Loving Someone with an Eating Disorder by Dana Harron

You also can’t avoid bodies, images of bodies, ideas about how bodies should be, or messages about gluttony, discipline, and sloth. Life seems so easy for everyone else who doesn’t have to deal with these issues, whereas for you and your partner, everything you try feels like running into a brick wall. You are now continually, painfully reminded of the role that food plays in your life every single day. The eating disorder (which I also refer to as ED) robs you, and your partner, of that luxury.

It is so much a part of everyday life that most people have the luxury of taking it completely for granted. The kicker is that nobody else really knows this about food. It’s no wonder that it’s hard for you to find your footing, for as soon as you recover from one difficult moment, the next is upon you. When somebody has a birthday, we eat cake. When old friends want to get together, they suggest lunch. We eat to socialize, to celebrate, and to comfort. Additionally, food has social and emotional aspects that make it ever present in our culture. Food is perhaps the most central aspect of every couple’s daily life: we all need to eat.

WIN A COPY! SEE DETAILS BELOW.Īnd there’s no escaping this issue.

It would be just fine to want to shake them until they come around-punish them for the hell they’ve visited upon both your lives or avoid looking at them or talking to them-if your heart didn’t also just break with love for them, if only once upon a time. It wouldn’t be so hurtful to watch your girlfriend silently leave the table to purge after a lunch date, or to watch your husband weigh himself obsessively, if you didn’t also truly care about them. It seems like you can’t have all of these different feelings at once, but the most painful part is that you do. All of the tenderness and joy of love get mixed together with rage, betrayal, and terror when an eating disorder enters the picture. Watching loved ones suffer, seemingly at their own hands, is one of the most painful experiences imaginable. For a chance to win a signed book, see information at the bottom of this post. Harron! She also shared an excerpt with us below. I am so excited about this new release that we are giving away two signed copies, thanks to Dr. Dana Harron for contributing such an important book to the eating disorder bookshelf. I would have shared it with all of my loved ones. This is a book I wish had existed when I was struggling with my own eating disorder.

Loving Someone with an Eating Disorder by Dana Harron