Empower Your Journey to Recovery
When the Eating Disorder Team Isn’t “Working”: A Letter to Parents Who Feel Helpless
If your loved one is under the care of an NHS eating disorder team and you’re thinking, “This isn’t working,” you’re not alone. This blog is for you.
You’re exhausted. You’re scared. And right now, you need support too.
Understanding Mental Health
“They finally got help… so why does it still feel like we’re drowning?”
For many families, getting referred to an eating disorder team feels like the moment you can exhale. You’ve fought for the referral, waited months, finally seen an assessment slot open up, and now they’re in the system. But what happens when that system feels like it isn’t helping?
The truth is, recovery isn’t a linear process. And treatment, especially in under-resourced NHS services, often progresses more slowly than we would like, or desperately need it to.
It’s easy to feel let down. To want to pull your child or partner out. To feel like maybe they’re not trying at all. But what you’re often seeing isn’t resistance or laziness, it’s the grip of survival mode.
Overcoming Eating Disorder Challenges
Navigating the Complexities of Eating Disorders
Understanding the Benefits
The brain in starvation: what’s really going on
When someone is deeply undernourished, their brain isn’t functioning normally. They’re not rational, logical, or able to make sound decisions, because their body is screaming danger.
Neuroscience tells us that malnutrition activates the amygdala, the brain’s alarm system. It triggers the “fight, flight, or freeze” response, which reduces blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, the logical, decision-making part of the brain. This means:
➔ They become reactive, volatile, and emotionally dysregulated
➔ They can’t access long-term thinking or planning
➔ They may lash out at the people trying to help
You’re not dealing with “your child” or “your partner”; you’re interacting with a brain hijacked by fear and starvation. It’s not personal. It’s biological.
The person you love is still in there
But they’re buried deep right now, under shame, fear, and the protective walls built by the eating disorder.
This part is vital: the eating disorder is serving something. It’s not just about food. It might be:
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A way to manage anxiety or trauma
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A coping strategy for ADHD or autism
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A desperate attempt to feel in control or good enough
In the early stages of recovery, that eating disorder voice can be loud, cruel, and manipulative. It can sound like the person you love is turning on you. But it’s the illness, not them.
Why parents and carers feel utterly broken, and why you need your own support
When you’re walking on eggshells 24/7, absorbing their rage, their panic, their refusal to eat, it takes a toll. Some carers describe it as “living with someone possessed.” Others say it feels like emotional abuse, but from someone they deeply love and desperately want to help.
This contradiction, loving someone who’s harming themselves, and sometimes harming you, is impossible to hold alone.
That’s why your nervous system needs support, too.
You cannot pour from an empty cup.
➔ Join a parent and carer group like Jenny Langley’s
➔ Consider getting your therapy
➔ Talk to someone who gets it, without judgment
This isn’t weakness. It’s protection for you and your family.
“It doesn’t feel like the therapist gets it”, when it’s okay to ask for change
A Journey of Hope
“But what if they don’t want to get better?”
This question breaks hearts.
Here’s the truth: they have to want recovery, even if just 1% of them do. You can build scaffolding around them. You can love them, walk beside them, and refuse to give up. However, you cannot force them to choose recovery.
Often, the eating disorder becomes their identity. Their safe space. Their way of coping. That doesn’t mean they’ll never choose healing, it just means the fear is currently louder than the hope.
Sometimes what they need most is to feel:
➔ Safe
➔ Seen
➔ Not shamed
And you, when resourced and supported, can offer that.
From someone who’s been there: a note of hope
When I was unwell, I didn’t want to get better. I wanted to feel invisible, weightless, out of reach from my pain. I wasn’t trying to be difficult; I didn’t know how else to survive.
I clung to calories and numbers like a lifeline because I had no idea how to process the things underneath:
➔ Feeling unlovable
➔ Feeling broken
➔ Feeling too much, all the time
It wasn’t until I met someone who truly saw me, not just the behaviours, that things began to shift. Recovery took time. It wasn’t linear. But it happened.
So please hold on to this: even if they’re resisting now, they may not always.
Rebuilding Trust
Finding the balance: not too much, not too little
Over-supporting can feel suffocating. Under-supporting can feel like abandonment.
The trick is in co-regulation. In pacing. In asking:
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“What support feels helpful right now?”
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“What helps them feel safe, and what triggers the ED voice?”
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“What do I need so I don’t burn out?”
You deserve support just as much as the person you’re caring for. Please don’t forget yourself in this.
You are not failing. You are fighting.
If you’re still reading, I want to say this: you’re doing your best in a system that isn’t always built to support you.
You’re holding so much. And even when it feels like nothing is working, being there is doing something.
There’s no perfect script for this,just step-by-step moments of hope, honesty, and holding on.
Becky Stone
I’m Becky Stone, a qualified eating disorder therapist based in the UK. I work with both teens and adults, offering a calm, non-judgmental space to explore what recovery really means, on your terms. With a background in supporting people through anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and body image struggles, I know how complex and personal this journey can be.
My work is shaped by both professional training and personal experience, which enables me to connect with clients inuthentic a genuine and a way. I specialise in supporting neurodivergent individuals, including those with ADHD and autism, and I believe in flexible, shame-free recovery.
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