4. Our relationships begin to suffer.
If we are placing more value on keeping our eating disorder coping skills around, the other people in our lives will be able to feel it. They can ask why we don’t return their calls and texts as often, or why we don’t want to get together anymore.
We could even get into fights with those we love because they’ve challenged our eating disorder behaviors or plans, and possibly have even asked, why we’re doing what we’re doing or push us to get help. While they can have the best of intentions, it can end up pushing us away because we aren’t at a place where we’re able to admit that we’re sick and therefore be able to hear what they’re saying.
5. Engaging in secret behaviors.
When we begin to engage in eating disorder-based actions, we can innately know that what we’re doing is odd or wouldn’t be accepted. Therefore, we can want to hide it from our family and friends. We can prefer to eat alone because we don’t want anyone seeing how we have to do it, or how much we eat or what we have to do after we eat.
There can be these rituals that we create around avoiding, procuring, and getting rid of the food. And we can become very upset if anyone tries to get in the way of any of those routines or rituals, which pushes us to do a lot of things in secret, behind locked doors, and out of earshot. It’s because of those behaviors that many of my patients have told me that they waited so long to ask for help.
Engaging in these things can cause a lot of guilt and shame. Coming clean about what’s going on and what we’ve done can be terribly difficult and embarrassing. Although I will be honest, it’s vitally important to our recovery.
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