Supporting a Friend vs Supporting Myself

[Guest guest]

Hello Everyone!

I joined this group sometime last year but got caught up with school. I’ve saved all the messages as I learn so much from each and every one of you and am now playing catch up. I have had so much time on my hands that I don’t know what to do with myself after graduating. I’m just now easing back into being with myself without completely overeating all the time! I wanted to write this message because I’m trying to be a support to a dear friend, but I’m struggling with the fact that she’s very much aligned with OA (Overeaters Anonymous). We’ve shared many experiences and conversations around our eating and our weight. At some point we have gone in separate directions. I’ve worked in alcohol and drug addiction residential treatment for two years and have many close family and friends who have struggled

with such. I had a therapist who urged me to go to OA and basically did not see/believe in any other option. It didn’t click. It still doesn’t and yet sometimes I wish it did so I would have “control†and an eating plan and everything all organized and mapped out. My friend has lost a lot of weight and speaks of her binge eating as a disease. I don’t want to trigger anyone, but I’m struggling with wanting to be supportive of whatever her path might be and yet I’m crazily triggered by the focus on weight loss and food as fuel for her disease. I even read a book that she insisted would change my life (The War of the Gods in Addiction) and while I battled with the idea that my ego was a mastermind of keeping my addiction going, my gut told me that this just isn’t right for me. AND, it’s taken years to trust anything my body had to say about anything!!! ARGH! I love myself more when I think of myself as whole and not diseased or broken or

somehow untrustworthy of being near some sort of abstinence food. I guess my struggle is really not feeling brave enough to tell her this, or explain this process that I am still working through. I appreciate open communication with my dear friends, and I struggle. So have people gone through this and have any ideas?

Thank you all for being such a wonderful community!

C