Down days

We had friends visit for the weekend.  The past three years we have avoided having friends visit.  Having company puts pressure on Leah.  She is usually miserable in herself and gets tired of pretending she is fine.  Leah had a melt down before they came. It was because our friends have a daughter who recently was married and she and her new husband wanted to come too.  I knew that this would be hard for Leah.  Our friends coming is one thing because they are not Leah's piers who she can compare herself with unlike the young couple.  Leah threatened to leave for the weekend to be alone somewhere,  not wanting to deal with the pain of seeing the happy couple.  I was almost in a panic.  They were all coming and expecting to see Leah.  What would my husband say at Leah's upset?  He would not be without a reaction if Leah left.  Things would become even more painful.  Leah feels she has gained more weight on the anti-depressant.    She had a really "good" week last week, until around Thursday, when things became stressful at work and she had a lot of difficulty dealing happily with some tough people she worked with.  I also think contributing to her anxiousness was her having gotten up at 5:00 all week to work out, and she had a several day stomach ache.  She gets stomach aches when she is abstaining from bingeing for a period of time.  All of this got her feeling discouraged because of her weight when she had been so diligent.  She had reached out to her therapist during the worst of the week. She had never done this before, but he had invited her to try checking in for a quick bit of encouragement when she needs it.  He usually says just the right thing when they talk so she believed he would do so on this occasion.  Well, his advice at the peak of the unhappiness was for her to go out for a run.  She felt this suggestion was a very unthoughtful response, as she was at work and had no possible outlet to take a break.  She was offended by him telling her this too, because her eating issues started as exercise bulimia and the comment felt like salt in the wound for her.  The rest of the week went downhill after that.
I had almost a week of feeling somewhat on the course to normal and happy and now feel we have jumped off that track.  I say "we" but Leah would remind me I am sure that this is not my problem, it is hers alone.  Her own hell and misery.  This thought is a hard thing to hear when you are a support person.  The eating disorder sufferer looks at herself and her own discomfort most of the time.  She is  aware of the affect she has sometimes but does not truly realize that she places the people that love and support her in their prison with her.  Therapists advise us to just live our own life as normal.  It is so difficult to let go and let that daughter be alone in her disorder.  She would be completely alone except for the disorder when the mind set is negative.  The fear that somehow if you stick in there keeping the person company she will eventually feel how deeply you love her and how worthy of happiness and a full life she is.  That idea keeps the support person in the trenches right along with the disordered person, but with none of the control.  We live a parallel life of sadness with our daughters as long as they suffer.
As I look at what I have written, I am reminded at how selfish the eating disordered life is.  The person is stuck in a selfish, and childish view of the world, with herself as the victim.  I see that wishing someone to want to be well for us is too much to expect when it all starts with her not loving herself as she should in the first place.
I pray for a guardian angel to be around us this week and for you too.