Been thinking a lot about this.

What are people's ideas of what helps if a person is obsessed and damaging themselves but are unwilling to address it as a problem.
One specific question that I have is, was anyone confronted by others about their eating disorders in a way that turned out to be constructive?
I was caught redhanded purging as a kid and that just felt like that- being caught. I smiled and nodded and the tension went away when the eating disorder got hidden better. And, it did help me to have others tell me that I was not fixing it on my own and I needed to accept treatment. But that was much later, I had already sought recovery, I just needed to be pushed to accept more help. What I mean is, I didn't get ever confronted in a way that broke through my denial. I had to realise myself that I was ruining my life by being eating disordered, that I had destroyed everything and nothing would get better until I stopped. I remember the day I realised that for the first time.

How can confronting someone help? What are your thoughts? How do we help someone who believes they cannot change or don't want to?


Nobody's gonna tear down their paradigm and suffer through recovery unless it's worth it to them, unless they are suffering, or unless they're afraid. This is as much as I have got worked out. That said, while we all know you can't recover for anybody else... well, in my opinion you CAN start. Probably a lot of us did.
So I guess the focuses that make sense to me are emphasising the ways in which it isn't making them happy, if there are any that can be pointed to... and maybe the ways in which it holds them back from or risks damage to their relationships...?

What are your ideas or perspectives?

I rather wish my parents had done something. they knew I was majorly abusing laxatives... and I remember calling them once in college (it took a week to work up the nerve to do that) and told them I thought I was killing myself... I laid it out to them EVERYTHING I was doing... and they still did nothing.

I had a teacher that kept threatening to get my parents involved.. blah blah blah... and I started talking about it more, because there were a few points where I wanted that... but then she didn't and I manipulated it in my head to mean that I wasn't sick enough to need intervention that I was fine trucking along the way that I was.

I think it's interesting to consider what confronting means...

These are the times where being "confronted" worked with me although none of them have been to do with my ED...

My mum got me to stop self harming by throwing an absolute fit at me.. screaming and yelling at me and literally dragging me around the house by my arm which was considerably painful given my SI and finding everything sharp and throwing it in a binbag all the while telling me how I was ruining everyone else's lives and causing so much damage to the rest of the family and how she was sick of this "softly softly" approach.... this concluded in me being sat on the bathroom floor sobbing while she threw disposable razors at me.....

It is one of my most traumatic memories but it worked... I quit that day for several years....

After I ran away with my ex and my mum brought me back.. I had my mobile phone removed from me, all internet access removed and wasn't allowed out of my mothers sight.. she would start work two hours before me and she would lock me in the car for those two hours.... I was also continually told how much I'd destroyed and hurt my family and broken any and all trust...

Again it worked...


I guess these are more "interventions" than confronting someone in a way that makes them see the damage they are causing to themselves.

Confrontations about my ED have never been successful.. I've always had to be the one to say "I need help" first and most confrontation suggesting I am doing something wrong when I don't believe I am is met with denial and annoyance from me....

I guess I need to be told about my impact on others because then it does get through to me....

(I am realising this is a public forum so may remove this post at a later date but I thought I'd share it)

I have a lot of thoughts on this, so I might come back.
I think one of the things that can be said to the restricters/purgers who are at a low weight, or just don't look healthy (poor skin color, and we just all know that look of malnutrition) and telling them they look "sick." Not too thin, or too skinny, or anything else. But sick. Or to actually make them see what they are doing, saying you do this, and it is doing this to you.
I don't know. Like I said, I will probably come back when I have thoughts this out a bit more.

I think confrontation is different than intervention... I think one is done more from the helping side versus the angry side. Not sure if that makes sense...

Thanks so much for this Rache.

My problem is that I was never in denial. I was always aware of what I was doing, and I always knew I was unhappy and wanted help, although I used to hate it when my parents would try and talk to me about it.

So because I was never in denial, I don't understand people who are. I don't understand how you can not see it. When I was sick I was so desperately unhappy and physically tired, it was obvious to me that I was sick. I don't understand how other people are able to block that out.



This is really interesting, I'd never thought about this before, thanks! You're absolutely right. I used to love being told I was too thin, if anything it drove me to lose more weight. But being told you look sick, that's different.

Telling of the impact what they're doing has on others is interesting too. With regards to the situation I'm in now..... (also aware this forum is public, trying to think of how to word this!).... if I try to tell of the impact her eating disorder is having on myself, or my mum, I get told I'm jealous. Which hurts a lot because yeah ok, the eating disorder in me is jealous. Reminds me that there is always a part of me that will be sick. But it's not just that. And it sends me a thousand other messages too, like "You're jealous of me because you're fat and I'm not". Which makes me assume she looks down on me, thinks she is stronger than me..... and then I don't want to help because that has made me angry. I don't now how to deal with that.

Argh. I don't know.

I've always been aware that my eating patterns are not 'normal' or 'healthy' throughout my time with an eating disorder. I have always known that restriction and over exercise aren't doing me any favours, but because I have never been confronted by my family about it, because so many friends fail to say anything, and because the NHS system is skewed to only being able to treat the worst case scenarios, I have convinced myself that I 'do not have a real problem' and that my eating disorder is 'not bad enough', that I am not a 'proper anorexic' whatever the hell that might happen to be! So my denial has taken a strange form. Internally I am torn between knowing that things are not right, yet convincing myself that I'm just making it up and that it's all a figment of my imagination and that I'm just self obsessed and making up illnesses that I don't really have. Madness.


Things that work for me:

The focus not being on my size. Being told how 'tiny' or 'skinny' I am (words which the sick part of me clings to) only pushes me to want to be thinner, to be 'better'. I dislike being told that I look ill though. A few months ago after I'd reached the bottom (emotionally) of what has been a particularly tough relapse I was told in no fluffed up terms that I looked like crap, that I looked ill, and asked if there was any particular reason why that was so. That hit home. I don't like being told that I look ill. I can't ignore that message whereas my twisted mind can ignore being told that I look like I've lost weight. It made me requestion what I do and seek to turn my habits around (yet again).

I was told this by somebody at work. I value his opinion because he has also experienced similar things, and gets it in a way in which somebody who has never been through eating disorder hell, no matter how hard they try, will never be able to understand.

Being told that most people turn a blind eye because they find it uncomfortable and they don't know what to say, but that I hadn't fooled anyone and that people at work were aware of what was going on made me really uncomfortable. But it's what I needed. I want to be seen as more than the sick girl with anorexia. I don't want to be defined by it.

I also find the (indirect) confrontation of being mistaken for a child uncomfortable to deal with. I am in my mid twenties, married, and I'm trying to work towards building a career for myself. Yet when I go for interviews for work, the people I want to speak to do a double take and think that I am only 16. The sicker I get, the more this happens. It makes me think twice about what I'm doing, in a way that a simple "you've lost weight and you are too small" could never do.

I was maaaajorly in denial. It sounds so stupid, but for years I -wanted- to be anorexic. *shudder* I consider myself fucked up as of that moment. It started with dieting with a friend at school, then a break from that when I made a new best friend, then as we grew apart it went downhill. I tried restricting but would only go a few days. Had a break up and used that as an excuse to not eat.
My now boyfriend who stuck by me as a friend when all my other friends left me noticed it and used to worry so much, but I always brushed it off. I even said to him "Look, you can worry if I collapse, okay?" He got a phonecall from me a couple of months down the line saying "..Yeaah, you can worry now.." But I still refused to believe I was doing anything wrong. My mum kept bugging me about it, but I brushed her off, too. She made an appointment with our GP which I was nervous about, but believed I had nothing to hide so went anyway. He referred me to a specialist and when my second referral didn't get lost in the post I saw someone who I admitted everything to, almost proudly, because I still thought I was doing amazing. I went to my friend's party the day after that, we stopped talking afterwards, he sent me a text ending in "I don't see the point in caring about someone who doesn't care about themselves." I think he was just too scared to see me get worse.

Thankfully, I only brushed with being sent to IP, I really didn't want to miss college so we set up a deal that I could go to college if I'd eaten what I was supposed to the day before. Gradually, I started turning back into Lisa and when I moved to uni (funnily enough, my original reason being so I could get rid of everyone) I started seeking support myself (hence joining here! ;D) and now take a lot more responsibility. As we all know, it takes longer for the brain to catch up with the body, I think my delusions would have only carried on if mum hadn't taken control and done everything for me. Left work, prepared every meal, sat with me, took me out, arranged all my appointments. With her taking that stand, I wouldn't be where I am now.

i wasnt confronted about my ED, but i was about my drinking. my (now) husband was so desperate and distraught that he was going to leave me over my drinking... that was a big wake up, and then my work (police) got on my case about my behaviour and sent me to staff welfare who sent me to counselling and my counsellor threatened to section me to hospital for alcoholism. that was the intervention/confrontation that saved me. i refused to go to hospital and asked for a week to prove i could quit and i did. with the ED i guess i was so desperate to have it recognised that i asked for help. people would comment on my weight loss, because i had gone from a higher weight to a low but healthy weight and fast, so people were concerned about the speed but impressed and complementary, whereas inside i was screaming out for someone to help me stop the craziness. in the end it was me asking for help

I just wanted to pick on the telling people they look ill...

I know it's no secret that this is one my pet hates since I've ranted about it enough...

I get told I look ill and terrible and like crap a lot and I absoloutely despise hearing it... it's slightly different for me I guess because I never look well because I am so naturally pale. I have never looked "well" my whole life.

I guess... it all depends on the circumstances... I think as much as I hate it sometimes it's helpful to me when people do just sort of stop me in my tracks and say "You look so incredibly tired and ill" and recently I have realised I am looking ill even for me right now and that is helpful..
I guess the key thing though is not to be constantly telling someone. Rebutting someone saying they think they look amazing with "No you don't. You look ill" is a good thing I think and also telling someone in a concerned manner they look ill every now and then is also important I think... I just think it's important not to be saying it too often and also to balance it with compliments about other things as well and not everytime you make a comment on their appearance it be to tell them they look ill (as this is what I did get with a lot of people until I flew off the handle yelling at them about how rude I found it which is a similar rant I will be having with my therapist if she tells me I look ill again when I next see her)...

It's difficult because people do it automatically and I think it's built into us almost as a reflex to let someone know they are looking ill so that the person can do something about it.. it's just when it's a constant reminder that it's a problem but this is also the difference between someone who thinks they look brilliant when they look like they're dying and someone who knows they look ill and is ashamed of it...
There's no point in repeatedly telling someone something they already know I think is my point although of course it's fine to agree with someone too...

I suppose.. it's about working out what is normal for them and seeing if they look ill for them...

Aha mini ramble and I'm not even sure what my point is.. I think I have issues with this more than I realised

And ironically maybe my touchiness about this is a sign this actually is a good approach for getting someone in denial to see what they're doing to themseleves as it's not something you can shrug off or put down to jealously as no one wants to look ill or like crap etc but people with EDs especially do want to look thin or like they're losing weight or like they're fragile etc.... so that does tend to be reinforcing.

Butterfly (I'm not using your real name since this section is public and I'm not sure how you feel about your name being out there), I hear you. I get what you're saying about looking out for what is normal for the individual.

I'm pale too. Always have been. But I can look healthy and still be this pale. When I'm really sick, my skin looks grey and I look exhausted. Dark circles under my eyes, washed out appearance, staring into space and unable to focus. There's no two ways about it: I look dreadful. I find it useful to have it confirmed that I look like crap, even though it is upsetting, because it reassures me that all is not well and that I need to EAT dammit, and I need to SLEEP because I am HUMAN and not a photosynthesising caffeine fuelled robot. Which the anorexia would have me believe! haha

For me, normal and healthy equates to still being very fair, but having a little bit of colour in my cheeks, not being gaunt, and having a bit of life behind my eyes. People who tell you that you look ill when you are actually doing well and eating well but are just pale - well yeah that is frustrating. It's annoying that so much emphasis is placed upon having a tan. Try to just calmly say to them that you are actually just a pale person, that you appreciate their concern, but that you are eating and sleeping well and actually feel pretty good, that this is just your normal. That is, if that is the case, if you can hand on heart say that you are doing well at the moment when they ask you or comment on your appearance.

Big it up for the pale people I'm pale too, and have inherited my mum's black circles under her eyes. And that's even when I'm healthy and not tired.

Me too.

Thankyou for starting this Rache! The comments have all given me a bit of a better idea of how to challenge my friend a bit better now.
I think that remarks from parents or friends about my appearance did always have quite a big impact on me - it helped to shake me out of my little bubble a bit, and to throw some light on the actual effects of what I was doing. I don't think they were helpful in terms of my immediate reaction (comments about weight or appearance often 'rocked the boat' by triggering an anxious binge, followed by guilt and a desire to compensate) but this gradually built up to provide another motivation to recover. But recieving such comments wasn't fun before that.
For the time that I was fully in denial, they never made much difference because I simply thought I was right. Other people, with their excessive and unlikeable eating habits, were wrong, because I was doing fine. At that point, it didn't make an impact because I would not have accepted that they had a point.

Just to throw this out into the mix, does anyone have any experience/ideas on challenging someone on points other than their physical appearance?

on the topic of pale...

in summer i go super tan (Alexandra you'd have seen that last year haha) but then in winter i go super pale. always have, even as a kid. so when it is winter time people think im anemic and losing weight and looking like 'shit' and sick and all this, when really regardless of my actual health, i go just go really pale in winter. it is probably such a big contrast to how much i tan in summer! then in summer, even if im doing poorly health wise, its more hidden because i have a glowing tan