All these takes on Nikki’s death telling people with eating disorders that “help is out there”

If you’re about to RT one, stop.

Which do you think is better for someone feeling desperate with a chronic ED?

1. Being gaslight and told there’s help where there isn’t
2. Listening

Honestly try calling one of these helplines people are linking with a many year history of eating disorders. The most common ones people are linking aren’t even open at the weekend. They just have basic info. People know that off by heart after 30 years of living with something.

There are sources of help out there but they are very limited and people living with eating disorders long term may already have used up their limited allocation of therapy or treatment, or may have become ineligible for it. There will be reasons people aren’t receiving help.

It induces despair seeing people tweet about the “help being there” for anorexia after a death like this. The right help often isn’t there. Gaslighting people who’ve fought for many years and telling them the right help was on an info helpline all along is unacceptable. Stop it.

If you actually care about people struggling with eating disorders long term help pay for their treatment. Lobby. Make sure skilled and effective help is available for others free at the point of need. Fund research. Listen to them. Don’t gaslight. Keep caring as long as it takes

Also listen to them about their other friends they have lost. Most people living with eating disorders long term will have a place of remembrance in their head of friends who have died, sometimes in the next room, and no one has ever wanted to listen. Don’t pretend it’s all fine.

I know of ten people I was inpatient with as a child who died before their 40th. Ask, and if they want to talk, listen. If you’re feeling strong ask if they want to talk about what was done to them in treatment, this kind of death can spark feelings of futility in that suffering.

Also respect if they don’t want to talk and just want to be quiet or sad or angry at the devastation anorexia causes. But please don’t tweet basic information about eating disorders at them and pretend it means there’s effective help that they’ve been ignoring. That’s just cruel.

Of course mental health helplines have a place. But just because there is an information helpline for mental health that does not mean that it is the right help for someone who has lived with an eating disorder for 30years. Help for long term eating problems is very hard to find.

For many years when I was very underweight I would regularly have complete strangers approach me at the bus stop or park or anywhere I had dared to take my too thin body and tell me they knew I had anorexia and I should “get help” and sort it out. It isn’t that we didn’t notice.

There is hope for people with long term eating disorders and there is some effective help but it’s not available to everyone and is often a postcode and other life privilege lottery (for example not having to work, being able to fund it, etc) as to whether you can access it.

If you want to help people with long term eating disorders don’t just tell them there’s hope and give them a helpline number. Actually make more hope for people with eating disorders by making help more available to more people and being there for them for as long as it takes.