A Bit About Me I have thought for a long time about whether or not I should write a little about myself. To be honest, as I am writing this, I don't know whether or not it will go on my site. It seems rather pointless to write a story with no beginning, and no end. I built this site to offer some sort of consolation for other sufferers from eating disorders- when I was first diagnosed the internet wasn't in every household as it is now, and there was little information available from a sufferers point of view. What I could find was rather dis-heartening- there were no answers, no 'miracle cures' and me being barely twelve years old found the whole thing rather daunting. I read everything I could find- the statistics, the causes, the symptoms, the physical complications...and found very little in the way of hope or condolances. Most of the literature available was written from a professionals perspective and aimed at parents. While this was most probably a great comfort to my family, there was very little available for myself, the sufferer. I am now a lot older. Having been through various treatment programs throughout the UK and seen a specialist in New York, I still have no answers. I do however have the knowledge that ultimately, it has to be ME who finds the answers. Sounds obvious now, but when I first went into an inpatient unit, I believed that I would spend a couple weeks there, and come out able to carry on as I had been before I became ill. And I did. And I failed. Why? Because I was treated with food. My treatment team saw the problem as a 'physical' one. (Why they put me in a psychiatric unit is still unclear as I was given no form of psychiatric treatment). I left the unit having regained some of the weight I had lost. My 'starvation' routine had been interrupted briefly, but mentally nothing had changed. I was still depressed...still 'voiceless'...still unable to express myself...still unable to see that there was more to life than what I weighed. While physically I was in better shape, the problem wouldn't go away as long as it was only the symptoms being treated. This happened several times- I was transferred from unit to unit, consultant to consultant. I was suicidal, I had no motivation, I hated myself. Eventually I was sent 200 miles away from home because there were no units nearby wiilling to treat me. At the time, I felt rather proud- I had succeeded. I was 'too ill'. I had achieved something. I was the 'worst' case. Twisted logic, but that was (and often still is) the way my mind works. Again, the admission failed to 'cure' me. By that point I was past caring- so many doctors had given up hope and it seemed only a matter of time before this unit did too. I absconded at every chance. I fought them all the way. I didn't want to get better...so I didn't. That is what it comes down to ultimately- recovery is an option. It is there when you are ready to take it- it is HARD work, but it is ALWAYS available to anybody who wants it badly enough. During the last few years there have been phases when I want to recover more than anything. There have also been times when I don't. I come up with all sorts of excuses as to why I can't yet..."not sick enough" seems to be a favourite- not just for me, but sufferers everywhere. When I am asked to define "sick enough" I have no answers. Maybe weight is an issue...if I get to such-and-such a weight then recovery will somehow be justified in my mind. Maybe not. Why? Because even I know that NO weight will ever be low enough. As Mary Hornbacher (author of 'WASTED') put it, "The absolute truism of eating disorders is that you never believe you are thin enough. Whereas most people set out to lose a few pounds- say five, ten, fifteen- and stop when they get there, the anorexic sets out to lose ten pounds and then says, well, maybe fifteen. She loses fifteen and says twenty, loses twenty, says thirty, loses thirty, says fourty, loses the fourty and dies. Oops. She hadn't meant to die. She just wanted to see what would happen. Wanted to see how far she could go. And then couldn't quite bring herself to break the fall." It never fails to amaze me how caught up I have become with this disease- I cannot for the life of me get to grips with atomic theory or photosynthesis, and yet I can tell you per second how many calories you are burning...how many steps you have to climb to burn off the calories in a cappuccino...how much fat is in a slice of pizza. I cannot tell you what I did when I went on holiday to Dubai a couple years ago, and yet I can tell you everything I ate (or didn't eat) during the whole holiday.