My friend is sabotaging her health and I am finding it so hard to support her

[LemonTopShop]

I am fully aware that I am going to get flamed for this, but I’ve put my suit on. I am so worried and sad for my friend but anything I, and her healthcare professionals say, is being ignored.

Her doctors have told her she needs a lifestyle overhaul to solve her particular health problem and she won’t listen, and actually is being cheered on by her online friends who claim the doctors are ‘fatphobic’.

I work in health myself and what she is experiencing is 99% down to her morbidly obese BMI and other lifestyle factors.

I know her weight is the result of depression and disordered eating. She’s a wonderful, wonderful person and needs help- but she isn’t engaging with it.

She’s at a private appt today for more scans and blood tests because of the ‘gaslighting’ NHS. The private sector is going to tell her the exact same thing.

She’s my son’s godmother. My lifelong friend. I love her to pieces. But the real world isn’t appealing for her any more and she’s too anxious to play a part in it. She spends her life scrolling body positivity and chronic illness Instagram and TikTok. She has built a large following about her ‘illness’ and this has replaced life.

I’ve tried to come at it from the health angle of encourage her to stop smoking, or reducing the drinking or ‘oh the weather is nice let’s go for a nice walk’. I haven’t spoke weight at all. Our one mutual friend who thinks the same I do has said she needs ‘tough love’ but I feel it’s pointless. We’ll lose her. I just want to help her but I can’t do anything because then I’m no doubt going to be another toxic gaslighter to go NC with.

What would happen if you stopped providing intimate care, taking her to A&E and bringing her packages?

Why? I genuinely don't see how you could think that way.

I have gently asked many people close to me if they are actually happy, especially when their actions are so incongruous to their words. I've never had someone upset by that. They either say yes and we leave it there or it opens up a conversation on how they feel and what help they need.

The OP's friend may be all about body positivity and accepting herself as whatever size and body shape she is, but it is causing her pain and poor health not to mention needing a friend to provide intimate care at the age of 27. You can't have it both ways and it often does take someone pointing that out to make you weigh it up in your head and decide what you want to do with yourself.

Most recently I have pointed out to a friend who is desperate to get pregnant whose doctor told her she wouldn't be considered for IVF until she lost weight (she's morbidly obese). She was saying one thing - I am desperate to get pregnant and want to get IVF - and doing another - extremely unhealthy lifestyle choices making her gain rather than lose weight. Personally I think it would be cruel to play along with the pretence that being accepted to start IVF will magically happen despite her doing the opposite of what she gad been told.

Reading your up dates I think the problem
for you in your boundaries. Please look up the 4 c of al anon, I know it’s not alcohol but it’s very similar.

Seems that you are both in the drama triangle. You start off as the rescuer to her victim - she resists your interventions (they don’t even have to be words or actions - she will sense your anxiety / frustration) - you feel aggrieved and internally (or even externally) become the persecutor and/or victim - and around we go again.

Detach with love. Shift your boundaries.

Do you have a friendship that exists outside of her issues? If not it’s not a friendship.

I think this is absolutely the answer to your dilemma. You can't help her is the right answer. It's time to shift your boundaries.