Question : Help! My parents want me to recovery from anorexia, but aren’t really helping me. What should I do?
I have lost about 30 pounds since December. I just didn’t like the way I looked. I’m actually extremely happy with the weight i’m at now, and think I just need to gain about 5 pounds of muscle. I told my parents that I would be happy to gain weight, if they would work with me. I asked them to buy things like chicken breast, brown rice, and fruit, instead of poptarts, cheese dip and tortilla chips, and ice cream like they usually do. I won’t eat much because all they bring home is junk. But they refuse to stop buying the junk food and buy me healthy food. I also excercise alot, so that I don’t have to go home and to blow off steam.
This morning (on the way to my wisdom teeth surgery), my dad started yelling at me about how I only got hired at my job because my boss wants to get in my pants and said he was taking my car away unless I went to anorexia counseling.
My mom told me she won’t let me go back to college if I don’t gain 10 pounds by the time we are supposed to start back in 2 1/2 weeks. It’s hard to gain that much weight in that short of time without doing it in an unhealthy manner. My parents are essentially setting me up to end up with a binge eating disorder after anorexia by trying to force feed me addicting sugary/fast foods.
No offense to an therapist/patients, but I think counseling is absolutely stupid. I wouldn’t need counseling if they would just buy what I told them I would eat, so I could gain healthy weight.
What should I do?
I’m 19, 5’9″ and 109 pounds, btw. And no, I can’t buy my own food. I’ve had to major surgeries this summer with weeks-long recoveries, so no one would hire me.
anorexia counseling

Best answer:

Answer by House825
I agree with your idea that you need healthier food.

However, I don’t agree that you do not need therapy. I think you should go to a legitimate good therapist, and that your parents absolutely must go with you, as well as go with you to nutrition counseling. The nutrition counselor will tel them that poptarts are not going to work for anyone, and that they can choose to eat it, but you need something better if you’re ever going to get well.

Also regarding the counseling – it doesn’t sound like you’ve made great choices on your own, so why not see if another person outside your family might lead you to think about better ideas? After all, anorexia is very much a problem with the brain & your thinking processes, so you need couseling of some type for that. If you were diabetic, I would hope you would not think that seeng an endocrinologist would be stupid.

You could point out that chicken, brown rice, and fruit are not very expensive (cheese dip and ice cream are expensive!), and ask them to let them you try it your way for a month.

Your parents are probably worried sick about you – after all, people die from anorexia. At least you know they care.