When you love someone struggling with an eating disorder, it can be difficult to understand what is and is NOT okay to say them. People struggling with eating disorders are quite used to having people say insensitive, uneducated things about eating disorders but it can be especially damaging to have a loved one say hurtful things. Often times people have great intentions but they just aren't aware that what they're saying isn't appropriate or helpful. So, with the help of my treatment family, I have compiled a list of things you should never say to someone struggling with an eating disorder.
1. "Why don't you just eat?"
Having an eating disorder is NOT as simple as "just eating." If it was, nobody would be struggling with it. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses and requires extensive therapy and tons of hard work to overcome.
2. "You look so much better/healthier!"
Words cannot even begin to explain how hurtful this can be to someone recovering from an eating disorder and going through the weight restoration process. Body comments, in general, should just be avoided. Period.
3. "Do you think you're fat?"
Not only is this incredibly rude and insensitive, but it also enforces the stigma that eating disorders are just about feeling fat when in reality, it is so much more than that and it's different for everyone.
4. "Your eating disorder is hard for me too!"
Yes, we are well aware that we are not the only ones affected by our disorder but I assure you that no one is hurt more by it than we are. And to hear people tell us that we are hurting them by having a disease that is beyond our control only increases our sense of guilt and shame and can result in us becoming further entrenched in our eating disorder.
5. Any kind of diet/weight loss talk.
No, we don't want to hear about your diet, we don't want to hear about how much weight you have gained or lost. We don't want to hear you talk about "good foods" and "bad foods" and how you cheated on your diet because you ate a cookie. We don't want to hear that you feel fat because you had dessert. Oh yeah, and don't even THINK about asking us for diet tips. Trifflin'.
6. "Are you better yet?"
Recovery isn't quantifiable or even linear and I will almost never know how to answer that question for you. It also causes a lot of anxiety because we feel pressured to get better and we'll usually lie to you and say "Yeah!" because we don't want you to be disappointed in us or get mad at us.
7. "You don't look like you have an eating disorder."
Okay, first of all, eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes. Second, as someone struggling with an eating disorder, hearing this is incredibly invalidating and hurtful. The disordered voice in our head takes that and uses it as ammunition to push us further into our disorder until we finally feel "sick enough" or "skinny enough". But the thing is, with an eating disorder there is no such thing as "sick enough" or "skinny enough" until it kills you.
8. "You should try yoga/meditating."
Hearing this can be quite belittling because it makes us feel like you don't take our disorder seriously and see it as something that can be easily fixed by just taking some deep breaths and relaxing. Eating disorders are deadly illnesses and deserve to be treated as such.
9. "What was your lowest weight?"
If you have ever asked an eating disorder sufferer this, I don't even want to know the kind of sick, twisted sense of curiosity you must possess. This question has literally brought me instantly to tears before. Weight is an extremely sensitive subject for us and it is highly triggering to have people ask about how much we weighed at our sickest. Bringing up those memories is incredibly painful and makes it hard to move forward because it makes us long to go backward.
10. Saying "good job" after we eat a meal.
Yikes. If you've ever said this, congratulations on making that person extremely uncomfortable. Hearing that can make us feel like we've eaten too much or make us feel weird. The best thing to do when eating with someone who has an eating disorder is just avoid all mentions of it because we just want to feel normal.
