After going bathing suit shopping yesterday, I felt compelled to write this. That and I'm also waiting for my pasta to boil.

The anorexic mind is different from a normal one. I used to be anorexic. It started my freshman year in high school when my best friend invited me to come down to her beach house with her family that summer. She asked me around February, when I was probably at my highest weight ever. I instantly said yes, but after I did, I thought about some things. She has this really hot older brother, and there was no way I was going to be jiggling about in front of him. Nope, something had to be done. So I began to starve. I cut out the fried food I was eating for lunch and began to eat breakfast. I would walk to town instead of asking my mom for a ride. When the beach finally came around, I had lost about 30 pounds. I could see my ribs. My bathing suit fit me nicely. It was awesome.

Then school started. People were complimenting me left and right. People who I thought never knew I existed were telling me how good I looked, and a guy even said, dare I say it, that I was hot. I mean wow. Being told you're hot is probably the greatest thing anyone can ever say to you, especially when you went from being a fat stubby blob. I could go into stores and try on countless pants and be assured they would all fit, whereas before I only owned about two pairs because I could never find any. All of this fueled my mind into becoming the self destructive potentially fatal empowering force that it eventually turned out to be. It was getting pretty bad. I would eat a cup of yogurt and a banana and then nothing else for the rest of the day. I wouldn't dare touch a french fry, let alone a cupcake. Every time I looked in the mirror, I felt so good, and I could never, ever allow myself to be fat again. I grew used to the feeling of being constantly hungry. It was the kind of hunger that makes you feel like you have to throw up, the kind which seems as though your stomach is digesting itself. I couldn't sleep because I was so hungry, but yet i persisted. There was nothing worse than being fat. It was the ultimate punishment. No one would ever like me if I was fat. Everyone would make fun of me. One day in gym I was running, and I blacked out for a few sceonds. It scared me.

Then I started to eat again. I had to, because I was going to die. Once I started, I couldn't stop. All of the foods I had condemned I began to binge on. It was horrible.

Now I am where I am today. After a year of uncontrollable eating, I have joined a gym and restricted my food once again. I'm still not normal. I know I need to see a therapist because those thoughts of never being good enough are there everyday. I just thought I would share my experience with this suffocating disease with anyone who cares.