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A close friend of mine is in shidduchim. She’s a little bit heavy so her doctor recommended lap band surgery. One of the side effects is that if you eat above a certain amount you throw up. However recently my friend has admitted to me that the throwing up is no longer about overeating but about the thought of gaining weight and she sometimes gags just thinking about food. Besides this she restricts and works out a lot to the point where she has a 0 or negative calorie intake some days. She’s still a bit heavy so people compliment her on her weight loss and that just encourages what she calls “that stupid voice” in her head that tells her to starve herself. I’ve encouraged her to talk to her therapist and she says she has, but that the therapist is unhelpful. We also go out to eat sometimes but I don’t know if that’s really helping because she may starve all week to compensate for all I know. My question is, should I tell her mother? I’m concerned but I’m also worried that she’ll close up to me too, and she’ll just start lying to everyone like she already does to some people. I’m also worried her mother wont take me seriously because she wants her daughter to lose a further significant amount of weight for shidduchim. At the end of the day I know I can’t control her and the last thing I want is to make her feel judged or like she’d rather lie than be honest with me, but I worry about the very serious potential consequences. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
sounds like she needs a new therapist. I wouldnt recommend going to her mother off the bat. You should be there for her and support her, and you should definitely strongly encourage her to tell her mother herself asap. The sooner detected, the easier to stop an ED.
If you do not tell her parents immediately you are Over on Lo Sa’amod Al Dam Rei’echa. This is Sakanas Nefashos and every minute you waste is on your head.
If you can’t tell her mother tell her father or Rabbi or someone with authority to do something about it. I don’t understand your hesitance. If this girl was holding a knife to her throat but didn’t want you to tell her parents about it would that stop you? And eating disorder is Sakanas Nefashos. You are helping her kill herself the longer you let it go.
i’m surprised at sam’s answer, and think you’d need to ask a shaila before telling her mother even.
It’s not always a good idea to tell her to eat, and there’s that risk of her getting upset with you over it. Encourage her to tell her parents and/or doctor. If she’s nervous to, show her the benefits, alleviate her fears if you can. She likely won’t be able to stick to a diet with a therapist and nutritionist’s help
Explain to her that if she has an eating disorder, that she is not only risking her life, but she is taking the risk that she might not be capable of having children as a result of the effects having an eating disorder would have on her body, which is a major reason that, for example, when I have a son, G-d willing, of shidduch dating age, I would specifically rule out anyone with the possibility of an eating disorder/ symptoms of an eating disorder for that reason. Additionally, if a woman has an eating disorder, and she does have a child, the child may pick up on the mother’s cues, chas ve’shalom, and decide that not eating is cool as well, and then end up in a bad situation.
This is not the right environment to put oneself into or risk putting future offspring into, so why should she do this to herself?
Saysme: I don’t know why people play around with eating disorders or try and talk through them. Do people just not understand the severity?? This is a life-threatening illness. If she won’t get herself help, then anyone else who doesn’t is complicit in killing her. Plain and simple.
Sam, it’s pikuach nefesh, but you’re assuming that telling the mother is the solution, but that’s just a guess; from here, we really don’t know.
DY: Telling no one is never the solution. If there’s Mamash no adult who can help, then you call the psychiatric ward of the local hospital yourself. But there’s never nothing that you can do. Moreover, you’re never not obligated to do anything and everything possible.
As much as I hate discussing this, even with strangers, I had an eating disorder for years. Although I have kept its at bay, it’s not something that you outgrow or get over but you can “stop”. Some of the advice here is just plain wrong, and it’s clear that you have no experience with dealing with an eating disorder or people suffering from one, so you should not be giving advice . To the poster who wrote that you should go to a Rabbi or someone with authority.. Why because his authority will have to force her to stop? That’s delusional. If I had had a friend who knew about my situation, and she would have gone to my mother, that would have been the end of our friendship. I got pretty good at hiding and lying when it came to my issues, so if my mother had confronted me i would have lied through my teeth and made her believe me. Now I am not saying not to help, but the attitude here and advice is wrong. Talking to a school
Psychologist is not a bad idea, for they can give you real tools to help your friend , talking to your friend in a mom threatening way, telling her you are worried and that having a candid conversation. The truth is, she isn’t only throwing up or not eating for short term to lose weight for shiddichim, it just doesn’t work that way. It’s a very emotionally draining disease and you will not stop until you are ready.
I, after a long while, decided on my own to discuss it with a very sweet rabbi who also stood as psychologist in my high school. He helped me without threatening to tell my mom or friends but he talked to me almost daily and helped me work through my problems. I had had no idea that being bulimic posed a danger to future pregnancies and that is probably one of the major reasons I worked so hard to stop. I won’t lie and say after high school it never happened again, but I did get a lot better and Baruch Hashem am a mommy to a healthy big baby boy and iyH will have many, many more children, healthy and happy. It was my choice, not something a doctor or rabbi or parent forced me to do. This is a very complicated situation and you shouldn’t listen to advice from people not in the know.
thank you for sharing with us, morahrach
Her being in shidduchim has nothing to do with it. She should not be in shidduchim if she has an eating disorder.
You have a friend with an eating disorder, try to support her. Rav Dovid Goldwasser has a great book on the topic.
Morah Rach – thank you so much for posting. You are right that telling someone to force the girl to stop would be useless but the impression that I got was that people were saying she should tell someone who could work on getting her the help she needs. Whether or not you lose her as a friend is irrelevant. Someone trustworthy needs to be informed so that they can monitor the situation, even from afar, because it is life threatening. And just like with addictions, not knowing they exist often brings people to give the wrong kind of support. Nobody can make her get help before she is ready, but keeping her secret is a dangerous idea. Someone safe and effective needs to be informed.
I once called a pediatrician because I knew he knew the family dynamic well enough to know what to do next. (He couldn’t respond to my information but he was allowed to listen)
Baruch Hashem for your little one, may you be blessed with many more!
Sam2: “then anyone else who doesn’t is complicit in killing her. Plain and simple.”
Wow, that is a very simplistic way of talking about a situation that you know so little of.
letschmooze: I would prefer to think of it as a very simplistic way of talking about eating disorders that I unfortunately know far too much about.
Sam, you may know too much about ED (and I sympathize), but you don’t know about this case.
Letschmooze
Is it necessary to be so antagonistic to sam? (Based on your comments here and on other threads)
There is a boatload of bad advice on this thread, and I hope I am not adding to it.
First of all, the initial post says her friend is a little overweight and a doctor has recommended lap band surgery. Either the poster is being kind in understating her friend’s obesity, or doctor making the recommendation is incompetent. Lap band surgery is for the morbidly obese, not the chubby.
Secondly, there are a lot of bad therapists, counsellors, coaches and other nominally licensed quasi-professionals, who are little more than yentas with portfolios. None of them are helpful unless they somehow encourage the chubby girl to lose weight. Weight Watchers or one of its reputable imitators is all the help a chubby girl needs if she wants to lose weight. And if she does not want to lose weight, she should accept herself for what she is.
nfgo3: I noticed your first point, and I was wondering about that. If she’s overweight enough that she needs a lap band, then I can understand why she would be so crazy about her weight.
Does she have a nutritionist? A good nutritionist can make a diet plan that can make it seem as though she’s doing more more quickly, and this may be a psychological substitute for the lack of eating (hishtadlus).
There’s something else she’s doing wrong if when she eats a minute amount she doesn’t lose weight. She needs to see a proper allergist, dietician, any professional who can tell her what is happening in her body that causes her to bloat up like that. There are always healthy ways to lose weight and starving oneself is never an answer. It places her body in starvation mode so now everything she eats is converted directly to fat. She needs to speak to someone who will convince her that she’s being stupid and just making it more difficult for herself to lose weight.
My point wasn’t to get her to lose weight. I had an eating disorder in high school and if I’d been told there are better ways to lose weight it’s likely I would’ve tried them.
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