looking for a little advice regarding anorexia

[sleekit]

Hi folks,

Hope you are all doing well.

I,m looking for a little advice, hopefully some of you can help me out a little here.

I'm about 90% certain that one of my friends from my work has anorexia.
I'm looking for advice on the best way to help them.

I appreciate that I can't do that much for them really and that they need to seek help more or less by themselves but I figured the community here would be able to offer suggestions on how to help this person to help themself.

so

any advice?

[Pi.R^2]

Have you tried to have a conversation with your friend about their eating and your concerns?

Without knowing anything more about the situation my main advice would be to avoid having any conversations about dieting etc in front of this person, or complimenting them or other people on 'looking great' because of weight loss and stuff like that.

Your friend is lucky to have someone like you who cares enough to have noticed and sought advice on how to help them :)

[sleekit]

Sorry, That was a little vague wasn't it.

I will expand a little.

Firstly, I'm here because this place rocks. I spent a fair bit of time here when i was younger because I had issues with self harm and depression. It was nice to have somewhere that would offer support without judgement.

The person I'm worried about is a young lady I work with.
We are not very close but we get on OK in work.

She nearly passed out in work last week and after a little gentle questioning she let on that she hadn't eaten that day.
Some more cautious probing has revealed that this is fairly common and that it was not the first time she had fainted.

I had been keeping an eye on her this week and from what i have seen and what she has said I'm now fairly certain that she is anorexic.

I've very loosely hinted at what i think and I've tried to make it clear that if she ever wants to talk about anything then I'm a good ear.



So...

I'm looking for advice from the people who know. (That's you guys here)

Is there a "best" way to approach her on this.

I'm trying to be as gentle as possible with her as I know from personal experience that people who think they are helping can often be doing the opposite.

Am i better off butting out?

Quote:

Your friend is lucky to have someone like you who cares enough to have noticed and sought advice on how to help them

Kind of you to say so. I'd like to think that anyone on here would do the same though. Once you've had your own issues it tends to be easier to spot others. And i hate to see anyone suffering alone.

[Pi.R^2]

It's such a tricky one, because different people respond differently and also because of the self-sabotaging nature of the illness. I know that when I was suffering with anorexia, I very desperately wanted someone to notice and help me but equally, people who cared enough to try and help usually got pushed away in the end! If you are able to cope with the risk of potentially being pushed away, then I would advise trying to talk to her more about it. Even just by your choice of words (e.g. 'gentle questioning' and 'cautious probing') I can tell that you would approach the subject in a really sensitive way.

Perhaps you could write her a message explaining that you're worried and want to help if you can. Sometimes things are easier to say in a message and also easier to hear that way, as she can read/reread it in her own time and in her own space if she wants to. If you felt able, it might help for you to share a little of your own experiences with mental health difficulties and how they have improved (this is my assumption from your use of the past tense?).