[NSR] What can you do?

jfrost2 · Post by **jfrost2** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 2:26 am

I have a friend I met online more than 2 years ago. She and I became best friends very quickly, and I taught her to read/write English like we Americans read/write. She was a university student at Tokyo University for the past couple of years in the biology field to become a doctor or lab scientist.

Background info, her parents died when she was a little girl, they were both killed in the Tsunami that hit Japan years ago. She was raised by her older brother who isn't the best role model in my opinion. She's been studying for 15 hours a day everyday of the week, starving herself because she has no time to eat or sleep ever. She was required to hold a 4.0 GPA and had to study all day everyday to maintain it. She began having serious medical issues, passing out, fainting, nervous break downs because of all this work and no rest.

She quit and dropped out of school and basically gave up on life. She has a bad look on her own body image too, she is only 95 pounds and still thinks she is too fat and over weight. I have a photo of her, and she is already super model skinny back when she weighed 110 pounds.

I've tried everything to make her feel better, help her get through tough times, and encourage her about her own body image. I'm just at the point now what else can I do? When someone is sad, depressed, and gives up on all hope, what do you do?

It kills me knowing all I can do is sit here in the good old USA while someone else is dying and hopeless in Tokyo. What do you do? What do you say? What can you even say?

Honestly everyday and every night I worry myself to death if she had something to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner. If she isn't killing herself by over exercising, if she's getting enough sleep. I'm not a worrier either!

I've seen her smile once the entire time I've known her. I'd give anything if I could just see her be happy and smile again.

irishtim · Post by **irishtim** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 2:38 am

Encourage her to talk to a trusted friend or family member, clergy, physician, counselor, support group etc. Pray for her and be a good friend. Other than that it's up to her.

jfrost2 · Post by **jfrost2** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 2:44 am

irishtim wrote:Encourage her to talk to a trusted friend or family member, clergy, physician, counselor, support group etc. Pray for her and be a good friend. Other than that it's up to her.

I do all of those things everyday and tell her to always talk to others, not to bottle her feelings. Every night when I lay my head on my pillow I always include her in my prayers, many of them have been answered. When times have been tough for her in the past, I prayed for days/weeks and miracles I believe have happened.

She just tells me the problems will all be solved when she dies someday from all this craziness. She wants "world's most useless girl" written on her tomb stone. When someone tells you this, it's crystal clear they have no hope in their future.

Sometimes I just sit here at my computer desk and stare at my screen for long periods of time thinking about all of this.

I just think her having no parents to raise her, a crappy role model of a brother, and the pressure from school just each dealt their own damage to her.

I really do worry one of these days, if she would die from just being so sad.

bluebuddygirl · Post by **bluebuddygirl** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 2:44 am

Unfortunately there is nothing that you can say about her appearance or otherwise that will make her feel good about herself in a way that will make her stop. What you can try to say is that you believe her to be anorexic and that you care about her and think that she should seek help.

This is a disease that can only be fixed through professional help. My husband and I have a friend suffering with the same problem, and even though at this point she knows she looks ill, she still has great difficulty with obsessively watching her weight. She almost died from heart complications because of the disease.

Encourage her to seek counseling at the very least, and just be there for her.

Sorry jfrost. I sincerely hope she gets help.

Kim

TVB · Post by **TVB** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:21 am

I don't know if this applies to her, but sometimes when a person is harming themselves, it's because they feel that it's what they deserve, or they feel like they're helping someone they care about by doing it (e.g. pleasing a demanding family). In those cases, making them aware of how their behavior is hurting others (you in particular) might help.

jfrost2 · Post by **jfrost2** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:31 am

TVB wrote:I don't know if this applies to her, but sometimes when a person is harming themselves, it's because they feel that it's what they deserve, or they feel like they're helping someone they care about by doing it (e.g. pleasing a demanding family). In those cases, making them aware of how their behavior is hurting others (you in particular) might help.

I forgot to mention this. She does beat herself up over everything and justify all of this because she wasn't ever trained in Geisha arts as a child. She was able to and chosen to become a Geisha entertainer according to tradition, but her mother wanted her to grow up as a normal girl. She hates this choice her mother made for her because now she is a adult and cant train. It's a life long art to learn, and she was held back from it.

She's always talked so bitterly about her mother just for this reason. Saying her mother "cursed" her for life not letting her become Geisha.

I remember a time she told me one of her fondest memories of her mother was the way she brushed her hair every morning before school, and how she braided it to look like Princess Leia's from star wars.

iwabj · Post by **iwabj** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 2:09 pm

Vic · Post by **Vic** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 6:52 pm

I would suggest that you look up Borderline Personality Disorder and see if perhaps some of the traits fit this child. Not to try to armchair diagnose her, but to better understand what may be going on in her mind.

I understand that you want to help her, but not at the risk of harm to yourself. You must ensure that you do not get too involved and too emotionally invested in this girl that it causes you harm. You are half a world away, there is very little of her story that you can authenticate and very little that you can do to help her.

If she does have BPD, you are walking a very fine line and, sadly, may be feeding in to her disorder rather than helping her. I had one professor that characterized these unfortunate folks as "emotional vampires" because they latch on to you and then just suck you dry. The emotional liability is extremely difficult to deal with and I doubt anyone from a distance could do anything. She may also be pulling for you to become involved enough (and their stories can be truly heartbreaking) to get you to do things that go against your better judgement.

Please, I am begging you, protect yourself and be very careful. Do not send her money, do not give her too much personal information, and do not bring her over here. Her story is sad, but you also have absolutely no way to verify anything that she is telling you. Unfortunately, the internet is full of folks that are out there looking for attention, money, fame, and so on.

Even if her story is 100% true, she has got to learn to accept her past and live in the world she has. Blaming her parents for choices made years ago is not going to do anything, she has got to move on. She has a brother that did what he could, no it wasn't perfect but that is life, she needs to accept it and move on, she is supposedly an adult now (too old for Geisha training) she now needs to sit back and assess her current situation and set some realistic goals for what she wants to do with her life (that does not include whining about the past) and then figure out how to get there from here.

She also needs to be engaged is her real life, there is a reason that people talk about online life and real life. Irishtim has excellent suggestions, she needs someone in her real life that can help her where she is at, she needs friends of her own that can serve as a reality check (often folks that are emotional need someone that is aware of the whole situation-as opposed to just that individual's perspective-and can offer alternate perspectives.) You can't do that for her and time that she spends with you online ruminating is time that she is not spending finding friends that could help her.

I am sorry if this comes across as lacking compassion, believe me I am very compassionate for this story, but I also have some experience in learning to accept what life lobs at your head and moving on with life.

A very wise woman I knew once had a wall hanging that she made her life motto, and I have tried to do the same: "Thrive where you are planted"

-v