The Girl

*Wrote this a few years ago while I was still very much in my anorexia*

The floor rushed up to catch her as she collapsed. The last sound she heard was her mother screaming as she watched her daughter fall to the floor. The girl, who had been shopping with her mother for the day, was immediately rushed to the hospital, her frail heart barely holding on.

The girl's parents pace the blue waiting room awaiting news of their daughter's condition. They go over and over in their heads what could be wrong with her, she was only 18, she was healthy, why did this happen? The girl's parents freeze as the doctor walks into the room.

"I am so sorry to tell you this, but your daughter suffered a massive heart attack. We did everything we could, but we just couldn't bring her back", as the doctor spoke the girl's parents stare in shock, not allowing themselves to believe what they are hearing.

The girl's father spoke in a flat tone saying, "18 year old girls just don't have heart attacks and die", he spoke as if to deny the fact that his baby was dead, she was sleeping and would eventually wake up.

"They told us she would was ok, they said she would get through this", her mother's voice came in a weak whisper as the tears began to over take her.

"I want to see my daughter", her father's voice shaking in terror.

Her parents are led into a dark trauma room where their daughter is laying still on the table as if she were only sleeping.They grab her cold, pale hand and are both overcome with tears for their baby who had been alive only hours before.

"18 year old girls don't just die", her father kept repeating himself over and over, "this wasn't suppose to happen, she was fine", he wiped a tear from his cheek.

The next time the parents see their daughter she is laying still on a satin pillow wearing the dress she had worn only months before as she walked across the stage at her graduation. Secretly her mother prays that her daughter will awake and smile like she had done when they were shopping the day of her death.

"I'm so sorry for your loss", is the phrase repeated over and over as the parents are greeted by visitors paying their respects. Their comments fall on deaf ears, their casseroles go uneated, and the house remains dark.

The months pass and the days turn cold. One snowy day in December the girl's parents make their way up the concrete sidewalks and step on the frozen grass. They stop in front of a big willow tree where there is a head stone that reads, "Our beloved daughter taken a young angel". The girl's mother pulls out a piece of paper from her pocket, unfolds it and begins to read:

Today would be your nineteenth birthday. You have been gone for three months, and there isn't a day that goes by that we don't think of you. There are so many things I want to tell you. I'm so sorry for not pushing the issue, for not telling you that I knew, for pretending not to notice that you were missing meals and the cuts on the back of your knuckles, for not insisting something be done for you, for not understanding, and for not accepting the fact that just because you looked fine on the outside didn't mean you were ok on the inside. I wish I would have taken this more seriously and picked up on the many warning signs, the being cold and tired all the time, the fact that you ran to the bathroom after meals, and you only ate when we made you. You had such a bright future and now its gone, you will never get married, have a career, or have babies. We miss you so much, we miss your smile, your jokes, your talent, and even your attitude. If only we could have understood what you were going through. We hate that thing that was inside you, that eating disorder they called anorexia. They said we caught it early, they said you were fine...you weren't. I should have known, I was your mother, I knew you better than any doctor. But, the told me therapy was enough, but it wasn't. This sickness called and eating disorder took my beautiful daughter away, and its happening to young men and women everywhere. Eighteen year olds don't have heart attacks. I wish I would have known, but they said she'd be ok.

Love- Mom

The tears pour down the parent's frozen cheeks as they place flowers on their daughter's grave. Another victim of the epidemic known as eating disorders, taken in the prime of her life. She couldn't stop, and they said she was fine, they didn't know her. She seemed "normal", "healthy"... looks can be deceiving- she wasn't "normal" or "healthy", she DIED.

The girl I speak of could be any one of us who suffer with an eating disorder. Doctors think they know their patients, they don't. They insist that everything will be fine and they will "fix" the problem. Sometimes they are right, but sometimes they are wrong and being wrong means that another young person is lost. "She wasn't that thin, she wasn't emaciated", they say, well, she's dead. Appearance can be deceiving her insides were deprived, they got little to no nourishment, she threw up when she had the smallest amounts of food in her body, and she exercised uncontrollably, her body couldn't take it anymore. She needed someone to understand, she needed to be heard, she needed help. She was lost before someone realized her needs. They said she'd be okay, the girl is dead.