I have an Internet friend, and upon our third or fourth time chatting, it became very clear to me that she had some eating issues. I prompted to tell her parents about her issues, and now she sees an eating disorder specialist and a therapist, but she has problems with both.

We have been talking for months, and every time we do we both talk about our mental health issues (her eating disorder and my depression and anxiety) but I don’t know how to help her.

Right now, she is having trouble accepting her weight gain after having gone from starving herself and being underweight to binging and gaining what she thinks is a lot (even though I suspect its not actually much).

I asked her to write down things that are important to her and think about what a world without these things would be like, but neither of us are sure if it is helping.

I’m trying my best, but I have no real experience with being this close to someone with an eating disorder, and it is really hard because I want to help but I’m not sure how.