Living with Anorexia: A Personal Testimony

I was always a naturally thin child. But I remember becoming aware of people's weight at a very young age, and then turning it inward and seeing my own weight. The problem was, I saw my own weight as much heavier than it really was. I saw my body as something hideous and disgusting. A few well-intended, but thoughtless comments made by my relatives- around the age I hit puberty, and I ended up with a full-blown eating disorder.

I remember thinking of myself as "fat" about the time I began developing a more womanly shape, when I started developing "curves" and around the time I started really noticing boys. I was ten or eleven. I didn't completely come to this way of thinking by myself. I remember relatives and friends of my parents making comments about me getting "chubby"; about how if I were to ever "get fat" that my bottom would be the size of a "caboose". Mind you, at the time, I was still very thin and was naturally that way! I hadn't gained any "extra" weight and didn't look overweight at all! Those thoughtless comments and overly critical "observations" threw me into a tailspin. So, at the very young age of eleven, I started my first "diet". I truly don't know which is worse- the fact that I began that diet at such a young age, or the fact that my parents didn't notice that I had started obsessing about food and what I ate.

My mother always had a weight problem whenever I was growing up, and so I found a plethora of dieting books in our home book-cases, and found plenty more to cause me to worry and obsess about my weight! It didn't help that if my weight *did* fluctuate a few pounds or so (especially during "that" time of the month!), my parents noticed and would say something. It would be many years before I would finally admit to them that I had struggled with an eating disorder!