Sometimes the language is not that polite, frankly, and is often sprinkled with profanity. Oh, the stories I’ve heard. If you only knew how common this is.
There was a time when I would not have smiled at this story. Being the target of that flailing rage and disdain from a person we love and are responsible for can singe the heart and deflate the ego. When our love is met with words of hate we are shocked, at first. It feels personal.
But let me give you the benefit of my own and countless other experienced family’s wisdom here: “I hate you” from the mouth of a struggling loved one is a gift.
- It means they are uncomfortable: Congratulations! There’s no way to recover without distress and discomfort.
- It means whatever’s happening is making the eating disorder unhappy, which is good for your person.
- It means they are fighting back: that’s a sign of life.
- It means you are safe to rant at: that they know in their core that you are the safest and strongest thing they have ever known. They trust you to stay strong and loving them no matter what, just as you did when they were tantruming toddlers in the grocery or holding them screaming as they got a vaccination.
- It means they want you to hear them, urgently, YOU, that is how important you are to them, still.
- It means they are being honest: not hiding their feelings, not suppressing or sneaking or pretending or acting.
- It means I AM SO MISERABLE, and you want to know that, and you are there to show them it is survivable misery.
- It means they feel this right now but they didn’t always, and there is a future in which this will no longer be true.
- It means I love you, too.
A wise and expert parent on the forum answered that parent with this wise advice:
“Do not be afraid of the vitriol, love em anyway!!”
