My friend Sara....

I am not extremely close with her, but right now she scares me. Sara has become an anorexic, and is 100% proana, although she doesn't talk about that. Last year, she weighed 140 pounds at 5'5, which is a bit on the chunky side. But after summer, she came back noticably thinner. From there, it went downwards. She now appears to weigh 100 pounds, and is just skin and bone. The girls in her gym class saw her stomach while she was changing, and they said that it grooved inwards for how thin she was. Her friends have confronted her three times already, and have brought her to the school nurse and have told her mother, but I think she's still the same. She never eats lunch, and the one time we forced her to eat it, she seemed inhuman. She gobbled everything in two seconds, as if she hadn't eaten in months. She didn't even chew much. I'm afraid she went to vomit it up later. My friends have been keeping an eye on her, and she left her email open at one of their houses. They found all kind of proana sites emails and links, and a link to her own livejournal. On it, there was a food log. For one of the days, she had only eaten half a banana and three grapes, and then was upset about it!

I don't know what to do about it anymore, and even though it's none of my business, I'm very worried for her. She's absolutely lost her mind in a world where she thinks bones jutting out are beautiful.

I've learned I never ever want to be like Sara, despite wanting to lose a couple of pounds. But now my question is: What should we do? Her mother knows, but I'm not sure if anything is happening.

somethingfishy.org has really good info on ED advice.

Does her mother know about what an ED can cause? Print out a paper (somethingfishy has really good facts/details/articles) showing her the effects of an ED. Any good parent would want their child to LIVE and not DIE because of an ED.

I suffered from anorexia, and weightwise have recovered, but mentally am not there yet. I wish MORE THAN ANYTHING that my friends, teachers, anyone would bring it to my parents that I have a problem. My parents are clueless about how I suffer mentally.

Making it worse, one of my "friends" is anorexic. I loathe her now- she's receiving treatment, something I wish I could have.

Encourage her about anything BUT food. Try to compliment her on something besides her appearance/eating habits. Talk about how great of an artist she is, how amazing it is that she can play x instrument...

Bring her a list of the dangers of an ED, sit down and have an honest "heart to heart" talk about how she's endangering her life.

One of my good friends in high school suffered from a serious eating disorder our senior year. Honestly, I felt like there was nothing I could do but offer support. She would constantly deny deny deny! She eventually opened up to me about using laxatives and other types of abuse she was doing to her body, and I think she appreciated having someone to vent to. All I was able to do was offer support, but no matter what I said or did she continued her disordered eating. She didn't like when I "lectured" her, and since it clearly wasn't helping I decided to just be a good friend and listen. In her case she got so skinny that teachers and her family started to take notice.

The only thing that actually helped was when her mother forcefully put her into rehab. She ended up being an outpatient for a while, and now she seems much healthier.

So...if you're ballsy enough...you could bring your concerns to her parents. It's sort of a crappy situation to be in. I didn't go this route, but I was also aware that a guidance counselor at our school had already done so. My friend would also mention how her parents would force her to eat, etc., so I knew they had a feeling something was up.

One of our friends went over to her house and found all kinds of laxatives in her drawer, and saw a bunch of bread crumbs on her pillow. But laxatives don't need a prescription, so she'll just keep on buying them....

I wanted to reassure you that you're not responsible for your friend's behaviour and you're not to blame yourself if something terrible happens.  You've done everything reasonably possible.  You could talk to her parents again, show them the laxatives you found etc., but if everyone decides to do nothing then there's not a lot else you could reasonably do.   She's now deep in the grip of a serious mental illness which means that she's not thinking or acting rationally.  Your efforts to get her to eat will be interpreted in her sick mind as 'you want her to be fat because you're jealous of how great she looks'.  And only medical treatment or hospitalisation is going to improve matters.   

Look after yourself and don't let this girl's obsession drag you down. 

Original Post by chirpp:

somethingfishy.org has really good info on ED advice.

Does her mother know about what an ED can cause? Print out a paper (somethingfishy has really good facts/details/articles) showing her the effects of an ED. Any good parent would want their child to LIVE and not DIE because of an ED.

I suffered from anorexia, and weightwise have recovered, but mentally am not there yet. I wish MORE THAN ANYTHING that my friends, teachers, anyone would bring it to my parents that I have a problem. My parents are clueless about how I suffer mentally.

Making it worse, one of my "friends" is anorexic. I loathe her now- she's receiving treatment, something I wish I could have.

Encourage her about anything BUT food. Try to compliment her on something besides her appearance/eating habits. Talk about how great of an artist she is, how amazing it is that she can play x instrument...

Bring her a list of the dangers of an ED, sit down and have an honest "heart to heart" talk about how she's endangering her life.

 

I agree with somethingfishy.org. and trying to take her mind off of food. When someone has an eating disorder, they judge everything by the compliments (or criticisms) of their appearance. And although your friend may not thank you now, she will look back on this in the future and be super-appreciative for all your effort/support.