Consequences

   So many young girls are out there striving to be anorexic, they look at pictures and thinspiration sites on the internet and they think they can make themselves anorexic. I've even done research on youtube and on very sick posts there are comments like "I wish I had your control", "If only I could be that thin", and "you are so hardcore" (referring to seeing people with feeding tubes). It makes me angry and it makes me sad because they don't know what kind of hell they are striving for.
   My anorexia started at fifteen officially diagnosed my senior year, the year that was suppose to be and exciting was doctors appointments, dieticians, constantly being watched around food even at school they watched me all the time making sure I didn't restrict too much, trying to keep me from purging and looking at me wondering if I was hiding cuts. Don't get me wrong I did have fun but I was a very sick girl. I managed to get a scholarship to college for music and thought things were great until my therapist informed me I wouldn't be attending school because I needed to be put in the hospital. On my 19th birthday I was admitted to a residential treatment center where you are constantly watched and following a strict meal plan...you have to have staff in the bathroom while you pee or poop...there was no privacy. I was there for three months and they finally had to let me go because of insurance not much better. The weight I gained came back off and I was worse than ever. My parents sent me to college close by and by November I was being seen by the eating disorder specialist at the hosptial which was connected with the school within a month he admitted me to the hospital and ordered a feeding tube to get some nutrition in me...they passed a tube down my nose past my stomach into my small intestine so there was no purging...and the process of placing the tube was uncomfortable to say the least. I spent the next three years in and out of the hospital being force fed and brought back to life with three stays on a strict eating disorder unit where, once again you are treated with no privacy.
   All those years were suppose to be the time of my life, going to college enjoying my teen and young adult years and I was trapped in my anorexic mind and never enjoyed anything. The semester I made it in college I did fine grade wise despite spending most of my time running on treadmills at student rec center. All of this because I thought not eating and being thin would make the pain go away, pains from a rough childhood...if I could just focus on the food and the numbers I wouldn't have to remember my alcoholic mom and the venom she spewed at me or the bruises she left. Anorexia and bulimia are diseases you can't try to have one...they are mental illnesses that have the highest mortality rate of anyother mental illness.
   It took me years and three overdoses to finally decide I wanted recovery. Unfortunately this disease that so many people crave had destroyed my stomach...I developed a condition known as gastroparesis which paralyzed my stomach. A surgeon removed 90% of my stomach and put in a surgical j tube to feed me. The condition worsened which caused more surgeries unbelievable pain, they eventually put a central line in and fed me through my veins until I was blessed to get pregnant with damien which we were told we would die but I thank the Lord everyday we made it. As I write this to you I am 26 years old my intestines are failing, I already have a tube in my small intestine feeding me as much as my body will take, I'm scheduled to have another surgery to have a port placed so I can have iv hydration and nutrition at home, I'm on daily doses of narcotics just to tolerate the unbearable pain I feel in my guts all the time, and ontop of that they took away my ability to have anymore babies because my body would die if I got pregnant again. Eventually, I will need a transplant to save my life. Are you jealous of me and my. Anorexia yet? I've been in recovery for almost three years and it sickens me to see so many people trying to be anorexic...that's all those "thinspo" sites are aimed at...young kids who think that anorexia is a cool game to play when its not. Two beautiful young women have lost their lives just this week to the monster. A lot of us are left to live on tubes forever because we've killed our stomachs. Do you think its fashionable to carry around a backpack everywhere with a tube hanging out of it feeding into your body?
   Anorexia and bulimia aren't games and if you are bogged down in the diseases get help before its too late because you are beautiful and the number on the scale has nothing to do with your beauty or your worth. Fight for recovery...its hard, trust me I know but you are worth it. You deserve a life free from numbers and hospital admissions. I was declared chronic, my anorexia was suppose to kill med but I killed that monster in my head or at least can control it because trust me it tries to break in but I know how to fight it. So many people tried to help an amazing doc never gave up on me and here I am recovered and yet dying inside from intestinal/gut failure. I want you to understand that this is a serious disease that will ruin your life and could kill you please keep fighting. And, if you don't have and eating disorder and your body image has you seeking out ways to develop one I suggest you talk to someone because anorexia and bulimia are not lifestyle choices they are deadly diseases. Please don't hurt yourself like I did I'm sitting here hooked up to a backpack full of "food" that goes in and causes terrible pain and barely absorbes...I depend on a tube to live...you deserve better than that. Sometimes recovery comes too late...so think about it before you click on another pro anorexia bulimia site or wish you could be sick like the girls on youtube.