I feel like my friend is jealous of my ed and idk what to do, I feel like im going insane bc of her
hey, so for a bit of background on my situation im a 16f and im currently attending an iop day service after being diagnosed with anorexia. I first opened up about my struggles around 6 weeks ago now and my mum took me to the doctors the next morning where I was then sent straight to hospital. I was there for 3 weeks and ive now been out for 3 weeks and attending the iop (an alternative to being sent inpatient).
Anyways so I have this friend- let's call her holly- and she has always claimed to have struggles with her eating. I was always so so supportive of her and id constantly be encouraging her with simple things like "food is fuel" or if she'd said she still ate after a high anxiety day id say she did amazing etcetc. However, id never actually see Holly struggling with food, which I know may sound unfair to say as many struggle silently, but she acted in the complete opposite way to how she described her relationship with food. She would eat constantly, still a healthy amount of food, but I mean she'd have all 3 meals and would always be snacking at school. She even started a weight gain journey and carried on eating as she would but just started drinking like protein shakes and stuff aswell just to help her along. This was successful as she has gained weight now and I think shes in a relatively happy place with her body.
Despite all of this, she still has this thing where she still claims she really struggles with food. Then i began to struggle with restriction but I didnt tell anyone about it, I very much kept it to myself. I dont know why it started, i had been battling depression for a while when it started so i think it could've come about as a result of that where i just wanted to control something when i felt like my emotions were so dull and out of my control. I kept it very well hidden but when I was at school some of my friends would notice if I wasn't eating lunch and would ask why to which id just say "im not hungry". However this happened one time and Holly's response to this was "im supposed to be the one with the eating disorder here not you" before carrying on eating her lunch. This was the first time I properly thought like, what is even going on.
Then she would still come to me and all our other friends like "i had a complete breakdown to my mum about food yesterday", so we'd all ask why and she would say things like "i just dont enjoy it anymore". This again baffled me because:
its obviously important to enjoy food, but you dont have to constantly enjoy it
she was literally lying.
I remember we got invited to my friends house for dinner a few days before she came out with this statement and we had tacos. I just had two, filled mostly with lettuce. She however had 1 taco and also got very excited about having some of the taco mince in a wrap instead! She also snacked on my friends Christmas chocolate and even asked for some of the fancy looking truffles my friend had. To me this does not align with her claims of struggling with food.
Instances like this happened alot and it really deflates you when you can feel your body literally giving up on you and you feel like you can't tell anyone yet she was jumping on the first opportunity to say she was struggling with food but displaying the exact opposite.
It didnt just happen with the food though. There was one time where she came to me and another of our friends at school and claimed that the night before she had thoughts of "what's the point anymore". We obviously supported her loads but she wasn't hiding it, she told everyone about how "suicidal" she was. At the time i was still really battling my depression but I had refused all help up to that point. Eventually I was forced to accept help as I couldn't even get into school anymore but what was Holly saying to all our friends whilst I was off? "I hope she doesn't get as bad as it got". Is that not an insane thing to say? I already struggled with not feeling valid and id only just agreed to going to camhs and I find out shes saying this behind my back.
Back to the eating, when I went into hospital, my mum told me to tell her as i wasnt going to be at school and it wasnt fair to lie so i told her and she said "i know how hard it is". But no she doesnt? She doesnt know what its like to slowly feel your body getting weaker, to feel your heart getting slower, to have your hair fall out in chunks, to have your period stop, to never feel warm, to not be able to think properly, to lose your relationships with your family and friends, to lose all the love you have for yourself but feeling stuck in it. In some twisted way not being able to stop something so damaging- she doesnt know what thats like. Holly wanted to come and visit me but I said no as I wasn't up for visitors which was true but it was also because I just didnt want to see her. I just felt like she wanted to be nosy and see me in hospital. Yesterday I invited Holly and another friend over to my house just for an hour or so and it was lovely to see them. Mainly we talked about random stuff as I didnt want it to be focused on me but they asked how things were going so I explained little bits. I just said about all the different people at the day service, what I do there and how the therapy should be helpful and stuff. I also made a joke about one of the first things my boy best friend asked when I told him about it which was "if we go out to do this thing would you still eat with the rest of us". I just said it was a typical thing for a boy to ask but like, I couldn't even think of that right now as im struggling to even eat at home just infront of my mum, let alone at an unknown restaurant infront of everyone. I thought nothing of sharing this at the time because, why would you when gossiping with your two best friends?
I received a text later on from Holly saying "ive decided im gonna go to chums" (which is a low intensity mental health service). I asked why and what's been going on to which she replied "my anxiety has been really bad, I haven't been okay for a decent amount of time, if get scared over big meals out and ive decided I dont like eating out all the time as I feel not in control". I was genuinely gobsmacked. For me there's a few things to unpack.
after seeing me she has now decided shes not okay and needs to go to therapy
she now gets scared over eating out- something she's never mentioned before- but has decided to mention it now after I explained about it. to add on to this, she has just been on holiday for a week and when she visited, she was telling us all about the food and the fact they had all inclusive breakfasts and ate out every evening on top of just eating throughout the day.
she used the word "decided". She's "decided" she doesn't like eating out. mental illness is not a choice, I didnt choose to have anorexia but I do and im fighting to get my life back.
why the flip is she telling me this? It triggered me so bad because it felt like my ed voice scored a point. It felt like she was validating my ed and the fact that it believes not being in control is bad and eating out is bad. I mean why would you say that to someone who's just started their recovery journey? If she truly struggled with food I feel like she'd be more aware of how much harm she could be causing by saying that.
I just responded by saying im probably not the best person to speak to about it right now. I feel a bit bad because I know id never forgive myself if something truly was happening with her but I just dont believe it for a second. Am I like going insane for thinking she wants attention and is almost jealous of my ed? Am I right for just having shut down the conversation? Im so lost but from my pov she is just not a good friend.