Why Support in Recovery Can Feel So Overwhelming

When you’re in recovery, especially from something as consuming as an eating disorder, even the kindest support can feel like you being put on a stage under bright lights. The texts checking in, the worried glances at dinner, the well-meaning “you look healthy” comments… they can trigger discomfort, guilt, or even shame. Not because the people around you are doing anything wrong, but because recovery is such an intensely internal process. When you’ve spent so long hiding your pain or managing it alone, having others witness your struggle can feel suffocating. Suddenly, your healing isn’t just yours, and that can be really hard to sit with.

When “Helpful” Comments Hurt — And Why They’re Still Rooted in Care

In recovery, even the most well-meaning questions can feel like pressure. A passing “Have you eaten?” or “How are you doing, really?” can feel like someone’s peering into a part of your life you’re still trying to figure out yourself. Suddenly, your dinner plate feels like a performance, your answers like a test. But this discomfort doesn’t mean you’re doing recovery wrong—or that your loved ones are doing support wrong either. It’s a sign that the process is real, raw, and layered.

These questions that they ask, and their challenging your behaviours, is a sign of love. It’s a sign that they are trying to help. Of course, your ED voice may tell you it’s the opposite – like they are trying to sabotage you and so on. But ultimately this is what you’ll learn: that all your loved ones want to do, in whatever way they can, is to help you.

Learning to Sit With the Discomfort of Being Seen

It can feel… suffocating, overwhelming, disconcerting… to be so raw and vulnerable in front of your entire family and friends. When the truth comes out that you’re struggling in so many ways, of course they are going to try and help you. But at the start (and maybe for a while) this can feel uncomfortable. That part of you doesn’t want help – it wants you keep pushing forward, to keep restricting, to keep exercising, to keep going, until you can’t anymore. Sad, but it’s true. So when people see you and see that you’re hurting, it can feel foreign to you, after so long of hiding the pain away, lying and sneaking around.

Your Loved Ones Are Not Your Enemy

Furthermore, it can feel even more suffocating because your loved ones are going to be challenging your behaviours. They might comment on what (or what you’re not) eating. How much exercise you’re doing. What behaviours you still can’t let go of. Not just at the start of your journey into recovery, but throughout the entire course of it. But… your family, your friends, are not and will never be your enemy.

All these people want to do are support you, help you. They might not do it in the way you want them too – but if you’re still struggling, they are going to be a little more forceful with it. It’s not a bad thing – as I said, it’s a huge sign of love. They love you so much that they themselves are hurting as they watch you hurt yourself. You wouldn’t like, or stand for, your loved one going through that pain. So you must understand how much they are just trying to help.

They’re Trying, Even If They Don’t Understand

No one will ever understand your pain. Even if you know someone else who is going through a similar thing, they are not you, and will have not experienced it in the same way. All people can do it try. It will be painful for them, and painful for you, as you both try to work out a way to help you and support your journey. Even after years of this, they aren’t going to understand the full picture. Sure, they can see when you get upset over something, or see when you’re trying so hard not to give in to the ED voice. But they will know exactly what you’re feeling.

Give them a break. At the end of the day, they are not you. They can only do so much. And yes, it is so so so frustrating when you don’t know how they can help you. But they don’t know how they can help you either, and, because they love you so much, they are getting frustrated too – as they don’t know how to support you. Keep this in mind – they are hurting too.

You Don’t Have to Agree to Still Be Supported

Their way to help you may not be want you want. Like me, you may want to be coddled, to not have to compromise, to basically do what you want. But how long have you been doing that? Me? Years. And not a lot has changed. So, if your loved ones are challenging you more and more, and maybe even stopping you from restricting, or exercising, or whatever it is you are struggling with at the moment, you don’t have to agree with it. That is their way of helping you – and trust me, it is.

They will support you nonetheless – despite the arguments and the frustration – because that’s what loved ones do.

How I’m Learning to Accept Help, Not Hide from It

Although I’ve been in recovery for a long time, it’s still taking a long time to accept that the people around me only want to help. It’s taken an even longer time to understand that other people are hurting too. It’s not just me, the one with the ED, who’s suffering. It’s everyone else that it effects. This is what isn’t spoken about enough. And I’m not saying that “I’m taking accountability for hurting those around me” – that isn’t fair on me to say. But, as long as I am aware that sure, the ED will effect relationships, and that my ED is also… well, me, then that will go a long way.

Accept the help, accept the support, even when that other part of you is screaming for quiet and to continue on with those long-lived habits and behaviours. You are NOT alone in this. There are so many people who want to help you. So… let them.

A Reminder: You’re Allowed to Be Loved Without Performing Wellness

Recovery can feel like a long, lonely climb. But you’re not doing it alone. Every awkward check-in, every concerned glance, every moment someone reaches out—they’re signs of love. Not perfection, not pressure. Just love. And you deserve every bit of it.