10 Ways You Can Support Someone with Bulimia

Supporting someone with bulimia is hard.

Supporting someone with bulimia is confusing.

Supporting someone with bulimia is exhausting at times.

It can be really hard to know what you should say or how you should act around someone with bulimia. Should you eat normally? Talk about food at all?

As someone who suffered with bulimia, here are some things I wish I had the strength to tell those supporting me…

1. ASK THEM HOW THEY ARE DOING
2. Actually listen to the answer
3. Ask again if you get “I’m fine”
4. Keep inviting them to social events, even if it involves food. Try and organise some non-food socials too though
5. Don’t try and educate them on food/healthy eating. They know what is right and wrong
6. Don’t talk about your diet
7. Don’t talk about your own body image concerns
8. Avoid chat about burning calories — especially post Christmas
9. Don’t make any assumptions about their illness. Even if they don’t appear to be purging, it could still be bulimia.
10. LET THEM KNOW YOU ARE THERE FOR THEM. Even if they don’t wanna talk about things right now, let them know you’re there for them WHENEVER they are ready

Supporting someone with bulimia is challenging, and requires some superhuman lovin’. Don’t be afraid if you need to take a step back to look after yourself in the process.

If you’d like to get educated on what it is like to live with bulimia, I’ve written about my own experience with bulimia (and how if affects me today) in a blog post.