** Guest Blog about Anorexia

Please take some time and read about this guest's struggle with anorexia. -Nomz & Sazaran.

Tracey Gold: "Anorexia is such a self-consuming, selfish disease. It's all about you. Becoming a mother, all of a sudden it wasn't about me anymore."

When is the age where we start to think that, the girl in the TV needs to be me? You suddenly start to examine yourself in a different way then ever before. You feel the need to be this certain way that society has hand delivered to our minds. I never started thinking about weight until I was around 17. My boyfriend in high school seemed to control my every thoughts. I was 5'5 and at a healthy weight 110. He started to say, God, your so fat. I never even felt that way before he had ever said it. He would tell me over and over and over again. So what's a girl to do that's only 17? I started to starve myself. At first I didn't really see a difference. Then weeks started to flutter by and I took a look in the mirror. I was suddenly at 90 pounds. My jeans hung loose to my hips. A size zero was so big for me. I felt satisfaction, "he'll never call me fat again, I thought in my mind." When I saw myself, I would always find some sort of fat on my bones, and feel the urge to starve myself even more. I started to get so tried all the time. All I wanted to do was sleep. I hardly know how I made it through my senior year.
So, I graduate and guess what that looser I was dating broke up with me for one of my "friends." I was drained from the top of my head down to my toes. I felt like my whole world came crashing down. So I continued to starve myself. By this time my family was getting pretty concerned for my life. I was now at 79 pounds with my clothing on. My life was dangling before my eyes and I couldn't get a grip on myself. I felt like I was in control when I would starve myself. I would think in my mind that food was gross. I couldn't stand to watch anyone eat. As I sit here and write this story I still can't believe how stupid it all sounds. I mean eating ='s life, not eating ='s death.

To make a very long story short I did move to California and I started to get over my anorexia. I wasn't until I became pregnant with my little girl that I found out how wonderful food can really be. I has been a battle to not get back to that thinking again. I look at my body and I know the easy way out of loosing the weight would be to go back to my bad habits. I struggle every day not to be that person and remind myself that I did just have a baby and the weight will come off as long as I continue to work out and eat healthy. Anorexia is something that I hope I will never go back to. I wish I knew what I know now though. I would have never let that kid tell me what I should or shouldn't look like. Not that I'm trying to blame him for my actions but, I probably never would have even thought of being super super skinny with my bones hanging out. If you or someone you knows has anorexia it isn't the end of the road. But, they have to be ready to change.

Self Help Books
Dying to Be Thin: Understanding and Defeating Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia--A Practical, Lifesaving Guide by Ira M. Sacker and Marc. A. Zimmer

Feeding the Fame: Celebrities Tell Their Real-life Stories of Eating Disorders And Recovery by Gary Stromberg, Jane Merrill, and Wendy Naugle


Hotlines
Anorexia Nervosa & Related Eating Disorders, Inc.
(541) 344-1144

Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center
(858) 481-1515

National Eating Disorders Association
1-800-931-2237