First time relationship, my girlfriend has a number of mental health problems

[sagem]

my girl friend has a number of different metal health problems, anxiety, depression, eating disorders including anorexia, along with a fear of disappointing others and therefore refusing to put her needs above anyone else's.  right now we are both freshman in college at different schools and trying to stay in a long distance relationship. the main difficulty for me is her self sabotaging nature, she wants to get in shape which should be okay if she is eating enough so we set up a plan where she eats three meals a day and she can work out and if she misses to many in a row she has to go 5 days eating three meals a day in order to work out again.  she made it 4 days and then decided to give up and start over on purpose saying that she is deciding to sabotage herself and knows it. I'm unsure of how to handle or best help situations like this at time and I am looking for advice, as I have read some of these preliminary things, I could see our relationship defined as codependent. these also say that I need to step back and be here but let her fail. this sounds good in writing but letting her stop eating would mean her going back to a hospital being isolated and possibly loosing thousands of dollars on college.   

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[Tattered Heart]

Hi skipio,

Welcome ,

I"m sorry that your relationship has been strained due to anorexia. My understanding is that eating disorders are common in pwBPD. It sounds like your gf doesn't really want to stop harming herself in this way. That must be hard to watch. You are in a long distance relationship. If you were with her would you force her to eat? Or would she continue to do the same thing with you there? She might lose out on money for college, but would it better for her to get the help she needs in the hospital? Does she have her parents as a support system?

One of the differences between supporting vs. enabling is that supporting them is helping the pwBPD in areas they are unable to do things on their own. Enabling is doing something for someone that they are capable of doing themselves. Enabling allows someone to stay stuck; supporting helps them grow.

[sagem]

Thank you for your response, and the welcome to the family, I am looking for some ideas then on how to be supportive instead of enabling.  Currently she has been wanting to work out to get more in shape which makes sense for a number of reasons because she used to be active and since she had gone to the hospital part of her initial recovery involved not playing sports because she was exercising solely for the purpose of losing weight which was not good.  She now has stated a different goal which is to tone and strengthen her body which if she exercises and eats properly is possible.  The problem is she still wants to eat 2 small to medium meals a day with some snacks which I don’t think would be to bad if she was not exercising and would likely keep her at a healthy weight since she would ideally be still eating 1200 to 1500 calories, she is a small person, so this is generally adequate from what I have read.  However, once she starts exercising she needs to be taking in a more constant flow of protein and increase the calorie intake otherwise it will just make her loose weight. 

Our current system I’ve been trying to work with her with is that if she eats 3 meals she can exercise for 30 min that night and when she misses more that 1 or 2 in the previous days she then must eat 3 meals a day for a day or 2 before she can exercise again. I have no idea if this is the right approach because I am generally uneducated in eating disorders though I’ve been trying to learn more.  I guess I’m looking for some input on how to either improve this system or if there is another source out there with one already that I should she if she wants to try. 

In answer to your question when I’m with her I can generally get her to eat more since I’m there eating with her and I’m a pretty good cook, so she likes my food though sometimes it is near impossible. She has an awful roommate who seems not to respect her, and has just this weekend placed a full-length mirror in their room which also could be very bad and my gf has mentioned it too me but will not ask her roommate to remove or somehow hide it.  Which I believe is the cause of her recent decision that she does not care if I say she should not work out because she has not been eating enough “she’s either going to work out or stop eating all together” she does also have her parents but does not want to go to them because her mother sometimes over reacts.  Her twin also struggles with many of the same things and has anorexia, so her family is well versed in these disorders.

[pearlsw]

Hi skipio,

I think it's great that you are learning about eating disorders and trying to figure out what role you can have here. From what I've read I think it will be key not to let yourself get preoccupied with the eating disorder. You are going to need to support and find a way to recharge from the stress this will bring you as well.

Tattered Heart has brought up a really important point here about being clear about the difference between being supportive and enabling - this is always important to review. Upon consideration, and because I am concerned about your well-being, may I ask if are you concerned you might have a tendency to enable or do you feel certain you will be able to avoid this approach? 

wishing you well!

[sagem]

i think that i could have a tendency to enable partially because i want to help and dont want to see her get into trouble and partially because i am not sure i can always see the difference between enabling and supporting because i feel like there is a very thin line at some points between the two.

[pearlsw]

One of the differences between supporting vs. enabling is that supporting them is helping the pwBPD in areas they are unable to do things on their own. Enabling is doing something for someone that they are capable of doing themselves. Enabling allows someone to stay stuck; supporting helps them grow.

Hi again skipio,

This is new for me too and I agree it can be hard to distinguish, and it can feel like there is a fine line there. If you like we can think it over together a bit more so we can become clearer in identifying the differences.  Given this definition that Tattered Heart pointed us to are there things that you are doing that you would identify as enabling and things you would identify as supportive?

How caught up are you in the details of how she is handling her eating issues? Is she working with a professional on those issues or just doing it herself/relying on you?

Do any other members have more experience with having partners with eating disorders that can help us here?

[sagem]

Before college she had been meeting with a therapist and Dr once a week or so with the goal being able to "be okay to forgo that for the school year". there is some on campus support she gets every now and then but for the most part it seems to be just up to her.  She has stated that if i was not pushing her to eat she would probably not be.  but it has really been just me and sometimes with the help of one of her friends from back home trying to keep her eating. 

[pearlsw]

Hi skipio,

Perhaps encouraging her to get more help on campus would be a good approach. I know it is worrisome, and you can play a role, but I think that she likely needs more support in her immediate vicinity. I think if you take on too big of a piece of this your relationship could get very out of balance. What do you think? Seems to me to most important thing you can do is to put your efforts, first and foremost, into learning about your own tendencies to enable and seeing what self work you might need to do. The stronger and clearer you are the better you can handle this without going too far in my opinion.

take care, pearlsw.

[sagem]

thank you for the advise i think that could be a wise idea. I'm just not sure she will actively look for the help on campus the way she describes it is at home she had no escape she just had to eat what she was told when she was told to, but now her brain is going freedom you dont have to eat why are you eating you should not be eating right now you already at 1 cracker earlier etc...   I think the new level of freedom is allot for her to manage and is causing her to not look for ways to make it easier to eat because her brain is pushing her away from that.  I'm not sure if that made sense but its how i understand what is going on.