Paula

In Memory of Too Many

Unfortunately I have known a several people who have lost their lives to stupid eating disorders... Among them, Cynthia MacGregor who was the first adult woman with anorexia nervosa that I ever worked with as a fresh-in-the-business counselor at Rader Programs died. Joe S. who was such a gentle loving soul trapped in a sick cycle of compulisve eating died not long after Cynthia. He weighed around 400 pounds while Cynthia barely weighed 100. Their weight did not matter one little bit when it was all over. What mattered is that they were no longer here. Neither even made it to age 35. A kind of tragedy I hate. And there are more, but this section is focused on Paula...

In Loving Cherished Memory of Paula Van Gundy

Recently I learned that yet another sweet young person I had known lost her life to an eating disorder. Paula was in her early thirties when I had the honor of working with her. Her spirit was about 20 years young, though! But her body was much, much older than it ought to have been. She was so wasted from days and days and months and months and years and years of starving, stuffing, purging, running... she endured such a vicious war with food and weight and self-destruction. Her creativity and cleaverness had come up with so many ways to punish her body, she spent too much time feeling scared, depressed, lost and sick. When I got to know her, she was a patient at Rader where I had now been working for a while, and I remember her vividly for a couple reasons. One was because she had lost most of her teeth from years of vomiting up any nourishment she might give herself... and so she had this nearly tooth-less grin that was charming and intoxicating and also desperately sad to see. The other reason she always stood out to me was because she was such a lively spirit. Somehow, despite everything, Paula was upbeat and fun and had a great sense of humor. She would light up the room when she walked in, I.V. pole and all.

Paula was outgoing and kind to everyone on the unit, adored by all instantly. She brought some happiness into the general gloom of the hospital, somehow bright energy seemed to radiate out of her tiny aged and battered body. She was infectious. Everyone liked her, patients and staff, and we tried so hard to help her. It was obvious that she was important and worthwhile and must be saved from anorexia and bulimia. She preferred the now-defunct term "bulimirexia" when describing her eating disorder, actually (I think that term should still be in use, as it describes many many patients I've seen). I believe everyone deserves to be pulled out from under the ravages of an eating disorder, don't get me wrong, but with Paula there was this blindingly-obvious-to-everyone-except-herself fact that she deserved recovery.

Writing and thinking about her now, I can't believe she's gone.

I got to work and joke with Paula (we had a great repoire) for her entire stay at Rader and then I was lucky enough at the time to be running the Alumni Group and Paula would often come to the group after she was discharged. Each week I remember hoping Paula would come to group because she made the group more fun, and her and I had an on-going silly interaction that would brighten my day, too. And then there was that smile! I don't remember the details of the condtion of her teeth, but when she smiled you saw mostly gums, along with some shaven-down teeth that had not yet been entirely lost. She knew her grin was unique, and made it her own, made it silly and made it easy to laugh with her. It was surprisingly easy to forget that Paula was sick. But she was very, very sick. I remember reading her chart of her past history and it broke my heart.

Eventually Paula stopped coming to Alumni group, eventually I left Rader to work with adolescents... but I never forgot her. And recently I found out she died from cardiac arrest brought on by the eating disorder and as I read another former patient's (who I also remember and adore) account of Paula I started to cry. Kim recalls a day at Rader when we went to the beach, Marina del Rey, actually, for an outing. I was there, it was one of my outings that I'd take the patients on as a staff... and this particuliar beach trip was exciting because Kim had never seen the ocean before!! It was such a wild and amazing privildege to be a part of that trip, for me, having grown up alongside the ocean, to watch this grown woman as she laid her eyes on the ocean for the first time... wow... I think we all cried!! I remember getting the chills and watching Kim and Paula, who had become fast friends, walk towards the water, along the jetty, and I remember feeling so good that day... so glad we came.

Having also been able to see the water anytime (she lived in California), I know Paula was so happy and excited that day to share the experience with Kim. It was hard to tell who was more excieted, actually, Paula or Kim!! Anyway, I am so grateful I got to be there too. And I'm so so sorry that the world lost such a precious person as Paula. I am honored that I got to know her while she was still here, but I miss her and I'm so sad that this horrible pointless eating disorder beat her... it's not fair.

There is a candle lit and steadily burning for Paula Van Gundy on the Something Fishy eating disorders memorial site, but I wanted to add my own memorial here... because, come to think of it, one little candle couldn't hold enough light to match the light that Paula had inside her... she'd require an entire forrest fire! But, oh, god/dess, Paula you aren't here anymore to even joke with and for that I'm forever sad and forever sorry.

You are and will always be greatly missed.

Rest in love and peace, Paula!!

With all my love, Lisa Arndt

You are starving the little girl or boy that you once were. You are purging and bingeing that child. And you are sending such horrific messages that if you were literally that child's parent you could lose custody for mental, emotional and physical abuse. You have become a perpatrator of violence.

...Which is not beautiful.

Which is not something you (or anyone) should strive to become.

Andrea (below) beat her inner child to death. The little girl that Andrea once was did not deserve to die a slow painful death of starvation, loneliness, guilt, pain, obsession, fear after years of self-hate.