Maelstrom In A Mirror:
A Safe Haven For Those Suffering From Eating Disorders & Those Who Are Recovering
Hello. My name is anorexiannie, but that doesn't mean that I'm currently starving myself down to skeletal proportions. No, I think I have finally beaten the beast into the ground---I feel liberated for the first time since I was a sixteen-year-old anorexic, living in the days when nobody talked about the disorder at all. It was 1971 and I struggled alone to try and regain my healthy footing. It was difficult, because the only treatment available was in a general hospital, under a strict behaviour modification regimen that rewarded good behaviour. (read: Eating) and punished negative actions. (read: Starving It was extremely unpleasant, being put on a medical floor where people were dying of cancer and other terrible diseases. Everyone thought I was dying too, because I was five foot, three inches tall and weighed less than sevently pounds. And, if I hadn't gotten any help back then, I would not be here today to tell you about it.
I have explained my unplanned absence for the past several years and I am certain that many people thought I had abandoned this page. I had my autobiography published four years ago and one chapter, entitled, "The Shadow Girl," documented my struggles of thirty years ago. Sadly, that was not to be my one and only bout with the disease. I got really sick again in 1977, then in 1984, 1986, 1993 and last year, the first year of the new millennium. It was not a good way to usher in a new century. I am going to post that chapter on this site so it will give you an idea of what it was like to be anorexic in the days of free love, war protesting and dying young rock stars. I was too young for Woodstock and the "free love" thing, but I do remember watching young boys getting blown to pieces in Vietnam---right in the sanctity of my living room, blaring out of the television.
You may be wondering what you can expect on this site. Well, it's not a text-oriented page----I leave that to the professionals. I am going to use my talents, such as they are, in the literary field to illustrate various people who have experienced what it's like to feel your body dying slowly and painfully. There will be short stories appearing here, many poems and even a cybernovel. I am not writing it to be published----I'm working on something totally different for that---but to hopefully show any of you out there who are struggling with the disease that there IS A WAY OUT of the nightmare. If I could do it, anyone can. My supreme test came last month when my brother, sister-in-law, two nieces and a nephew came up from Tennessee to visit and attend my grandmother's one hundred's birthday bash. (Oh, I'm using aliases so as not to cause any rifts in my family). Frances, my brother's wife, had once been pretty pudgy, but in the last six years or so she's become quite thin. It all started with her 1995 wedding. I guess all brides diet before that big event, but she lost more than she needed to. Since then, she's lost about eight pounds a year and now looks, if not anorexic, then certainly unhealthily thin. So I was a bit leery of seeing her, but you know what? I didn't succumb to a vicious regimen of starvation and manic exercising as a reaction to feeling absolutely immense compared to Frances. I felt the old, familiar twinge of longing for my emaciated frame of yore, but then quickly replaced it with the comforting thought that I am in very good physical shape and run ten miles a day. No, that's NOT manic work-outs----I eat enough to maintain my weight and am training for the London marathon next May. Frances couldn't run two feet and she even admitted that to me.
Having said all that and after trying very hard for the past five years to put anorexia and bulimia behind me, I have to confess that I am currently in a state of relapse. Please do not judge me harshly, but we are all in a constant state of flux, to one extent or another. After finding my life, in this the summer of 2005, spinning helplessly out of control once more, I am clutching desperately to the one element of my life over which I have total control: Excessively dieting and/or purging and learning that eating disorders are not necessarily a terrible thing. I cannot transform this site into a "pro ana" one. I have seen how many, many of these pages were yanked down by most of the free website owners. I do not want this site to suffer the same fate, so I simply urge you to read this link. I am sorry if I have disappointed any of you. I have learned to accept the sad and dark reality that my eating disorders may never be banished from my life. Still, having said that, I will never give up the fight, for there is much in life to be enjoyed and savoured.
But look, I don't mean to sound as though I think I am better than she is because I am not. She's a very good mother and wife and I love her for loving my brother so much and for giving us those three beautiful children. So she's skinny----I've decided to move on. Thirty years is more than enough time to waste on pursuing the sylph. I need my energy now. I hope that whoever is reading this will be able to get to that point and hopefully get there long before I did. I liked the control aspect of my anorexia and bulimia. I may not have been able to stop some of the terrible things that happened to me and my family over the years, but I sure could control what I ate and how I looked. It's all about control and always has been.
I decided to put three chapters from my book on this site as well. Chapter Eleven documents the worst bout of the disorder that I ever had and it scared me---in a big way. It was the summer of 1993 and I was running and race walking for over six hours a day, every day and eating practically nothing. I came closer to death than ever before or since and that should have scared me straight then and there. But I'm a stubborn old cuss.
The other chapter, which has yet to be posted, concerns a severe anorexic episode I experienced in the summer of 1977. That's when my university life came to a screeching halt.
You will notice that, with Chapter Eleven, I document a lot of my slashing episodes. There are probably some of you out there who do this self-destructive practice as well.
Finally! I Have Updated This Site
July 21st, 2006.I am so sorry to have been gone for the past couple f years, but my life got extremely complicated and I was forced to do battle yet again with my anorexia. That war lasted over three years, much of which was spent in the hospital. No matter how hard I fought, I became overwhelmed.
Here is an essay written after my last recovery. I wasn't out of the hospital before relapsing again in 2004.:
Here is another, written today, after a lengthy period of darkness. I honestly didn't think I would survive this time, but God obviously had a different opinion:
Back After A Long Absence
The Tragedy Of Another Breakdown Want to write? Here I am, at a new address:
Here's a People Magazine cover that always inspires me to realize that there's a big world out there and a chance to shake off the shackles of starvation. Sometimes I look at this several times a day. Whatever it costs:
I have posted Chapter Four of my book, the one that deals with my first experience with anorexia nervosa. Just click on the link below. Please be forewarned---it's quite grapic in parts.
Chapter Four
The Shadow Girl Here is another anorexic chapter---the relative parts anyway, from the same book. It speaks about the dreaded summer and fall of 1993:
Chapter Eleven
Landslide
This next chapter involved a near-fatal bout with anorexia nervosa, one that convinced me that this illness had to be overcome if I was to continue living:
Chapter Fifteen
1993-1995: The Worst Years Of My Life
Here is the start of a short story about a girl who becomes ensnared in the nightmarish trap of anorexia:
The Thinning Of Persephone:
A Modern Tragedy Below is a poem I wrote recently, one that documents my horrific nightmare, a nightmare from which I did not awaken until recently:
Such A Terrible Price To Pay
I'm surrounded by my enemies:Doritos, ice cream, cereal and chocolate.
It seems I cannot stuff them down my ravenous
Fast enough---oh, God, pleae let my body purge these demons.
I starved by body until it screamed for sustinence,
But I stubbornly refused to feed the demons lurking inside.
As the last morsel of food passes my lips and my stomach is bursting,
I make a beeline for the toilet, my porcelain prince--my saviour.
However did I let myself be esconsed in this self-constructed prison?
I only wanted to lose fifteen pounds---fifteen pounds of giggling whale blubber.
But now my bingeing and purging has become a veritable art form,
And I guard my secret rituals from everyone who could help me.
Why don't I just let the junk food find a home in my pathetic, depleted system?
I know why-----I DON'T WANT TO BE A DISGUSTING, FAT MOUND OF FLESH!
Thinness at any cost, even as I vomit blood and my head swims with self-loathing.
However did I let this happen to me? I was once a functioning human being with a full life and a shining future. Anorexia took all that away from me. However, now I have found a way out of the Maze Of Self-Destruction and if I can do it, so can you. It may take awhile---you didn't acquire your illness in a day or two, but it is SO worthwhile. Please read on and garner strengh and courage. I know you all have it in copious amounts.
The links right below will take you to both a letter and an article I submitted to People Magazine. I'm doing my best to shed a healing light on the dark subject of self-starvation:
Dear People:
My Letter To the Weekly Magazine
Dear Editor:
The Article I Submitted To People Magazine Here's something you can try if you think it might help you. There's a picture of someone screaming right below this paragraph. I want you to stare angrily at this image and cry, "I'm not afraid of you anymore! You can no longer get a free ticket to torment me or make my life a living hell? I'm going to purge you from my body and get my healthy body back for good. You think you're so smart, urging me to starve, binge and purge. Well, YOU CAN'T BE IN CONTROL ANYMORE! I am in control and I am choosing a strong, athletic body instead of one where skin is stretched to the limit over my protruding bones and where I have no energy--not for exercising anymore, for studying (you keep robbing me of brain cells), or for just going out dancing with friends. No, I have been ensconsed in a deadly labarynth for too long, for way too long and I'm breaking free! Your fortress is crumbling before your eyes. I'M FREE! Just get out of my life and never, ever come back!
There's your monster. Go at it but good!
This will be difficult at first. Some feel too self-conscious to holler at a picture, this ugly picture of evil. Please write if you need or want help. I came so close to dying on two separate occasions and it's only been a little less than a year that I realize I WANT TO LIVE! I want a comfortable life where I can do things that matter. You, you anorexic abomination, kept me from running, toward the end of the starvation process. I want to organize a committe to sponser me to run and race walk a hundred miles to earn money for the relief effort in New York City and Washington. I could never have even dreamt that was possible with that insidious disease attacking me every waking hour.
Here's another R.E.M. shot. It was taken during the band's free concert in Toronto, Canada:
Just below you will find a link to another page, one with stories about eating disorders and how to overcome them. There, you will be able to access the first four completed chapters of my cybernovel. I hope you will keep checking in as this particular part of my site develops:
Dance Of the Disappearing Sylph:
More Literature For and About People With Eating Disorders
Starving Amidst Plenty Haiku
A mere skeleton.Anorexic on the beach.
No footprints in sand.
Anorexiannie.
Last Updated:
July21st, 2006.
Your New Zealand Web Site Directory |
