I have a question for the forum about a friend of mine who is also in therapy. I feel that she is manipulating her therapist, and that she is also manipulating me. (I'm not sure if it's ok to be asking a question that isn't specifically about my own therapy, so if it isn't, mods please feel free to remove this post).

Here's the deal: My friend has a long history of a pretty severe eating disorder. Recently, a new symptom popped up within the context of her ED, something that has the potential to become medically dangerous very quickly. I fully believe that her eating disorder is real, but for some reason, I wasn't buying this new symptom. I put a few things together from many conversations over time, and I have a feeling that she read about this symptom on a pro-ana forum, and forced herself to start using it. It was something about the way she talked about it-it seemed like she was playing a game, rather than really struggling with something scary and painful.

I get the feeling that her REAL aim is getting attention from her therapist, and she felt that in order to make herself stand out from other patients and get attention, she needed to be engaging in an unusual symptom, and she also needed to be doing something very medically dangerous. Either her T is wise to her and doesn't want to reinforce her by giving her attention, or she's clueless about the fact that this could actually be legitimately dangerous….but either way, she isn't making a big thing out of this at all.

My friend is getting angrier and more desperate. She desperately wants validation from someone in the medical community/mental health community. She's been asking medical professionals who are friends of hers for their opinion (and if she doesn't get an answer akin to "Omg, you're horribly sick, you need to seek medical attention ASAP!" then she will ask someone else). I've talked to her about the potential dangers of engaging in this symptom, and I get no reaction-she doesn't say, "I know, I'm scared, but I'm also struggling"-just, nothing. From her reactions, its almost as though she WANTS to this to become medically dangerous-she wants to end up in the hospital, she WANTS her T to worry about her.

I'm feeling angry and hurt, because right now, I'm assuming that she's been manipulating me and using me. Watching her play games with her T also boils my blood. I'm definitely having some feelings and reactions of my own around this. I was wondering if anyone would be willing to weigh in on how to handle the situation. I've even considered calling her therapist, because my friend DOES need help-but her T isn't getting all the info. Advice?