DEAR ANNIE

getting enough food.” Let her know you are coming from a place of love, and prepare yourself for denial, resistance or anger. Finally, offer to help find a physician or therapist who can help. Contacting the NEDA hotline at (800)-9312237 is a good place to start. Before you take this step, however, I recommend having a conversation with your husband. Voice your concerns, and come prepared with research on eating disorders and their consequences. Once he realizes what is at stake, he will likely be more inclined to intervene. And seeing as it’s his mother, you will want him on your side. DEAR ANNIE: My mother lives alone and has bedbugs in her living room and bedroom. She also has a lot of clutter. She had a professional treatment of one of the rooms, but the bugs returned. She says that preparing for further treatment would be too stressful, so she is choosing to live with the bugs. She has refused any assistance from me or my siblings. We have offered to help her prepare or get rid of the bedbugs. Lately, she is saying she thinks the bugs are gone because she can’t see any of them. But she cannot see very well, and when we check, we always find bugs. Because of this, we are limiting our contact with Mom to phone calls and occasional visits outside. It’s heartbreaking! Meanwhile, Mom continues to have visitors inside her house, and she visits friends at their homes. Should we tell these individuals about the bedbugs? It feels like an invasion of Mom’s privacy, but we don’t want others to be bitten or carry bedbugs to their houses. What to do? — Bugged by Bugs DEAR BUGGED BY BUGS: Your mom’s inability to clear out the bedbugs has her feeling powerless, like it’s too much of an effort to clean, so she just lets them live in her house. You are right to be concerned. Living with bedbugs is not healthy for anyone. It is not right or ethical for your mom to allow people to visit her, knowing that the house has bugs. Gently sit your mom down and have a very soft intervention. She can’t just live with bedbugs. It is unhygienic and unhealthy. She must do something about it, and if she won’t, then you have to take action. Start with a professional cleaning service, and set up a program for regular servicing so the bugs won’t return. If that fails, you and your siblings should consider trying to persuade your mom to go into assisted living. DEAR

ANNIE: My husband confided to me that his mother had an eating disorder in the past, and there are possible signs she may have relapsed. When she visits us, she will exercise for hours daily, regularly disparage her physical appearance and skip meals claiming that she is “too bloated” to eat. I’m never sure what is the best way to respond to her self-criticism or behaviors. My husband states that she saw a therapist years ago for this problem but has not received any treatment since. He thinks she would be resistant to any further treatment, but I can’t figure out why. Recent visits with my in-laws have grown more tense, with my husband getting angry at me for buying too much food and “tempting” his mother to binge eat. I’ve noticed that my husband and his side of the family will also significantly restrict their food intake whenever they’re dining with my mother-inlaw, possibly to accommodate her worries about overeating or out of habit. I’m not sure what is the best way to handle this situation, both to reduce conflict between my husband and me when his family visits and to support my motherin-law. Would it be best to let them do all the grocery shopping, meal planning and cooking for themselves? I’m not accustomed to having my house guests take care of themselves, but I don’t want to inadvertently make the problem worse either. I would appreciate your thoughts. — Concerned Daughter-in-law DEAR CONCERNED DIL: You are doing a good thing by looking out for your mother-in-law. I’m sure your husband and his side of the family are well-intentioned, but it sounds like they are inadvertently enabling their mother’s behavior, which will only make her eating disorder worse. According to the National Eating Disorders Association: “Family and friends can play an important role in identifying worrying symptoms … Many individuals now in recovery from an eating disorder say the support of family and friends was crucial to them getting well.” NEDA suggests confronting your loved one in private and using only “I statements” — for example, “I noticed that you haven’t been eating a lot recently, and I am concerned that you aren’t