The odds were stacked against me. I grew up in a small town and had no clue what an eating disorder was. I had never heard anyone talk about it and there was no one that looked emaciated like me.  I had never heard the word ‘anorexia’.  

Looking back on it now, I realize my ignorance (and basically everyone around me) may have been a blessing in disguise. If I didn’t know how bad it was, I wouldn’t be intimidated by the statistics, and maybe I could get better. In March of 1981 I went into the hospital for three months. I spent two weeks in the medical unit and was then transferred to the mental health unit. There wasn’t anyone else in the mental health hospital that had anorexia. All of the patients there had mental illness, from depression to psychosis. To be honest, it was a very scary place to be. I might be sitting next to someone and they might start screaming or lashing out. Many patients were heavily sedated.  So much suffering.

After getting discharged in June of 1981, I went home and struggled mightily. It was a lonely, incredibly hard time for me. I had to be brave and figure out how to do life without anorexia. One of the reasons I didn’t relapse is that, no matter how lonely I was, or how difficult food choices were, I knew I could not ever go back to the nightmare of anorexia. I could deal with anything except that.  Once school started in the fall, it got easier. I slowly but surely got my life back. Surviving became thriving. I recovered permanently. Anorexia didn’t win. 

What have I learned since recovering from anorexia? I learned enough to fill a book, so I wrote Annihilating Anorexia and published it in 2023. 

One of the most important things I learned is that anorexia nervosa is a serious illness. Whether neurologically based or not, it is, nevertheless, a vicious, seductive, insidious, and relentless monster that should never be underestimated. It’s been over four decades since I had it and I still remember vividly how hungry, weak and cold I was. How horrific it was watching myself shrink. The torture of not being able to eat. I could not help myself, but once I got help, I got better. That sounds simplistic, I know, but I also learned that I was stronger than anorexia, and that I deserved a life without the monster. So do you.