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Anonymous
January 7, 2000

I am sending my story because I think it can be helpful to any one who is in the grips of anorexia nervosa. I have been in recovery as a life process for several years. the onset of this disease was when I was 18 years old and graduating High school. i was always an "A" student. (A real goody two shoes) I was the oldest girl of four girls in a catholic family. My dad was an abusive alcoholic and I did not feel I had any control over my life and felt insecure and anxious often. I am not sure when the self -loathing began...I was a restrictor and occasionally binged. My very tall frame accentuated my skeletal condition. My first marriage was to an abusive man, and I put him through college even though I was accepted at a very prestigious college myself. One Day, I woke up and went into therapy for two years in the middle of my second marriage and have since stopped restricting and started learning to feel, heal and cry...I hurt for a long time and reaching out to others did not come easy for such a shy quiet introvert. I felt my life was on the line, and I had to change the course of my life. i am tough i have leaned to take it all one day at a time. I have been living a recovery lifestyle for several years and help other battered women and children who feel with out a voice... I need to be heard and help others who are trapped in the thinking patterns of this eating disease. I have come a long way baby... and you can too... I am grateful to all who have listened and cared for me. I still find it difficult to stop all the caretaking of others, and being super responsible, and perfectionistic, but I am getting better at it. I have achieved a normal weight on the outside and I am healing on the inside. To look at me now You would never know I was that skinny, abused little mouse, that had no cry, no voice... I am on the other side and am working and playing to stay there. Please believe you can too.... Choose Life... Choose to own your right to take up space and own your life. You are not alone....

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