Hi there. Wiicked4u here, ready to tell my story. I am a recovering anorectic (note: I will differentiate between anorectic and anorexic. Anorectic is a noun, while anorexic is an adjective). I am neither proud nor ashamed, I just am. I'm writing this article to show you what anorexia is and is not, and what it does and does not do.

Let's just start with the major one. Anorexia does not make you popular and it does not make you "hot." It makes you miserable, unattractive, and, really, a pain to be around. When I was sick, I stopped eating with my friends. It was too much of a hassle. I sat in the library, catching up on the homework I was too tired to do at night. No guy wanted me. I had the body of a 10 year old boy. And most of all, I didn't care. All I cared about was how to skip the next meal, fake the next weigh-in, lose the next pound.

I was freezing. All the time. To school I wore a pair of pajama pants, two pairs of yoga pants, my school pants, a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, a sweatshirt, and gloves. Oh, did I mention, I live in southern California? Now I am a figure skater. Imagine how horrible that was. I wore around 7 pairs of thick tights, a long sleeve shirt or two, a sweat, a sweatshirt, and around 4 pairs of gloves, and still had to leave the ice early because I was just so cold.

Anorexia will not make you happy. It will make you absolutely miserable. You will hate yourself. You will look in the mirror and cry. You will imagine anything you put in your mouth, even diet coke, which you will be drinking plenty of, expanding your thighs, your stomach, your arms. You will start fighting with your parents. Your sister will call you nasty things. And you will hate them for it. You will be convinced that everyone, your friends, your family, are against you. You will be forced into therapy, where you will sit angrily. You will be forced to weigh-in in front of a doctor at least once a week. You will be humiliated if you gain, and proud if you lose. But you can't show your therapist any emotion.

Anorexia is not about attention. I can't tell you how much I hate it when people try to simplify anorexia into a plea for attention. Anorectics are very sick girls who are very, very unhappy with themselves. Often, they wish everyone would just go away and leave them alone. I know attention was the last thing I wanted. I wanted to be invisible.

Anorexia will haunt you. Forever. It has been two years since my last hospitalization, and it will not leave me alone, psychologically or physiologically. I can't stand up too quickly, or my heart goes into a tachycardic arrhythmia. Basically, my heart rate skyrockets and my blood doesn't pump efficiently, and I black out. I can't run track anymore. I was an excellent runner. I ran the 400m in 56 seconds. Now, my bones are plagued with osteopenia, and running gives me stress fractures. Ostepenia is the step below osteoporosis. It means my bones are thinning. Since the onset of osteopenia, I have broken my foot, had stress fractures in my shins and in my spine. By the time I'm 30 I could have a "widow's hump," a curved spine.

I'm lucky to have escaped with so few lasting effects. I have friends with heart arrhythmias that can make them drop dead. No warning. Just, dead. I have other friends who have lost their ability to use the restroom. Yes, I realize that is a disgusting thought, but it is reality. They have tubes and bags to go to the restroom for them. Other girls, who are still stuck in the disease, receive all nutrients through the feeding tube that runs from their nose to their stomach. Doesn't sound very glamorous, does it?

Am I telling you all of this to scare you? Yes. I am. I would do anything to keep a single person from going down the path I did. It ruined my freshman year of high school. It ruined my chances at athletic college scholarships. Luckily, that's all it ruined for me.

I have one last thing to say. Please do not think of anorexia as selfish. Yes, it hurts the anorectic's friends and family. Cancer hurts a patient's friends and family as well. Anorexia is a disease. It is in the DSM IV. It is covered by medical insurance (well some of them, but I won't go there today). Anorectics are not trying to hurt anyone. They just want to make the pain stop. They want peace and quiet in their minds, not screaming about pounds, and calories, and body fat, and exercise. Society needs to stop stamping anorectics as weak individuals who gave in to the pressure to be thin, and start recognizing them for what they are; sick, desperate individuals who need all the help they can get, or die.

If you are afraid that you are suffering from an eating disorder, I beg you, find help. Check out somethingfishy.org or anad.org. Talk to someone. Anyone. Save yourself before you fall into the mirror.

Off to dinner!
Wiicked4u