Expert: Nafeesah - 4/15/2009

Question
Have a friend [36 years old], a very good friend actually. Actually I'm not sure of this.

She suffered from anorexia as a teen. She has not maintained any real friendships from school, university, or work life. Struck me as particularly odd, since she's very gregarious. She seemed a little desperate [for friendship] when i met her, but it didn't concern me. 3 or 4 months ago she told me she had been an anorexic teen.

I basically held her hand initially. All facets of her life were not going that well, and i tried to let her know that it will all pass. We had a lot of fun...

Seems now she's got some of her 'lifestuff' together, she's no longer answering emails etc etc. My mother died 2 months ago, and she's hardly asked how i've been coping. I haven't been coping well, and i could have done with a best friend.... I have plenty of great friends, but she shot to number one in the rankings pretty quickly...

I'm sure i've left out a number of things that may be critical, but my basic queries are:

Should i attempt to maintain the friendship, having promised her ages ago that I would NOT abandon her, like others before me had apparently done...

A psychologist friend of mine suggested that her ex-anorexia status may have something to do with her lack of lasting friendships... And predicted that my maintaining a relationship would be difficult. Fair weather friend he suggested. Once she's up on her feet again, I wouldn't hear from her.

Is this really common in anorexics? Should I ease myself out of dependency of this relationship, you think?

Answer
Sounds to me like your friend has a lot of emotional issues stemming back from her childhood. She needs to be in counseling because that's a red flag if she's not maintained healthy friendships or relationships. People may have abandoned her because her issues got to be too much for them to deal with. You needed a friend after losing your mother 2 months ago. I think you need to make some decisions in terms of how long you should deal with this friend.