Eating Disorders and Relationships

Is it just me, or is it impossible to have both an eating disorder and a significant other? I have never had a relationship for more than one month because of my eating disorder and the depression and self conciousness that comes with it. I now stay away from guys completly because someone having interest in me scares me. I don't know how to focus on anything other than my body, what I eat (or don't eat), and what the person sitting beside me in class thinks of me. All my friend have long term boyfriends, and to be honest, I wouldn't mind one. But I've never had a normal and honest relationship with anyone before. I don't know how, my eating disorder consumes me. I hate it. I honestly wonder how girls with eating disorders have boyfriends. I would love to know your secrets!

Anyone in the same boat as me?

Um... shouldn't your focus be on recovery, not on learning how to function with an E.D.?

It's not learning how to function with an ED, but learning how to function WITHOUT one. The mindset isn't something that just goes away as soon as you hit a healthy weight. It's a constant struggle, an internal battle and self-perception that's very, very hard (if possible at all!) to overcome. That, I think, is what blackout is trying to say.

As far as your question, I would LOVE that answer! My last long-term boyfriend (who only lasted 11 months, and that was a record for me) broke up with me because, as he put it, "You need to work on being happy with yourself before you can be happy with someone else." In all truthfullness, it wasn't fair to him. I've been depressive and mentally screwed-up since day one, even pre-ED, so I'm really not good at the whole boyfriend thing. As soon as I find a guy, he finds out that I'm carrying more baggage than BelAir and jets. (pun probably intended!) Developing an ED just made it worse, because suddenly, not only was I depressed and cranky all the time, I was also focused only on myself and how other people viewed ME, and what I was eating or not eating and who was watching and what they thought, etc. etc. etc. It's a selfish, lonely, all-consuming disease, and it definitely ate my social life, say nothing of dating.

 whew! So the short answer to that, I guess, is  learn to love yourself. I know it's hard. I'm working on it, and probably will be for the rest of my life. But I think that's the secret. Learn to be happy with yourself, and maybe you can be happy with someone else eventually too. 

My long term boyfriend (who I've been with for 3 years and 9 months) Helped me recover my Ed ..anorexia to be exact..He was there when i first started it and he helped me end it...btw my Ed lasted about 2 years...Ofcourse i gave him hell for it lol and we got into arguements but we pulled through.  I guess it depends on how close you and the guy are and if you both are willing to help each other.

And today we are engaged and getting married soon :)

My bf and I of three years met before ed and we are still together now during my recovery process. If it wasn't for him, I would not have realized that I was in so much denial of my anorexia. He made me go to the doctor and he helped me reach out to my parents, my friends, and now my support group. He is the reason why I am alive probably!! Although I am in recovery for me more than anything....he made me realize that life is worth it! We definitely had a rough patch when he broke it off for a good 2 weeks for me to decide whether I wanted to get better and be with him or be without him and learn to work on this alone. I found myself during my trip for a month to London and realized that I could not and would not let anorexia ruin me or him any longer. Overall, I would say it was just as hard for him to watch me starve myself....and now we are the happiest couple in forever....with more energy, more love, and yesss a drive to express my new hormones....haa... we have been given a second chance....

He tells me each day that I am beautiful, that he loves my body, my new found booty.....and that he couldn't be happier that I am finally getting back on track! Good Luck!

i think you should be very careful.  there's a risk of ending up with someone who wants to be your caretaker rather than your partner.  as you get stronger (assuming that you do), he won't have that role to fulfill anymore.

worst case scenario, you end up with someone who likes you better sick than well, and who tries to keep you dependent.  best case scenario, you get healthy, he feels useless and goes looking for a sick girl.

this happens a lot with people who overcome addictions and illnesses. 

pg..why do you always have a negative outlook on life??? atleast it seems that way. did something happen to you when you were younger?

I have been with my boyfriend for over 2 years and am still in a loving happy relationship with him. I also suffer from bulimia which he is aware of and he tried to help me beat it. I am trying to recover and find it doesn't affect my relationship with him at all, the only times it can be tense is when he gets frustrated with me counting my calories! He tells me I'm beautiful as I am and don't need to worry about my figure, and encourages me to do exercise like him.

So you can be in a good relationship and still have an ED, but you need to be honest with them and try and understand that they are just trying to help you get better. But I think, blackout, that you need to get help with your self first before you think about going into another relationship, as you need to be trying your best to recover otherwise, as you said, your relationship will surely fail due to the ED consumng all your time. I wish you luck in recovery.

 

 

ornella, i don't have a negative outlook on life at all.  i do have a negative outlook on sick little girls thinking that a boyfriend/husband is going to make their lives complete.  dependency is not healthy.

I truly admire all of you guys for keeping your boyfriends so close & letting them help you through the hard times.. I wish I hadn't pushed everyone away! Now I am trying to sort myself out It is so hard to get everyone back again.

Right on xprincessdiamondx! I'm looking forward to finding someone who loves me for me as I am right now. Not who I was. Not who he wants me to be. Who I am. Here's to rediscovering relationships and living life!

This topic hits very close to home, I have just started a new relationship with a totally awesome guy and this is exactly what  I have been worried about: what if anorexia gets in the way, AGAIN?

I hope not.

I hope recovery is not too far off because I'd hate for anorexia to steal even more of my life...

I definitely see where your coming from.  I didnt have a boyfriend before my ED.  I feel at this point it would be unfair to get in a relationship because I need to focus so much on recovery.  I have always wished I had a significant other to help me through this, but sometimes I just feel like no one would want me because sometimes I feel truly messed up and I know I look really bad.  But Im dedicated to recovery and I hope someday soon I will meet someone who I can feel comfortable around and will accept me for who I am, regardless of my past.

As a guy, I thought I'd share my perspectives with you. I don't really have any magic answer to the question, because I think it depends a lot on the individuals involved. But I do think that the right guy can help a woman who's open to receiving help.

For one thing, despite what you may have heard to the contrary, guys generally prefer curvy women ... forgive the language, but tits & ass is where its at for most guys (plus the other attractive curves, like the belly, the hourglass thing, etc.) and so even if he's not able to offer anything else, at the very least he can offer honest feedback about how attractive it is for a woman to have meat on her bones!

I think maybe the hardest thing for a guy in this situation is watching someone he cares about hurt herself, or feel bad about herself, for reasons that are very hard for him to identify with. I think if he feels that she is making an honest attempt to get better, that she truly wants to get better ... I think this would have a huge impact on how he feels about the situation. And yes, guys have emotional needs too! So a woman who is completely self-obsessed because she is directing all of her mental energy inward (and therefore shows a lack of interest in him, his problems, his successes, etc.) ... well, I could see how that would be a problem as well. So I guess to summarize I absolutely believe it can work, but it needs (1) two mature, patient, caring people who feel strongly about each other, (2) an open, honest relationship where both people can talk openly about their thoughts/feelings, (3) the woman really trying to get over her ED, (4) the woman still being at least somewhat sensitive to him and his emotional needs. This is all off the top of my head, I haven't really thought this through ... not sure if it all makes sense, but I hope it helps.

magicmonkey, your post was really helpful, it put everything on a whole new light (especially concerning the emotional needs of men)

Thank you! xx

here's my story: wanting to have a relationship helped me get over bulimia! if someone told me this would have happened before it did i wouldn't have believed it, but now i'm still in shock: when i decided to beat bulimia i shared.. everything : i told him everything.. i was expecting a serious reaction and a bad one to be more precise like : you know where the door is. i had been living a lie for about 4 months when i told him, and WE WERE LIVING IN THE SAME HOUSE where i did my normal rutine at least twice a day. he had no idea about it. his reaction to all i had to say crying and pulling my hair out was: so.. like.. what exactly are u saying? you like put 2 fingers down your throat and make all the food come out? may i ask why? i explained how i was fat and obsessed and that that was the only way to beat weight aso and he just said: well, if that's what u gotta do, that's what you gotta do, you know better. to be honest that kindda got on my nervs: like what? don't you care , at least a bit, that this is putting me into the grave?!?! but it was nothing like that, i told him that my exact point was that i wanted to give the bad habbit up and that i need a lot of support. he said: so, what can i do to help? and his task was to keep me away from too much food and watch the bathroom :) and he pretty much did. it helped me a lot to know that he knew and that someone was constantly watching me. and guess what: 2 month to go and i can say bulimia's end is one year old :).

but, hear me out: i hate boys relationships and especially the idea that we HAVE TO get married some day, i'm the kind of person that hates normality (yeah.. like you wouldn't have guessed- ex bulimic) and doesn't accept things just because... still having a boyfriend helped me get through this, and as much as i hate to admit it this one single thing i don't think I could have manage to repair on my own.

first thing u need to do to recover is find a bodyguard and by bodyguard i mean anyone that could care for you other than your blood relatives - that's what works for me - somehow i feel more ashamed when i do stupid thing and hurt people that care about me just because they choose to, than doing stupid stuff arund the ones that love me no matter what.. i hope you get me and if u react like me i assure u you'll have a positive reaction to this.

ps: i'm over bulimia but no where close to being fully recovered, i weigh my food, i eat only diet things, i cry for hours if i eat too much but bottom line is: i don't throw up any more and i'm mantaining my weight, and that's one big important first step.

best of luck to you

when i started to hang out with the boy i am dating now i was terrified. like i could barely stand to be in the same room with him. i know that sounds weird but i was so self conscious and i liked him so much that i just got so nervous.

talking to him was really difficult because when he would look at me to talk i would just feel so self conscious like he was judging me the whole time. or realizing that i wasn't as attractive as he first thought i was or something.

i guess i just kept putting myself through it though because i was determined to get to know this person i liked so much. at first my ed got worse. we would cook together a lot and i tried to seem normal and eat with him but then all i could concentrate on for the rest of the night was how fat i felt with all that food in my stomach and it made me more self conscious. but gradually i felt that slip away.. when i was with him all i started to think about was how fun he was and how much i liked him and less about my weight. mind you i didn't recover during this time. i did gain a few pounds though and ended up telling him about my ed. things got a bit worse.

i struggled with it for a while afterward. we moved in together and i just had this mindset that he wouldn't really be able to love me for who i am. i needed to get skinnier, i needed to become smarter, cooler, funnier. whatever. no one could love the mess i was so i had to starve. i had to or else i would be a worthless fat blob.
i even started making myself throw up daily which i hadn't even done before. it was a really rough road for sure.

it was actually about a month or so ago that i got serious about recovering. i just thought to myself that it isn't worth it anymore. obsessing over food, weight and my ed wasn't making me more attractive to my boyfriend. it was turning me into someone i didn't want to be and that i knew my boyfriend didn't want either.

so gradually i tried to change. i made meal plans that gradually got a bit larger. i decided to eat healthy. no garbage. i don't feel as guilty about eating if i know i am eating the right amounts of the right foods. low fats but still some. whole grains. lean proteins like beans and tofu, lots of fruits and vegetables. exercise. keep toned. it really helps my self esteem to keep toned. and i try to keep active. always doing something i am into so that i don't forget that there are things i want to do in life and i can't do them while starving myself.

my favorite part about recovery is losing that light headed deer caught in headlights feeling of starvation. i have energy to do things. i can concentrate better. i can miss a couple hours of sleep here and there and not feel like a complete zombie for it.

the worst was when i was starving myself and sleeping 2-3 hours every night for a couple months and on top of that i took anti-histamines (i got a terrible skin rash from malnutrition) which make you sleepy. this was during me and my boyfriend's "courtship" i'd like to call it. i would fall asleep during movies or in the car when he would take me home. haha. probably not so fun for him. sorry this has gotten off topic.

the point is, you have to recover and you have to do it for you. if you do it for a boy then you will just relapse once that boy isn't in your life anymore. i still struggle with food and my self worth. but i am really honestly trying my hardest to get over all my insecurities and become the human being i really want to be. i'm really lucky my boyfriend stuck by me.

I feel the same way, Ive met someone new and i just dont know how not to let my eating disorder ruin things :(

nvrmndtheb, your post was SO inspirational! Thanks so much for sharing., I guess I'm at the point where I would like a relationship, but I'm still not sure if I could handle being in one. My self-esteem has always been low, and my last bf broke up with me for that reason, and that was pre-ED! I would hate to put anyone else through what I do to myself. . . it's a rough battle, and I think I have to be okay with myself before I can expect that of anyone else.

Thanks you so  much everyone that posted, seriously. Those posts helped alot.

Thanks again and others feel free to post more!

I don't have an ED, nor have I ever had one, and I'm no expert, so take this for what it's worth.

It seems to me that EDs (like other disorders) may have at least a little something with wanting to avoid relationships. Relationship with one's own self, and relationships with others - whether that be family, friends, or significant others.

I suggest this because:

1) Since the dawn of mankind, eating has been not just about sustenance but also about sharing and bonding with our fellow humans.

2) EDs - as someone else already pointed out - are about self-obsession ... there's no room for somebody else's needs.

3) EDs are also about self-isolation.

4) Perhaps shrinking the body so it becomes child-like is a way to not grow up, not look like a grown adult with... well, to be blunt, sexual features!

5) Or if nothing else, shrinking away to non-existence or at least not to be so noticeable.

Blackout, if you are thinking about a relationship than I personally think this is a very good sign that you are on the road to recovery!!