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My internet friend has a severe eating disorder and I don't know what to do

I've been friends with this girl for 2 years - we've met up quite a few times but we live quite far away from each other so I have no way to actually help her.

She's always struggled badly with eating, but lately it's just taken a turn for the worse. Shamefully I follow her on this app where she can rant even though she thinks that I don't (she had accidentally mentioned her url) and it's all very evident that she needs help.

She is harming herself with all the exercise she's forcing up on herself, she obsessively counts calories to the extreme (she says that she needs to eat 104.76 calories exactly or she'll gain weight), she's obsessed about gaining weight even though she's losing weight by the second. As with all EDs, she thinks she is gaining weight and feels fat all the time, and is harming herself even more with all the supplements she's taking. She's also throwing up a lot and still she keeps on exercising to lose weight.

I feel powerless because she won't tell me, her friends or her parents anything because she doesn't want people to be concerned about her, but this is harming her a lot. She won't seek help because she still thinks that it's not an ED, even though she's slowly coming to the realisation that it might be anorexia or bulimia.

Since she doesn't know that I can see her rants, I can't bring her to talk to me about it either because that'll feel like a betrayal of trust and that I'm exposing her.

I really feel helpless and I have no idea how to go about this. She used to tell me everything but now she's just suppressing it all.

How can I bring it to light and show her that she needs to seek professional help?
so what if she doesn't know
confront her anyway
even if she's pissed at you - you could potentially save her life
Reply 2
Original post by Anonymous
so what if she doesn't know
confront her anyway
even if she's pissed at you - you could potentially save her life


She is extremely angry at me after a two hour long conversation. She is deep in denial and being a proud person, I don't think she'll ever seek help and I'm worried. She thinks that you get to choose whether you develop anorexia or not and since she never chose it, it's not there

I don't know what else I can do now. :frown:
Do you know the names of her parents or anyone trustworthy who knows her IRL? Because I think you need to get in touch with them via social media. I'm not usually one to recommend 'outing' people when it comes to mental illness, but this is about her safety. I know someone who had similar behaviour to your friend, and someone finding out about it literally saved his life. I'm not trying to scare you, but this is very serious. If she's at school or college, find out where she goes and give them a call. It may seem like you're betraying her, but worst case scenario she could kill herself with this.

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