hey, everyone.

sorry for the absence. I'm doing JaNoWriMo this year, so I'm really busy writing.

I only really came back because Dylphe said she misses me.

I miss you guys too! And I'm working on a book on recovering from your eating disorder. Here's the first chapter:

About This Book

I started this book partly in the hopes that I would convince myself to fight through the recovery process. I also wrote it for all those girls and boys with eating disorders, along with their concerned friends, parents, teachers, what have you.

I will advise you, if you are suffering from an eating disorder and not sure about recovery, to completely skip the next chapter, which is my story. You’re not missing much, but it is there for the purpose of allowing everyone to see that I’ve been there. I’ve been through the sleepless nights and frightful days. I’ve spent way too much time worrying about whether or not my heart was going to give out, and even more time over how many calories were in a cigarette.

I’ve been to that Eternal Cold, where every staircase was a mountain and I couldn’t look down or else I’d faint again. I had battled with the doctors over and over about whether or not I was dying. But the doctors always won. I was, indeed, dying. I had been sucked into this awful, horrid disease thinking that I wouldn’t lose control; I could only gain it. But I’ll tell you one fact that took me six years to realize.

There is NO control in Anorexia or Bulimia.

There is no happiness at a low number on the scale. No number will ever be good enough. To me, the scale always read “FAT.5”. I was always, always too much and never enough. I was making myself disappear and screaming to be heard and seen.

Yes. To other people, I was thin. But I was not strong. Yes. To other people I was extremely intelligent. But I was not smart. To others I was stubborn and beautiful and precise and a leader. But I was also a lost young woman trapped in a child’s body. I was out of control. I was sick. My beauty showed when I smiled, although smiles were rare and my mouth was deteriorating. And I was not happy.

I was not everything I thought I could be. I was the complete opposite. I was trapped behind a foggy glass wall, where only few could see my true pain and none could help me heal it. I was screaming for girls on “Pro-Ana” websites to turn around and never look back. Because they were looking for a place that I could never escape.

And it all started with one small, harmless, out-of-the-way word.

DIET.

“Diet” used to be a harmless word, anyway. It used to mean what you eat every day. For example: Fred’s diet includes many meats and few vegetables. Anne’s diet is strictly vegetarian. It did not mean “things you don’t eat in order to lose weight.” Diets, in this context, DON’T WORK. You’ll learn why in a later chapter.