Those struggling with anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders often drift into isolation because they allow friendships to weaken (or to end completely). The loss of relationship corresponds to the loss of food intake.
Anorexia Creates Isolation Around Meals and Snacks
Isolation in anorexia often begins with times that involve food. Meals and snacks with others create the risk of being seen, or perhaps hearing others suggest that she should eat more. Meals can be times of great discomfort because the person with anorexia must go to extremes to look normal. She may cut food into tiny bites and chew excessively, for example, to look busy while avoiding taking in many calories.
These activities may be enough to merit a diagnosis of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, to go along with the eating disorder. A person may always cut her food, no matter how much there is, into forty-three pieces (or some other arbitrary number), or chew each bite a certain number of times.
One-Sided Relationships Create More Isolation With Anorexia
Those struggling with anorexia are generally not concerned with others’ opinions of them. With anorexia, a person will usually have a sense of power from being able to restrict food intake. She will often hide this sense of power with a very helpful attitude, being willing to offer aid to others with no strings attached.
The "niceness" stays intact in part because the person with anorexia is very comfortable giving to others--as long as she does not have to receive anything from someone else. When others offer help to her, the nice demeanor may melt away quickly. Having offers of help challenges her with the idea that she might need something, or someone. This is uncomfortable.
For example, it is not uncommon to see women weighing less than 90 pounds refuse to have others help them with their luggage. In fact, these same women are likely to offer to help others carry heavy items, or to drive people to the airport at odd hours.
Isolation in Relationships Mirrors Isolation from Food
If there is a bottom-line relational stance of the person with anorexia, it is "I don't need you." This obviously is similar to her stance toward food. Every day she makes a statement saying that she can live just fine without needing what other people need. As the disorder deepens, she will find fewer and fewer reasons to be with others. Family and friends are cut off to varying degrees, and no meaningful connections remain.
A New Beginning: Changing Patterns of Isolation
The reality is that those struggling with anorexia often want relationship with others more than anything, at least when all the defenses are peeled away. When a person acknowledges this desire, whether in the context of a friendship, a support group, or therapy, there is much hope for recovery.
Beginning sessions in therapy usually do not deal with core issues for those with anorexia. That requires intimacy. With time, however, trust increases and walls begin to come down.
It takes a certain amount of boldness and strength for the person with anorexia to ignore signals of hunger. Great things can happen when she uses that boldness and strength to enter into trusting relationships again.
