5 Things to Not Say to Someone in ED Recovery | Therapist Explains Eating Disorders

And so when we offer this feedback, not only is it falling on deaf ears and emphasizing the physical self, but it also is sometimes encouraging the behavior. Okay, hi everybody. Thanks for coming back if you've been here before, or hi, welcome if you're new. My name's Miki, I'm a therapist, and we talk about therapist-y things on this channel. Today, we are talking about five things to not say to someone who is in eating disorder recovery. I think this is an important conversation to be having, especially because we just don't really talk about eating disorders generally, like really a lot. So when we are trying to be supportive of someone that we love, or we have like a friend, family member, whatever who's going through that, we just don't really know what to say or what to do. And I think this is helpful because whatever, I don't need to tell you why it's helpful, it is helpful. Okay, so I wanna talk about this. As always, I think it's very important though to be clear that the content on this channel, generally, but in this video especially, is meant to be educational, it's entertainment. These are like tipsy-tricksy type of things. If they're not useful to you, or they don't resonate with you, feel free to take what works and leave the rest. The fun thing about being on the internet is that I can speak in broad strokes. And if it doesn't work for you, then you just don't have to take my advice. Unfortunately, I don't know you because I'm just like a dude on the internet, you know? So as always, grain of salt. Actually, really quickly, one more caveat that I wanna give. If you have said some of these things, I wanna be super clear. If this is not a sign that you're a bad person or that you suck, please practice exercising like self-compassion here, and not falling into the shame spiral because we only know better, or we do better when we know better, and it's very okay. A lot of the things that are on this list are things that people have said to me personally, or that I've heard people say to clients of mine. And a lot of times they come out of well-meaning ignorance, and so it's okay, release yourself, and just use this as an opportunity to learn and grow, and like an opportunity to better support the people that you love. Quick disclaimer before we get started, there is obviously a trigger warning on this video for those of you who are actively in eating disorder recovery or working through eating disorder stuff. Some of the things that I'm gonna say in this video in an attempt to educate others might be triggering for you, and so if you're not in a good place, if you're not feeling cool to watch this, playlist up here, please take care of yourself as always. Okay, thing number one, to not say, you look great. This might seem like a kind thing to say, and that's why I gave you the caveat that I did, because this is like a very common attempt at making someone feel comfortable or safe in their body, right? The thought being that if I encourage someone that their body is like good, then maybe they won't have an eating disorder. On the face, this seems like a logical conclusion, but I wanna talk to you about why this is not a helpful thing to say. First and foremost, in eating disorder recovery, one thing that's really important to keep in mind is that we want to steer away at all costs from emphasizing physical self. Eating disorder recovery is complicated and convoluted, and everyone's journey with recovery will look different, but one thing that's really important and is learning how to remove the emphasis on our body as being the way that we are loved and valued. It's a lot easier to recover from an eating disorder when we don't view our physical selves as the only value that we carry in the world, particularly for female or femme folks. This is common, but this, you know, like across the board, it's a difficult thing to unlearn, and so when we say things that emphasize a person's physicalness or like sort of implicitly communicate like I am evaluating your physical self all the time, this can be sort of counterintuitive. It helps or like might cause a person to go backwards. So practice not emphasizing the physical self and focusing in on the things that you love about them as a person. Maybe they're kind, they're funny, they're interesting. You think that they are just a good friend or, you know, a wonderful human being. Say that. Encouraging someone and like supporting someone in that regard is much more helpful than talking about their physical self. Thing number two to not say, you need to just eat. This one is very common, particularly for parents or primary caregivers of folks who are in the middle of eating disorder stuff because the thought is usually, if you are, you know, doing the behavior, like the ideal behavior, the disorder will resolve itself, and that's not at all how it works. A universal truth about eating disorders that I think is really important for us to normalize is that they are so incredibly complicated and also more than skin deep. It's very rare that the cause, the sole cause of an eating disorder is only about the way that a person looks. Usually there are a lot of really complicated and complex layers and thoughts and feelings and traumas that go into the development of an eating disorder. And so when we minimize, first of all, the experience of someone in the middle of this as being just an inability to eat, not only are we doing a disservice to like the very real suffering that's going on, but we're also presenting a way oversimplified solution to a problem that in reality has a lot more nuance of like a resolution. I think it's also really important to talk about this because even if we do succeed in forcing a person to eat when they're in recovery, that is not a positive sign. We're not doing the work of encouraging and empowering and creating space for a person to feel safe to feed themselves. We are more so fostering an attitude of like compliance and obedience, which again, doesn't get at the core of the issue. And so especially if you're a parent or primary caregiver, I really want to caution you against saying or doing things like this, because again, the issue at hand is much more complex than whether or not someone is putting food in their mouth or not, or like conversely with binge eating disorder and things like that, whether someone is not putting food in their mouth or they are. Instead, a more helpful thing to say, it's hard to give like clear and like specific statements for like what to say, especially because everybody's presentation might look different. But the thing I want to encourage all people to do, but in this area, especially is to lean into empathy and sometimes into not knowing. Being a caregiver or a loved one for somebody with an eating disorder can feel very overwhelming. And so it's okay for you to just say, I don't know what to say, or like, I'm not really sure how to support you, but I do know that I love you, that I'm committed to helping you get better. And then I'm here, I'm not judging. I just want to be here so that we can work through this and like, I got your back. Far and away, that's a much more helpful and compassionate thing to be said than to just try and force this behavior. Thing number three to not say is you don't look like you have an eating disorder or you don't need to have an eating disorder. These again are both things that emphasize a person's physical being and physical body at the detriment of the person's mental health. And so we want to steer away from that, obviously. But the other reason that I included this is because there is a fallacy in eating disorder treatment, even among therapists, that eating disorders look a certain way. That's not true. We know that that's not true. And it's very, very hurtful and minimizing to insinuate that if a person doesn't look like what we conjure up in our mind as like the stereotype of a person with an eating disorder, that therefore they don't have a disorder. This is super, super harmful because I think it also accidentally sends this message that unless your physical body is failing to such a high degree that you are like not able to stand up or meet your needs or be ambulatory, that you're not deserving of help. And this is like one of the core things in the work that I've done with folks with disordered eating or with eating disorders is a feeling of like not being worthy of care. And this in and of itself is an obstacle to getting better. So I want to encourage folks to, first of all, again, like shy away from like discussing and emphasizing the physical body, but also honoring that somebody's experience is valid and real regardless of what their physical self looks like. It's incredibly, incredibly common for folks in larger bodies and fat folks to have eating disorders. And for those to be overlooked, for those to be ignored, for those to be invalidated because of the way that their body looks, which then just prolongs the amount of time that a person is suffering, first of all, but also in the throes of a very dangerous disorder that can cause permanent harm to their health and to their mental health. And then, you know, like delaying the onset of treatment. I know that it seems like maybe a silly thing to say that just like believe people when they tell you that they have a disorder, but it's much more common than you would think. And so very much, I want to encourage people to validate and honor the experiences of those that we, you know, love and are caring for because eating disorders don't look a certain way. Not to say that eating disorder treatment isn't inherently fatphobic sometimes. I do want to be clear that there are diagnostic criteria that exist in the current DSM that specify people with particular disorders have to meet a weight threshold, which is fatphobic and fucked up and awful. And also a sign of like the growth that's yet to be done in the industry. But that doesn't mean that we as like sideline people, support people have to abide by that same value system. So thing number four, to not say, have you tried X, Y, or Z? This is a really common attempt from people to help in like a bunch of different scenarios, but particularly with these types of scenarios, I wanted to include this because especially for people who exist in larger bodies that have an eating disorder, a lot of times these statements are, oh, well, have you tried Whole30 or intuitive eating? And these other like diet, their diets, sorry, if you don't know that, the Whole30 and intuitive eating are inherently diets. All these like diet focused approaches because the thought is, if you're trying to shrink your body, you just have to do it in a healthy way. This is a very, very harmful and dangerous thing to say to somebody with an eating disorder, but also again, like just fundamentally unhelpful. What we know from the research about eating disorder recovery is that the most effective way that we can deal with an eating disorder or with disordered eating is through the use of evidence-based treatment, particularly in psychotherapy. There is no essential oil or fad diet or supplement or vitamin or pill that a person can take that will just fix the issue. It doesn't work like that. Again, I really wanna encourage people to honor that in this realm in particular, these disorders are much more than skin deep. It's not something that we can just treat with like a one size fits all approach. And so, especially if you're not a person who has background and education and credentialing in treating eating disorders, it's helpful to focus our attention on being supportive, on offering unconditional love and support, on offering like an open ear, you know, like practical support even in other ways, but to really avoid trying to throw our hat in the ring in terms of treatment, because the truth is that like a licensed credentials, educated professional is gonna be much more effective in that realm. And again, like the potential for harm here is just really high. So I wanna encourage people to avoid that. Thing number five to not say is you're not fat, you're beautiful, your body is fine the way that it is. And so you don't need to have an eating disorder. The reason that I wanted to include this, I know it's very similar to one of the ones we talked about, but I wanted to include this to specifically talk about the phenomenon of folks saying your body is fine and therefore you don't need to have an eating disorder. This again is a very common thing to say, and I wanna encourage folks to practice self-compassion and forgiveness and not the shame spiraling thing because again, all of these are very common things to be said, but this is harmful for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I want to acknowledge that a lot of times this is coming from like this well-meaning place of like your body isn't wrong and so therefore you don't need to have an eating disorder, but this doesn't make sense to a person with an eating disorder. For those of you who don't know, body dysmorphia is also very prevalent in eating disorder treatment and like the sort of world of disordered eating. And so oftentimes when other people, like outside people are trying to provide someone with positive feedback about their body, what we hear, first of all, is like my body is being constantly observed, but second of all, that the issues that I have with my body, like maybe other people aren't noticing them yet and so I just need to keep doing what I'm doing. Body dysmorphia is this very horrible and insidious issue that a lot of people have where we're, we have a difficult time perceiving our bodies like accurately, first of all, but also in like a kind and compassionate way. And so when we offer this feedback, not only is it falling on deaf ears and emphasizing the physical self, but it also is sometimes encouraging the behavior because the thought is that like, well, the disordered behavior is what's keeping other people from noticing the flaws that I see. And so I can't let go of this disordered behavior then. The other reason that I wanted to talk about this is because there is this very common thought in the field of eating disorder recovery that once I feel at peace with my body and I, or maybe I'm able to like let go of this fear that my body is fat, that therefore then I am worthy of not having an eating disorder. This is again, a very harmful belief to perpetuate. The truth is that people in small bodies, people in bodies that fit the conventional beauty standards, people in bodies that don't fit conventional beauty standards and people in larger bodies are all equally worthy of not having an eating disorder. And so when we say this, I think a lot of people don't mean this, but like the implied message there is that if you're thin, you don't need to have an eating disorder, you're fine. But if you're fat, you should probably have one. This is fucked up. And again, I know that people don't mean this this way, usually, but it is still a fucked up thing to say. And it can be very hurtful and very detrimental to a person's ability to heal. And like, again, it's emphasizing the physical self in all the things. So I strongly want to encourage people to avoid this like line of support, because again, I think it's just much more helpful to honor that like you are a wonderful human being who is worthy of love and belonging now at all sizes, whatever size you will be in the future, whatever size you have been in the past, all of that is not connected to your worthiness as a human being. And so you deserve to feel at peace and like happy and joyful and all the things obviously, but that has no connection or relevance with what you look like. One of my favorite things to say in eating disorder treatment with my clients is that we all are just piloting a meat suit. And it means nothing about our value. Our body provides us with a wonderful service in that we get to participate in life and potentially love other people with our body. We get to experience wonderful sensory input sometimes, but ultimately your body is a thing. It's not you, it's not who you are as a person. It doesn't make up your personhood. Your body is just a meat suit. And so your meat suit doesn't have to mean anything about your value. So I hope that this was helpful. Like I said, I know I've said it like 17 times. I wanna be super clear. If you have said one of these things and you're experiencing some shame, I want to encourage you to release yourself from that. Being a support person for people struggling with eating disorders is very hard and it's really scary. We don't get a lot of formal education about how to do that or what the good or bad things to say are. And so it is very much okay. The important thing is that we're continuing to learn and grow. We're doing our best. And again, I wanna emphasize that we can only do better when we know better. And so by learning, like being here, you're doing a wonderful and valuable thing. So good for you. High five. Let's all be kind to ourselves. I hope that this is useful or interesting. Like the video if you liked the video. Subscribe to the channel. We make videos like this. We also do cute pop culture moments every now and again. So I'd love to have you stay and share the video to help the channel grow and to help the channel grow. And I will see you guys next time. Okay, bye.