrum, not a choice.  Don’t blame me, nor shame me, for this “choice” I never made.

         I need you to understand that making comments about how I look, how others look, how so-and-so is losing weight, how much I have to eat, etc… fuels the voices in my head.  Hearing about diets, clothing sizes, love handles, numbers, pretty or ugly faces, etc… will be heard and translated through ED’s lens.  Even though, with best intentions, you may tell me how healthy I look, all I will hear is “you’re fat.”  Even though you do not mean to hurt me when you talk about Weight Watchers Points, or how Aunt Janey looks like she gained a lot of weight, all I will hear is that how I look, how skinny I’m not, is what matters.   Even though you would never intend to trigger fear within me, when you point out how much I have to eat or comment on what I eat, ED tells me is that I shouldn’t eat at all.

         Most importantly, I need you to understand that no matter how hard I try to push you away, no matter how much I isolate myself, I truly need you not to leave me alone.  The harder I push you away, the harder I need you to pull me closer.  I’m not pushing you away, the eating disorder is.  If ED can get us apart, ED can grow stronger.  Don’t let him win.  Hold me close despite myself.

         Loved one, I know you want to help me.  I know that this eating disorder exhausts you and brings you to your breaking point.  ED makes you feel helpless, leaves you feeling scared.  If you are feeling this way, imagine how I must feel, in a continuous, never-ending battle.  ED prevents me from loving myself, ED stops me from reaching out for help, ED keeps me in fear and despair.  Deep, deep down inside I want to live again, and though I would never say this aloud, I need you.  I need you.

                  Love,

                  the one you love