My best friend seems like she's pretending to have an eating disorder to try to get me to stop using behaviors

The thing I've found, with other people, even with therapists sometimes, is that they launch into supporting us with the belief that one day it will be cured. Over, done with, and never a problem again. I've been ED'ed damn near my whole life and you and I are the same age. It is never not going to be a problem. I'm just not gonna wake up one morning, cured enough to never relapse again, and I've accepted that.

The people around us don't often accept that. So they're still listening and being patient expecting that someday their support will lead to a permanent happy ending and never another go-round. Which means that over time they get jaded and a little burnt-out. Dude, I am also jaded and a little burnt-out, especially when in the middle of something particularly shitty where I once again need the support of people who have been my rare forms of support before. But they aren't me, and they don't quite get it, and so they get impatient and frustrated and sad when all they see is "shit, it didn't work, HERE WE GO AGAIN".

What your friend is doing is desperation. She's looking back on everything which in her mind "failed" in the past, because it didn't result in a permanent cure. So she's trying something new. It's an awful attempt on her part and it's only gonna make you feel worse, less understood, less supported, and more responsible for her shit while you're already trying to cope with your own shit. Her attempt is a bad one, a bad concept, and it won't work to cure you either. She's fed up (no pun intended) and exhausted and worried and she doesn't understand that for you there isn't ever going to be a neat wrapup cure. She's trying, desperately and perhaps subconsciously, to make it so that you never bring up ED stuff with her again. So she can finally believe her support has led to that mythical permanent cure.

Hang in there. It's rough, I wish that this had all been cured way back in the beginning for me when statistically I still had a chance of moving on and never falling back. It wasn't, I don't, and it blows for both me and for everyone else who wishes the same freaking thing.

/r/fuckeatingdisorders Thread