Understanding the Emotional Strain of Eating Disorders
The Complex Dynamics of Control in Eating Disorders
Explore how control and manipulation intertwine with eating disorders, impacting family dynamics and emotional well-being.
The Role of Control in Eating Disorders
Disorders: Control, Manipulation, and Keeping Yourself Safe
When people think of eating disorders, they often imagine frail bodies, tiny appetites, and sadness around food.
What we don’t talk about enough is the darker side:
The anger.
The control.
The way the illness can tear families apart without anyone truly seeing it happen until it’s too late.
Eating disorders are not just about food.
They are about power, survival, shame, and self-punishment.
When they take root, they can change a family’s entire emotional climate, sometimes for years.
Emotional Underpinnings of Eating Disorders
Unveiling the Hidden Emotional Connections
Eating disorders thrive in environments where control becomes currency.
Control around food:
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Rigid meal plans
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Refusing certain foods
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“Negotiating” every bite
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Silent standoffs at the table
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Pushing away the people who challenge the illness
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Clinging tightly to the ones who enable it (often without realising)
Control around emotions:
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Shutting down conversations that get too real
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Passive-aggressive comments
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Gaslighting family members (“You’re making a big deal out of nothing”)
Underneath all of this isn’t just a need for thinness or restriction.
It’s a desperate need for safety, for proximity, for survival.
Even when that survival strategy is destroying everyone in the room.
Understanding Control in Family Dynamics
The Role of Control in Eating Disorders
One of the most brutal truths to sit with, especially in therapy, is that sometimes, the eating disorder becomes a way to keep loved ones close.
It can sound like:
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“Mum always has to look after me when I’m ill.”
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“People only notice me when something is wrong.”
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“If I get better, will they leave me?”
I’ve sat with clients who are exhausted and desperate for change, but when the possibility of real recovery appears, something shifts.
The anger flares.
The walls go up.
And sometimes, you can feel the fear so strongly it’s like hitting a wall.
Because healing would mean letting go of the eating disorder.
And letting go feels, deep down, like losing control, losing love, losing safety.
Even when they’re raging across the room from you, even when they lie and twist and push you away, underneath it all is fear.
Fear of abandonment.
Fear of being invisible without the illness.
How Eating Disorders Manipulate
Eating disorders are brilliant manipulators.
Not because people with eating disorders are bad or cruel, but because the illness itself is driven by survival mode.
And survival mode doesn’t always play fair.
You might notice:
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Splitting: Being sweet and compliant with some people, cold and hostile to others.
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Lying: About what’s been eaten, about weight, about how they’re feeling.
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Gaslighting: Making supporters question themselves (“Maybe I am being controlling?”)
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Triangulating: Playing family members or friends against each other.
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Passive-aggressive behaviour: Silent punishment, cutting remarks, dramatic withdrawal.
The eating disorder doesn’t care about kindness, truth, or connection.
It cares about staying alive.
And it will weaponise whatever it needs, guilt, shame, anger, manipulation, to survive.
The Fear of Letting Go
The Secret Bully Inside
One of the cruellest tricks of an eating disorder is how it turns the person against themselves first.
Inside the person battling the illness is often:
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Deep shame
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Chronic self-hatred
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Constant comparisons
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An inner voice that tears them down daily
Sometimes, when that anger and self-loathing have nowhere to go, it leaks into the world.
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Sarcastic comments.
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Digs at family members.
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Anger at people who dare to call out the illness.
The world sees an angry teenager, a difficult adult child, a stubborn partner.
What’s underneath is a scared, shamed, exhausted person who feels like drowning and doesn’t know how to grab the lifeline.
We all have light and dark sides.
Eating disorders amplify the darkest parts and weaponise them, often against the very people trying hardest to help.
Understanding Emotional Regulation
The Role of Control in Eating Disorders
If you love someone with an eating disorder, please remember:
You cannot outlove, outargue, or outwork the illness.
And you are not responsible for curing them.
Here are a few ways to keep yourself safe:
1. Hold your boundaries.
It’s okay to say:
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“I love you, but I will not argue with your eating disorder.”
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“I’m here when you’re ready to talk about recovery.”
2. Don’t take it personally.
The anger, lies, and pushbacks are symptoms of the illness, not a reflection of your worth or care.
3. Seek your own support.
Counselling, support groups, trusted friends, you need a place to unload, cry, rage, and rebuild your strength.
4. Remember: love and limits can exist together.
You can fiercely love someone and fiercely protect your own peace.
5. Recognise emotional manipulation.
Just because someone says you’re being “mean” or “unfair” doesn’t mean you are.
Trust your gut.
Healing Beyond Control
Final Thoughts on Recovery
Eating disorders are brutal, not just for the person living inside them, but for everyone who loves them too.
They twist love into guilt.
They twist care into control.
They twist the connection into silence.
But there is still hope.
Recovery is possible.
Healing is possible.
Families can come back from the edge, but it takes work, patience, outside help, and self-protection.
You cannot pour from an empty cup.
You cannot save someone by losing yourself.
And sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is love them, while also loving yourself enough to stay safe.
You deserve peace, too.
Find the Support You Need
Need Support While Supporting Someone Else?
If you’re supporting a loved one through an eating disorder, please know this:
You deserve support, too.
I offer trauma-informed therapy for individuals and families navigating the complex, exhausting realities of eating disorder recovery.
You don’t have to carry it all alone.
I’m here if you’d like a safe, non-judgmental space to talk things through.
➔ You can get in touch with me
