I need some advice and support, and am wondering if anyone else went through this.

I met my friend 3 years ago when we were both at a normal weight. I worked hard on keeping fit (not as hard as now ), and as did my friend. I left the city for a year, came back, and discovered her habits changed. She ate almost nothing, did massive amounts of exercise, and would snap at any mention of dieting (mine, not hers). I had a hard time figuring out what happened to her, if she got an eating disorder or was just strict. In a sense, I admired her ability to refuse certain foods. For that, I feel guilty now, when things went out of control. The only times I saw her happy was when we went shopping for clothes. The rest of the time, she would cook extremely fattening foods for others, and feed them to people whenever she could. She would literally show up with cakes, buns, and other stuff. It took me a while to realize she was eating none of the stuff she made.

I haven't seen her in a year now. Someone posted pictures on facebook in which she looks even thinner and more frightening then when I last saw her. Dull skin, thinning hair, chest bones. Some friends from the city told me they are worried about her. I am moving back to the same city and will have to face her. As a close friend, I have no idea what to do.

My main problem is that I am working on my own weight loss. I am more and more happy with my body every day, but I am doing it in a healthy way. I avoid certain foods and work out and try not to stress about it. What worries me is how I should behave around her. While I want her to get better, I don't want her to fall into that trap (many anorexics have this problem) that I am just "jealous" of her (I honestly am not, she has massive amounts of medical/psychological problems since she started abusing her body) and therefore trying to get her to start eating better again.

She invited me to her Thanksgiving dinner, and I will literally cry if she doesn't eat anything. I just feel so helpless. I don't want to lose my friend, literally and figuratively, and she has no close people or family members in her vicinity to take action.

Any advice? This is really tearing me apart.

This isn't really advice, but I will totally admit I have one friend who I just won't do anything that involves eating with anymore. It isn't worth the discomfort and my own feelings being around someone who eats two bites and then is just "SO full."

That was my solution. Others may have better ones.

My suggestion is to say nothing to your friend. It usually doesn't work and most often causes resentment. Don't offer any advice unless she asks for it.

Just be there for her if she needs you. It's hard but you can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves.

Do you have contact with anyone close to her like a family member? If not, do you have someone you can talk to who does have a relationship with someone in her family? If you believe your friend has an eating disorder, I think it would be irresponsible to not express your concern to someone who is in a position to do something, like a parent or sibling. I realize it would be an extremely uncomfortable conversation and may have a negative effect on your friendship, but if this girl's life is in danger, you may regret not saying something in the long run. If she is as severely ill as she sounds, she likely isn't in a mindset that would lead her to checking herself in and might need the push.

You can't give any direct advice (that would be refused and she would instantly reject you), you aren't the first to try , but you could have a heart-to-heart with her. Just listen.

Ask her how her life is, job is, how she got into her new cooking hobby. In a nice way, ask if she is happy with her situation.

She may say something that causes her to realize how crazy her behavior is. Or she may already know and confess it to you.

In any case, leave your own opinions out and just play the role of the open, loving, accepting "therapist". We all know eating is a very personal, intimate, primal matter. If it even seems like someone else is trying to take control over this basic activity - where she has felt the need to exert "uber" control - then you probably won't make any progress with her.

You will also want to be careful with how you talk about yourself - I would not let her know you are losing in a healthy manner. She may try to make you her partner in crime, which would leave you feeling guilty.

I have some personal experience with this.. though not much good advice I'm afraid. When I was in the throws of disordered eating, I would completely shut down whenever somebody tried to talk to me about it, or told me I should eat something, and it made me want to eat even less. The thought of getting help terrified me. Though of course she may want help, but not know how to reach out for it.. I really don't know what I would do in your shoes. Just be there and as somebody already said, try to contact a parent or relative maybe.

From personal experience..

No one can change unless they want too. I wanted to change, but i couldn't/didn't know how to. I understand the people who above who are saying to not say anything, but i don't think thats the best approach. By that i mean, it is important that someone (not necessarily you) is monitoring her. The thing is if she is really ill, especially if she has anorexia, without help she will just kill herself slowly. I know thats worst case scenario and is really scary, but i really think its important that someone around her ie. family/close friends is keeping a really careful eye on her.

But yeah, basically don't be judgmental of her, support her - But i would let her know that you are concerned about her and see what her reaction is.

She sounds dangerously ill. Speak to an eating disorders organisation for advice, there are plenty around and they will know much more about how to proceed. Anorexia is an illness with a very high death rate (around a third), so please seek professional advice on this.

I like this advice!

I was going to say to refer her to 3FC and tell her that you get great advice on weight management. It might help her to see the healthy goals people are aiming for rather than trying to guess what a healthy weight would be. I certainly wouldn't approach it from an accusatory direction. I've seen the posts here about people who are not to goal yet ranting about the unsolicited "when are you going to stop" advice/comments and it might hit her the same way.

I really wouldn't point an anorexic in the direction of any weight loss community, no matter how wise or supportive that community may be. Remember that someone with anorexia has severely distorted thinking, that they need professional psychiatric help, and that laypersons almost always give them the wrong advice because it's such a hard condition to understand. I've known too many people with dangerous levels of anorexia or not eating from other causes, including family and friends. One is currently in hospital and probably only has a few months to live. Another has been in and out of hospital and for the last few months has been in an institution for people with anorexia.

My best friend in highschool was anorexic. It tore us appart in the end, because she thrived on the attention of others, while killing herself.

I felt totally helpless because my attention and love only fed her inner monster. I was actually killing her partly in a way through caring. Only a total stranger with a degree in psychology can help. Someone the anorexic does not depend on for their attention fix.

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. Please don't feel that you had a hand in killing her, though. The illness did that.

I'm really glad you said this. I think people often think of someone with anorexia as just a very obsessive and serious dieter when it is actually a psychological disorder that needs to be treated as such.

There's a whole spectrum of disordered eating, though. One can be non-anorexic and still be exhibiting disordered eating. You can be using the terminology incorrectly and still be recognizing that something is wrong.