Powerful and eloquent post in Voice of Recovery tonight. She hit a disappointment in her personal life that sent her into the closet to hide.  She wanted safety. She wanted a drink. She was in agony and struggled against her cravings.

With courage and strength she pulled herself out of her darkness, asked for support and got it. She's finding her way and helping others as she goes.

The point I want to raise relates to one sentence she throws out with determination and passion. After describing the intensity of her feelings and cravings she writes:

Relationships suffer when you have an eating disorder.  Deep, valuable and sincere relationships may be difficult to maintain or even impossible to establish. You want and need people in your life to help ward off isolation and loneliness. 

When a relationship ends or changes into something unpleasant you may wonder what happened. And, you may not be able to think clearly about what happened because the end or change triggers your eating disorder.  So you feel great loss and sorrow, criticize yourself and act out by binging or throwing up or starving or all these behaviors in their turn.

Watching a bright woman confidently search for a non existent method that will make her bulimia vanish is the saddest part of my work as an eating disorder recovery psychotherapist.

*pix Naive innocence is dangerous.

Today, in Los Angeles, I received yet another request for help I cannot provide. The woman asked for tips and a simple plan that would end her bulimia in a week or two. When I said recovery requires deep psychological work she responded with anger and disdain saying, "You have got to be kidding. I don't have time for years of treatment. I want something that will work now."