- seeing friends actively embrace nontraditional physical types of beauty. As I get older, more of my friends got heavier, and when they can be positive about their bodies, and about other folks’ bodies that aren’t the ThinTallBlondeBeautiful type, it’s helpful.
- having a space where I can be messily emotional. Living in an apartment SUCKS for this, because I hate the feeling that people will hear me. Driving in a car and screaming, ranting, crying, whooping, etc. has often helped.

Things that haven’t helped:
- talking to me about my weight, in any way. It’s not your body, and I didn’t ask for your opinion. Leave it the fuck alone. If you want to ask how *I* am, and see whether there’s something awry emotionally, ask about that. But do NOT comment on my weight, gains, losses or anything else.

- hearing friends obsess about calories, talk at length about fat grams, etc. Even if it’s all about your own situation, and not a comment on me, it’s really hard for me to hear you talk about these things. (Of course, I want to be there for these friends around *their* issues with food, but even though I try to be understanding about this one, I know that it takes a toll on me.)

- hearing friends talk about their bodies or their eating negatively. Again, I want them to be able to talk to me about the stresses they’re going through, but from a purely personal standpoint, it takes a toll on me to hear these things. I don’t talk to my friends about the depth of my issues with food, so they’re unlikely to know what I’m experiencing when this happens. They’re just doing the normal girl talk thing.

Does telling someone who is recovering from one that they “look good” translate badly also? I’m not being snarky — I’d really like to know. I don’t *think* I know anyone with an active eating disorder, but I do dance, and come into contact with a LOT of women in my business with whom I end up working closely, and statistically, I’ll be close with someone at some point who has struggled with ED issues. I’d like to be supportive without running the risk of triggering things.

car:
The only reason I can think of that people around you didn’t mention your weight gain is because it’s considered socially unacceptable to comment on weight gain in most places. By most polite people. There are always exceptions, and they often cause a lot of pain, so most normally sensitive people try to not be like that. But yeah, I can see where someone mentioning that they noticed your (rapid?) weight gain, and is there something you’d like to talk about would have been helpful. I guess a question is would you have felt it to be helpful at the time, or is that hindsight?

if you live with someone with an ED, or have one yourself, throw out the scale! i haven’t had one in my house since i started my recovery and it’s been really helpful.

Any mention of diets.

Anyone else talking about how they needed to lose weight, or were losing weight, or how “someone” could lose weight.

Any discussion of food, period. I was, and am still, extremely sensitive about food, and probably do know more about calories and nutrition and ecological impacts and heath impacts and everything else about food than the people I’m talking to, because I’ve been fucking obsessed about it, so don’t think you’re doing me a favor by telling me about the latest research on diets.

After all of that, strangely, what bothers me the most is that no one said anything to me about what was going on at all. I gained 70 fucking pounds in less than 2 years, and no one said anything about what might be wrong, other than the side comments about food I just mentioned. Now that I think about it, what would have helped would have been for someone to look beyond that to see what was bothering me, to see that I was stressed out and overworked and one chocolate truffle away from a nervous breakdown. The food was just the coping mechanism, the only thing I could think to do to get enough endorphins to survive without going crazy. I would have liked someone to notice.

What has helped the most (when it did help) was getting out of my supremely superficial fashion industry job and into a job that a) wasn’t completely centered on appearance and b) judged me solely by my talent, as opposed to my talent-plus-ability-to-fit-in (i.e., be skinny). I know that’s kind of intuitive, but there you have it. When I was in therapy, it was actually for my depression, recognizing that my ED was really a reaction to that and a coping mechanism.

Starting to exercise has really helped, for all of the reasons other people have given: It delivers plenty of endorphins (which help with the depression), it reinforces my responsibility to take care of my body rather than stuffing it with food and then purging, and it turns my body into a functional instrument instead of a decorative object. When before, I’d been satisfied just to see my weight dropping, now I’m paying attention to things like muscle mass and endurance and being a strong woman instead of just a pretty one.

It also helps for me to not eat out. I’m far more likely to purge something I’ve eaten at a restaurant than something I’ve cooked myself, I guess because I “trust” my own cooking. I know that’s something I’m going to have to work through eventually, but at this stage, for me, I’m still taking (or, I suppose, re-taking) baby steps. And it helps to have understanding friends who aren’t going to nag me about food; if we’re all eating, and they’re on their second helping, and I stopped at one, I’m not going to get pressured. They understand that the first helping will probably stay down, and the second helping might not.

The most valuable thing, though, has been a great support system. My parents both freaked out when they found out I was sick, and as much as I hate to say it, I haven’t really been able to lean on them in that respect (although they’ve both been great as far as my depression is concerned). My strongest pillar has always been my best friend, because he’s the very definition of unconditional love and reminds me that I’m a valuable and worthwhile individual – period. Sappy, I know, but again, there you have it.

One thing that hasn’t helped in the slightest is being told how good (read: thin) I look. The fact that acknowledging my “success” only reinforces my ED totally escapes some people.

Another thing that didn’t work: Religion. I had a priest tell me once that I needed to stop bingeing and purging because my body was a temple to God that I needed to take care of. That worked for about two months, until I backslid, at which point I felt guiltier than ever, because not only was I weak, I was also a sinner. Great! Thanks for that.

A third thing that didn’t work: Getting mad at me. I had a boyfriend who, every time I backslid, got angry at me – not frustrated with the situation, angry at me – because something about his loving presence was supposed to miraculously heal me. Things got a lot better after I unloaded him.

Disconnecting food from comfort and pleasure; not that I cannot enjoy food, but learning to find ways of reacting to disappointment and frustration and sadness that don’t include reaching for the chocolate.

Learning to eat without shame. Going to college really helped with this, oddly; though I did gain some weight, it felt tremendously freeing to be able to eat whatever I wanted without my dad giving me the stink-eye or my mom talking to me afterwards all worried. The chefs didn’t care if I had a greasy fried sandwich or a healthy salad, and my friends didn’t either.

Finding ways to feel good about my appearance that don’t revolve around weight. For example: fantastic haircut, sweaters in rich saturated colors, beautiful perfumes. It helps me a lot.

And working out my depression, definitely. I went to therapy for about a year and a half solid and am going off anti-depressants after two years on them, but untangling a whole knot of issues has also helped me figure out my issues with food.