While in recovery or at any stage of an eating disorder for that matter,recieving comments good or bad can be absolutely detrimental.
In the past while in recovery and hearing a comment such as 'Youre looking better' or 'You look well' has always reduced me to tears and been a huge trigger for me to run back to the safety of my anorexia. When well meaning friends/relatives say such comments they do so to make us feel good,to encourage us,they dont mean what we (anorexics/bulimics etc) hear. What we hear is much different. I used to immeditaly turn these comments into something negative such as 'You've gained weight' or 'You look fatter' or something of this nature.
This is something i think alot of people with eating disorders find hard,i know i did and still do at times but ive learnt to just accept these comments as compliments as that is exactly what they are. For example if someone said to you 'Youre looking well' it doesnt translate into 'Youre looking fat' people could simply mean you are dressed well,your hair is nice,you have a healthy glow etc.
Weight may not even have entered their heads!
After coming out of my last stint in hospital in May,i must have recieved about 100 comments on how well and better i looked,infact it happened so often i had little choice but to accept these comments gratefully and in the end i grew to LIKE people complimenting me and now have a big head haha.
I think the most important thing to remember is peoples comments are mostly very well meaning and they are trying to give you a compliment....i think instead of laughing it off we should turn around and say THANK YOU.
Love Aoifs xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment