Building your support team is foundational for recovery
Anyone who has recovered (or is recovering) from an eating disorder will tell you it’s hard work. Choosing recovery over the eating disorder over and over again can be a grind – often distressing, and sometimes exhausting.
For these reasons sometimes it’s more comfortable, less distressing, and just easier to stick with the eating disorder behaviours, and avoid the important work required to make change.
This is exactly why support matters. Australia’s National Eating Disorders Strategy recommends actively involving your support people in treatment, and contemporary approaches like Temperament Based Therapy with Supports (TBT-S) consider support people vital for recovery, for people of all ages.
Why a malnourished brain needs backup
There’s a growing body of research demonstrating the link between food restriction and changes in brain function. Processes like decision-making, emotion regulation, and interoception (the ability to read your body’s internal cues, like hunger) are impacted. Food becomes less rewarding and more anxiety-provoking, and your brain’s internal image of your body can become distorted.
These changes can make it very difficult to challenge eating disorder behaviours on your own. This isn’t a failure of willpower, it’s biology. Recovery takes consistent, deliberate action, and re-nourishment is essential. Involving even one person in your treatment can make all the difference. Eating disorder recovery is difficult, and even more so when you try to do it alone.
So, who belongs on your team? And what can they actually do?
Choosing your support people
Of course there’s no limit to the people you can enlist to support your eating disorder recovery, and different people can play different roles. Some of the ways your friends and/or family members can help include:
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Meal support: It can be incredibly helpful to have someone at home to help you with meals and snacks. They might eat with you; offer distraction before, during and after mealtimes; gently challenge any eating disorder behaviours; and go grocery shopping with/for you. They can help you prepare food too, or share the load in decision making around meals
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Social support: A support person can make outings with friends more manageable, assisting with challenges like navigating menu choices, gently redirecting conversations away from food or bodies, and offering distraction if the urge to purge arises after eating
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Emotional support: Having a reliable, supportive friend or family member to check in with is extremely helpful in recovery. Often people worry they’ll be too burdensome if they share their distress with others, but people who care about us often appreciate being trusted to help in vulnerable moments. Sometimes people want to provide support, but they’re just not sure how to offer it
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Movement support: If exercise has become part of the eating disorder, then being active with others can help you to stay on track with recovery-oriented movement. This often means gentler, less intensive activity than you’re used to. Sharing it with someone else can help to normalise gentle movement and challenge the eating disorder urge to do more
How can I help my support people know how to help me?
Even the most willing support people will most likely need some guidance from you about how they can be supportive.
Planning ahead can make a big difference. Here are some ways you can set your team up for success:
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Be specific: “Can you sit with me for 20 minutes after dinner?” is much easier to act on than “I need support.” Clear, concrete requests take the guesswork out of helping
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Share what helps (and what doesn’t): Maybe distraction works better than talking about how you feel. Maybe comments about food, even positive ones, are hard to manage. Consider what you need and let your people know
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Name your tricky times: If evenings, weekends or eating out are harder for you, let your support people know, so they can check in and offer additional support at those times
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Agree on a signal: An agreed code word or text can let someone know you’re struggling, without the need to explain it when you’re already struggling
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Put it in writing: A simple support plan – what helps, what to avoid, and what to do if things get hard – gives everyone something to come back to. Your therapist can help create one if you need assistance
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Keep the conversation going: What you need will change as recovery progresses, so be prepared to review this over time and continue the conversation as your support needs change
Can I involve support people in my therapy sessions?
Your support people are always welcome to attend your therapy sessions at Mind Body Well, and in fact, we encourage their involvement. For adult clients, the level of involvement is really up to you. For our clients aged under 18, we require a parent or caregiver to be closely involved in your treatment.
We recommend bringing at least one support person to your early sessions, and your therapist will discuss with you how your supports can best be involved in your ongoing treatment.
Regular sessions with your support people are best practice. They can provide feedback to your Psychologist or Dietitian about how you’re going at home, and they can also learn strategies to help them help you to challenge the eating disorder. This is particularly important early in recovery, when changing the eating and exercise behaviours tends to be the most difficult.
Supporting a loved one through an eating disorder can be tough too. We usually recommend support people seek help for themselves, which could involve their own individual therapy, or connecting with support services such as those listed below.
Who supports the supports people?
Support people are welcome to reach out for their own therpay wiht our team at Mind Body Well, and can also find helpful guidance through the following organisations:
