September 28, 2014
This past Monday, I attended a lecture run by Duke's Women's Center entitled "Is this normal? How to Talk to a Friend with an Eating Disorder." I hadn't thought to bring up eating disorders during our discussion about the ethics surrounding food last Sunday, but the more I thought about eating disorders, the stranger I thought it was that no one had brought it up. Eating disorders influence most everyone I know, whether it be that they are struggling or have struggled with an eating disorder or know someone who is or has. Someone I love very dearly struggled for years with an eating disorder; it eventually led to severe depression. It shook her family dynamic as they watched her bubbly, lovable personality fade away to monotony and placed huge amounts of stress on her mother, especially, who tried helplessly to bring her back.
As teenagers turning twenty-somethings on a college campus, the presence of eating disorders is more prevalent than ever before in our lives. With the stress of academics and fitting in combined with the extreme competitive nature inherent in students especially on a campus like Duke's, it is likely that all of us will know someone affected by an eating disorder or perhaps become victims ourselves. So, what are you, as a friend supposed to do, should this situation arise? Talk to her? Well, what that if that makes it worse? Give her some tough love? Well, what if she stops trusting you and shuts you out completely? Embrace her, telling her it will all be okay? Well, what if what happens to my friend happens to yours, and you had the power all along to make it better?
This is a dangerous moral dilemma between what is right and what is easy. I was terrified to talk to my friend for so long, fearing that she would hate me or that I could possibly make her worse. I will always regret not being brave enough to say something sooner; her life would have been much different and so would mine. Morality is not about the "what ifs." It is about what is right. That is a lesson I learned the hard way.
This past Monday, I attended a lecture run by Duke's Women's Center entitled "Is this normal? How to Talk to a Friend with an Eating Disorder." I hadn't thought to bring up eating disorders during our discussion about the ethics surrounding food last Sunday, but the more I thought about eating disorders, the stranger I thought it was that no one had brought it up. Eating disorders influence most everyone I know, whether it be that they are struggling or have struggled with an eating disorder or know someone who is or has. Someone I love very dearly struggled for years with an eating disorder; it eventually led to severe depression. It shook her family dynamic as they watched her bubbly, lovable personality fade away to monotony and placed huge amounts of stress on her mother, especially, who tried helplessly to bring her back.
As teenagers turning twenty-somethings on a college campus, the presence of eating disorders is more prevalent than ever before in our lives. With the stress of academics and fitting in combined with the extreme competitive nature inherent in students especially on a campus like Duke's, it is likely that all of us will know someone affected by an eating disorder or perhaps become victims ourselves. So, what are you, as a friend supposed to do, should this situation arise? Talk to her? Well, what that if that makes it worse? Give her some tough love? Well, what if she stops trusting you and shuts you out completely? Embrace her, telling her it will all be okay? Well, what if what happens to my friend happens to yours, and you had the power all along to make it better?
This is a dangerous moral dilemma between what is right and what is easy. I was terrified to talk to my friend for so long, fearing that she would hate me or that I could possibly make her worse. I will always regret not being brave enough to say something sooner; her life would have been much different and so would mine. Morality is not about the "what ifs." It is about what is right. That is a lesson I learned the hard way.