A Letter From An Eating Disorder



Posted: Tuesday, June 16, 2009

by Casey Starkweather

Congratulations, you skipped two meals today. Feels good right? Already you feel lighter. But tomorrow it will not be enough. Tomorrow will you eat at all? No, you won't. Tomorrow you will not eat. You will exercise and move and jitter. Never stay still, you gain weight sitting still.

Today your skin glows, your hair is nice and soft, you are healthy. In a few weeks? What will I do to you? Hm, you will look wasted, your skin will become ashy and a fine layer of soft hair "down" will grow. You will be cold. Your stomach will be empty. You will get dizzy sitting still. You will black out.

But child, you will be so skinny. If you just stick with me, you will be able to see your ribs, and place your fingers at the indent of your thighs. You will be so skinny. And so pretty. You will be loved.

And if you fight me, if you break away, I will punish you. If you eat, you will purge it, one way or another. You will learn to use laxatives and to throw up quietly. Swallowing will hurt. You will be sick often, your body won't be able to fight a common cold. I will weaken you. You might even start hurting yourself, when you lose control of me.

But you will be skinny! I will make you pretty. You eyes will be huge in your face, your cheek bones will jaunt out, and you will be so pretty! The dark circles under your eyes won't go away. The scale will always be too high, the mirror to fat. You will pinch 'fat', fat that isn't there. Your clothes will get to big, and that is a good thing! It means you are succeeding. But you can't tell anyone. You can't do anything about it.

I have control over you. You will get so skinny, you will be too weak, too brittle, to move. They will try to take me away, but you will fight, you will rebel, and throw up when they make you eat. You will be skinny.

And then, one day you will be so skinny, you'll be sick. So sick. But I still won't leave you. You will fight the feeding tubes.You must not get fat! If it's a choice between gaining weight and death, well then you will die, and I will go befriend another girl. But you will not die. You are strong, strong enough to do whatever it takes to be skinny.

I'll always be with you, to help you along.I will make you skinny and pretty.

And best of all, you won't be as weak as the others, you won't need food to eat. You will be my image of perfect.

~Ana.

Casey is an 22 year old college graduate, majoring in History, Minoring in German. She plans to go to Law School, or if that fails, to get her Ph.D. She writes articles based on personal experience, in the hopes that someone will learn from her mistakes and with the hope that she can change someone elses life.

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Teresa Ortiz
 2 years 333 days ago.
188 fans.
Casey, wow - hard to put into words. Such a powerful statement, I pray it opens the eyes of any reader flirting with this issue, before they get sucked in. Very well done. Blessings to you. Teresa
» left by Casey Starkweather 2 years 333 days ago.
7 fans.
Thank you. It is my hope that this will reach out to anyone who is on the verge of an E.D, before they get to the point where there is no turning back. Again, thank you for your kind words.
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