Well, here's something seemingly out of left field....I'm going to talk about anorexia. And not from the point of view of a level-headed medical professional, either, but from that of an individual whose life is being slowly but surely destroyed by our friend 'Ana' but can not break free even if she tries.

I was chubby from about the age of 3. Sure, people said things, but it was trivial, superficial bullshit, and I learned to ignore it. After all, what the fuck does a 6-year-old care that nobody's going to want to marry her if she eats the last luscious chocolate Kimberley biscuit? If they'd said it would kill me, I might've thought twice, but for what they were spewing, they definitely picked the wrong audience. I sort of knew I was a homely kid, so being pretty wasn't exactly at the top of my priority list, and I had enough deeper problems that I really hadn't the time to waste crunching celery sticks.

As a teenager, you'd have thought I would've been a bit more vain, but no. In fact, as I got older, and heavier (copious drink and a salary of your own to spend in chip shops will do that to a person) I took sick pride in being the only one of my 'friends' (I put this in quotes cos they made fun of me as well....pretty nastily in fact....and I'd later learn real friends don't do that) who didn't diet. I was fat, I'd tell them, and I didn't fucking care.

I had a skewed body image even then, but I never paid it any mind. At 5'8 or 5'9 and 170lbs, I saw myself as monstrous, but only when I bothered looking at all, which was rarely. I didn't know what size I wore. I would just throw on big flowing black dresses and oversized men's punk rock tees and jeans, run a comb through the Lady Godiva hair I thought made me look a tad smaller, and go. I took it for granted I was only going to get bigger. Every so often, I'd envision myself at 30 or so, and when I wasn't feeling quite morbid enough for that vision to include a crematorium, it did include an extra-wide hospital bed, an industrial scale, and a houseful of cats. It did not include a wedding ring. I did take to heart all those comments everyone always made about no man ever wanting me in this shape, but I figured it was all for the best. I was never good at relationships of any kind, so I'd avoid them, and despite disliking sex from the very first time, I'd be satisfied being promiscuous with whoever was drunk enough to lay down with my amorphous self.

To cut to the chase, anyway, I obviously did end up getting married....to a chubby chaser! I weighed around 190 when we tied the knot, and he loved it. I still didn't think I was anywhere near as beautiful as he told me I was, but I still didn't care. At the age of 26, I still laughed at dieting, laughed at health food, and downright mocked anorexics and bulimics as patent idiots.

But then I cut down drinking.

It was more for my daughter than anything....I have a long, drawn out list of specific reasons why I had to quit being a slobbering drunk, but honestly, shedding pounds wasn't anywhere on it. But that didn't change the fact that a few months into my new 'two-drink-limit-and-only-at-weekends' lifestyle, I began losing weight. A lot of it. I had never lost weight before, only gained. And gained and gained. I'd become used to clothes gradually getting tighter, but I never had a pair of trousers actually fall down on me until 1998.

It was the most wonderful experience of my life.

So I started cutting things out. No more fried food. Limited sweets. More weight came off. By 1999, I was down from over 200 to under 150. I was into a size 10-12, smaller than I'd ever been in my adult life. I wasn't even sure if I could get much thinner. But it sure was worth a try. So I tried. And that's when things started getting out of hand.

Bread was the first thing I cut out, followed closely by both butter and margarine. I started reading labels, and cutting out even more food items by the number of calories they contained per serving, and by fat content. I'd sworn off red meat, milk, and cheese by the start of the millennium, and shortly thereafter cut out poultry as well. I acquired a medical scale for the house, and began doing as many abdominal exercises at a shot as I could without injuring myself (which I often ended up doing anyway). While I managed to put up a 'normal' front when out with friends and relatives, at home I ate nothing but soup and steamed veggies.

By 2001, I had whittled myself down to about 135. I was wearing a 6. I should have been happy, as I never thought I'd ever see myself in single digits. But by this point, all I wanted was to be smaller. My goal was now a 2. If I could manage a 6, a 2 was just as possible. And indeed it was. Within months, with the help of some pretty strong diet aids, replacing a few hours of sleep a night with exercise, and the complete exclusion of fat and sugar from my diet, I dropped below 105lbs and fit easily into a size 0. I still thought I was hideous looking, but I wasn't fat anymore. And best of all, I had eased myself so slowly into the lifestyle that I was certain I'd never gain any of it back. In fact, I intended to lose more. So what if I had to buy my clothes from the kids' department? Hell, I'd began doing that already just for sport.

All went well for awhile, but then I got sick.

I maintain that I am the only person on the face of this earth who ever got fat from cancer. People bloat, they lose hair, the become emaciated. But they don't get fat. I should know. I've been working with cancer patients for almost 10 years. But contrary to everything I ever believed, it is possible to get fat from cancer.
When I was being treated for the cancer on my ovary, I did not lose any hair. I threw up maybe 3 times. But I gained 25lbs. This was a combination effect of the hormones the dr. put me on (triggers unignorable food cravings as well as increased fat storage) and the sedentary lifestyle of a sick person. Once I was able to, I began to excercise double- or even triple-time. I joined an actual gym (before this, I'd been working out at home) and began spending hours there. But even after I ceased taking the meds, my appetite remained way up there. I'd increased my daily intake from 300-500cal/day in April to 1400-2000cal/day in August. By September, I was eking by at around 1000cal/day, and I was back off sugar for the most part. But I wasn't losing any weight. I was involunatrily carbo-loading, and most of that was (is) done after 8pm.

Currently, I'm 5'9.5", between 130 and 135lbs, and a size 2-4, and I am fucking miserable. My body disgusts me. Sure, consciously I'm aware of how insane this sounds, that I'm actually far thinner than the majority of women out there, and a good deal of the weight gain and the appetite increase is due to the roundabout 3-4hrs/day of cardio, Pilates, and weight training I do.

But all that sense is tossed to the wind the moment I look in the mirror.

I have thick thighs, wide hips, and the sloppiest, fattest belly on the face of the earth. I might be a size 2 or a 4, but goddamn it if I'm not the fattest woman of that size that ever lived. I am grotesque. I'm so fucking disgusting I'm aware of the fat on my body 24/7. I actually feel weighed down by it every moment of the day, and I live in constant fear of the seams of my clothing bursting open against my size.
I don't enjoy eating at all anymore. In fact, it's the hardest chore I have to do. No matter what I eat, I feel guilty afterward, and dinner parties, holidays, and outings, things I used to live for, terrify me for the knowledge that there will be food there, and I'll be expected to eat some of it.

My life is miserable, but I wouldn't want it to change. I don't ever intend to go into 'recovery', and would never in a million years expect anyone else to. And that's why I figured I'd write about this. Don't get me wrong, I am not pro-ana by any stretch. I would never want anyone to have to live the way I do, and I'm sickened by the dolls, magazines, and various celebrities that regularly beat it into little girls' heads that it's more important they be thin than anything else. It upsets me terribly to see children's testimonials on ana support message boards, but I just sigh and try to help them along as best I can, knowing full well that becoming 'normal' is no more an option for them than it is for me, and tips and tricks from a more knowledgeable person (myself) might be the thing that'll save them from a Karen Carpenter-esque end. My attitude towards recovery is this- I refuse to ever be fat again, 'fat' now meaning the size I am now, or anything bigger. If I were to recover, I'd no doubt gain weight, and I'd probably kill myself. It's senseless, it's vain, but it's true, and I know the rest likely feel the same way.

For anyone who's considering becoming anorexic, however, whether they view it as glamorous, or an easy weight-loss trick, or anything else positive, I'll simply say read this. I couldn't make it any plainer myself. I for one actually cried the first time I read this, as it was kind of like attending the funeral services for my former, carefree self. 'Ana' has killed a lot of her 'friends', and ruined even more of us. Trust me, you don't want a friend like her.