Many of us turn to our friends and families for encouragement when times are tough. So it's no wonder that social media sites have also become important sources of emotional support for people with illnesses.
Recently, a story over on MindBodyGreen highlighted how one woman used Facebook as a tool to help her overcome the shame and deception that hampered her recovery from her eating disorder. As Lindsey Hall explains:
Two months into rehab, I was still struggling with letting go of the games of my eating disorder. Transitioning from in-patient to out, I'd been rapidly finding myself falling backwards instead of forwards.
...
Here I was, 24 years old, still living some days bagel by bagel, still opening the door to deception, and guilt and shame. I knew on some level that admitting to my eating disorder on social media would be a way for me to stop the show. I knew I needed to own this struggle in order to own all of myself, and to continue on my journey learning the art of self-acceptance.
As Hall describes in the story, her decision to make her eating disorder public on Facebook was a leap of faith with no guarantee that it was the right thing to do:
I'll never really know what drove me to write that Facebook status, but I posted it anyway to the open arms of nearly 2,500 "friends" and family, to people that had met me once at a bar or sat next to on a plane. Having lived so long behind a smoke screen, I was ready to expose myself. I needed to feel bare, even while broken, in order to be able to clean my slate, and start from scratch in reconstructing my life.
The feedback Hall received from her gutsy post on Facebook and the subsequent blog posts and stories about her eating disorder haven't always been positive, but as Hall explains, that wasn't that point. Hall's eating disorder is public information now, and this new level of accountability has helped her keep her eating habits on track.
Previously: Incorporating the family in helping teens overcome eating disorders, A growing consensus for revamping anorexia nervosa treatment, Possible predictors of longer-term recovery from eating disorders, Grieving on Facebook: A personal story and How patients use social media to foster support systems, connect with physicians
Photo by .craig
