Tw: self harm and eating disorder. My best friend is part of shedtwt, what do i do?
Hi. For context- SHED twt is self-harm, eating disorder twitter. Basically it’s community where people share with each other their scars and “goals” in loosing weight, without judging themselves or telling themselves about therapy and such. Basically, i would call it romanticizing the serious disorders. But, to the topic—
My best friend (18m, let’s call him Angel for anonymity) of 5 years hid his twitter from me since a few months. And i didn’t really care abt it- He had right to privacy and to having social media without me following him there, maybe he wanted to vent there and was ashamed to tell me. That’s okay, but i was still curious about it.
Some time ago, when i was over at his house, we had a random conversation and i found out that he sits on the sh twitter and watches it. I didn’t really mind, since he said so himself that he’s not romanticizing it and that it’s a serious topic, and that was it.
I’m not much of a twitter user, but i use it from time to time, out of boredom or when i need to do researches on some issues and stuff. When i went in, twitter asked me if i want to enable contacts, and i agreed. That’s when i saw him there- i knew that was his account, because he has an obsession on a character from anime, and the account’s name was basically this character’s name of shedtwt and his name after. So, curiosity got better of me and i checked his profile..
Oh boy.
I found out that he has ED, that he wants to weight 40kg, and there was even our conversation, when I unintentionally said his legs are bigger than mine (i wanted to give him my shorts, bc that wasn’t my style anymore and it was his, and the shorts were mostly meant for bigger thighs), and with that screenshot, he was like “i want to die”
(ALSO an important note, that a few months ago he abandoned therapy)
Also i saw his posts where he included his fresh cuts or scars. People interacted under his posts, encouraging him in that. I confronted him about this today via messages, as he’s awkward in serious talks about such stuff irl, and so am i, and when i saw those posts i got sick and cried a few times and i had to confront him about it.
Long story short, Angel said that it’s not a big deal, that it’s nothing serious and that it’s his business what he does with his body, and that he doesn’t gaf when someone tells him that it’s bad. He said that he knows it’s bad, but he doesn’t care.
He said that he understands, that i care, but it’s useless, because he doesn’t want to die.
When i tried to explain to him what ED leads to, he said that he doesn’t have ED because he eats a lot.
I wrote a really long messages, explaining that you don’t have to starve yourself to have ED and stuff, he just replied with something like “don’t think about it, it’s not a big deal for me and i won’t start to vent to my friends because i don’t like it, i don’t like talking about myself and to me i’m fine and even if i’m not then i don’t care”.
I tried reasoning with him, pleading even for him to go on a therapy, but he said it’s not helping him at all and that doesn’t make sense, and that he’s happy like that. That he doesn’t want changes
I feel so fucking helpless. I’m really worried about him. I can’t tell his parents, because they’re awful and would only make it worse.
Genuinely, what can i even do? I really need to do something, anything. I want to help him, I can’t just watch him slowly ruin himself. Did anyone have a similiar situation? What did y’all do?
Please, any advice will be much appreciated.