but none of us here can exactly do that, can we?
No, but you sure can work to help keep him out of a program, and often that is done by being nice, and with nothing but the best of intentions. Turns out, it is cruel to be kind.
Chat, and everyone being all nice, and understanding is perhaps, the last thing this person needed. I don't know much about eating disorders, but I know way too much about addiction, and I'm sure some of that is very similar, in that the degree of others helping, does not help, it only enables.
I mean it seems to me that these two statements, first by Vexing, and second by Nichole, are pretty close to the same.
Often 'Tough Love' gets results when all the tree hugging in the world turns out to be a big pile of FAIL.
I've worked around and in Critical Care Units for eating disorders and they do not foster, shelter or exacerbate the illness. In point of fact they tend to be rather strict about food intake and coming clean with their clients.
That to do anything about this is hard, and its very much 'not nice' to the people who go through it. What little I know about addiction is that nothing changes till everything is gone. Lost job, lost family, no drugs and in jail is where most people get nirvana, not before.
And, when they get to those places that can help them, its a very painful voyage where people are forced to not only see a lot of stuff about themselves that they wished to ignore, but to also confront the damage they have done to themselves and to just about everyone around them.
What's step one? Admitting you have a problem and that you are powerless to do much about it. All to often chat offers the exact kind of mollycoddling that Vexing is decrying. Everyone wants to be supportive, and they don't need support. They need either professional help, or an undertaker. Sooner, rather than later, in most cases. And if you don't get the first, the second will find you.
What chat all too often tends to offer people with problems like this, is sympathy masquerading as support, and its the last thing they need. They need professional help, and if it ain't you, then the best thing you can do for them is get the hell out of the way.
