Restricted Access page 3 (to page 1 or page 2)

It is known among eating disorder therapists and clients alike that people with eating disorders compete with one another (as well as with non-eating disordered people) with relentless pursuit. This quest to be the "worst" is fairly unique to eating disorders. People who suffer with other emotional illnesses usually don't participate in such competition.

I have written about chronic anorexia, which is commonly known to be the most difficult mental disorder to treat, and I beg you to reconsider a career in anorexia and I beg you to be curious about what drives us to compete with each other. Maybe if we can talk about it and bring it out into the open it will help. Maybe if we tell each other that having an eating disorder isn't the way we want to spend our lifetimes... maybe we will one day listen.

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I've just read the restricted access for the first time today, and wow you said everything that i had been thinking these past few months while creating my own site Anorexics Anonymous. I have been turning my "expertise" on the subjuect into a more positive endevour, I run a prevention and selve love program at my College and a support group for teenagers in my community. I am

constantly asked were does this dedication come from and never really know how to answer. It all clicked while reading that page, I'm still involved in what i call my security blanket of an eating disorder without actually suffering negaively from it. I have developed quite a love for your site as a recovered anorexic because each photo and poem, story etc. . . reminds me of the pain of my disorder and my drive to help others and stay free myself increases. Thank you so much for developing this site. i think it is amazing. I hope you are well and keep up the fight. Luv, Sarah :)

"an ana wrecks your life like an anorexia life" - silverchair

"To thine own self be true" - William Shakespeare

"In the arms of an angel may you find some comfort here" - Sarah Mclachlan

Anorexics Anonymous - ED's, depression, and OCD:

http://gurlpages.com/other/fyoung/anorexicsanonymous.htm

Sammy's inpatient depression & eating disorder pages:

http://homepages.go.com/~sammy2b/index.html

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Subject: the fourteen year old crowd...

yes, I am fourteen. and I love your site. and It's beautifully done. I hate the way, though, that anorexia is expected from people my age. There is no shock, no sympathy, no love from anyone older than i am. they accept it with a grimace and try to tell me I need to stop avoiding growing up. i swear my disease had nothing to do with wanting to stay a little girl. It was self punishment. It was self mutilation, and also the art on my severely depressed little canvas. especially in that poem you published here, the sections about the 'high school' disease made me so mad. do the middle aged anorexics have some monopoly on anorexia? do they own the right of pain? have they bought life?

CHRONIC ANOREXIA is not for the fourteen year old crowd?! I'm chronic enough, sad enough,

I'm sure, to compete with the 'best of them.' even those 85 pound supermodels. it's our dream, isn't it? to be like 'her', the invisible size negative 2?

Lisa's Note: thank you for sending in this very good point!

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Trapped

Weary body

Pressing onward still

Falling to the ground

Trapped

Free

Energized body

Swift dancing soul

untieing a knotted heart

Free

So which one are you?

-Erin

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The thinner is the winner?

I don't need food. I'm in control. My tortured body cries out. I ignore it's desperate pleas. My mind is in control. Everyone is a slave to their hunger but me. I can trick my body. A little water will stop the hunger pains. Maybe just one rice cake. I have a lot to do, but I need to run just

one mile. Maybe that will get rid of the calories. My body is weary, but I refuse to give in. I'm in control. There's no time to live a life. I have calories to burn and weight to lose. Yes, I'm in control.

This was how my mind worked. My whole life centered on me being just a little thinner. I wasn't in control, anorexia was. I was trapped, and couldn't break free. I didn't want to eat, because I thought that meant I was out of control. When I was anorexic, I hated every moment of life. At

my lowest weight, I was the most depressed I've ever been. If the only thing you have to live for is being thinner, that's a pretty sorry life. Say no to anorexia, and yes to a life. I'm not trapped, I broke free, and you can too. I have my life back, and I love me again. I'm not a size 0 anymore. I'm 120 pounds. I'm not the thinner...but I am the winner.

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Hi. I wrote you a letter a while ago, i'm not sure if you actually got it though. Anyways, it had some poems attached at the end. Ring a bell? Maybe not. Anyways, I wondered if this poem i wrote might fit in with the whole competition thing. I wrote this poem about a girl i met in a treatment center. She is the only person who has ever triggered me- or, at least, triggered me to the point where i get very upset. Still i read her letters- i need to know if i am "sicker" or "thinner" than her still. It's dumb, i know, but as soon as she is sicker than me, i know i will have *failed*. All of my other ed friends are people i am genuinely concerned for, i worry about them and truly encourage them. This girl, though... i don't know. I guess I'm not entirely convinced that she wants anything more than attention. That's not a judgement for me to make, and who's to say that's all i want to?(attention i mean) Thanks for listening.

- Liz

I read your letters-

meant to seem quick,

when I know you gloat,

I can tell by your words.

I am insulted by your flippant comments,

I feel fat

when you tell me you are

going into treatment.

You trigger me.

You say they are making you gain weight,

you sound smug.

I hate you

and I think I know why.

I see in you the parts of me I despise the most,

but I canât help but to reply to your letters,

inquire about your current weight.

Compare that to my own.

Staring at my sandwich,

1.8 grams of fat,

250 calories,

I am tense.

I want to eat it,

I want to devour it

and anything else I can find.

But your words dance in my mind,

and I am ashamed by my wanting.

When even you

are stronger than me,

I must be the fat slob I see in the mirror.

And yet I am sitting here,

hand to mouth,

fingers down my throat,

this is what I have reduced myself to,

while you sit on your pedestal.

My own envy sets my imagination off:

I see your pedestal cracking, crumbling under

your weight,

and you fall to the ground,

not so righteous anymore.

I wonder if the pedestal was made out of foam,

was it never solid, but seemed to be from first glance?

We laugh at you behind your back,

joking that youâll have

to get sick before you

get better.

Maybe we laugh because

you represent that thing inside us we have tried to silence,

deaden.

Your pursuit of thinness in the same way as

us adds injury to insult,

as you seem to be making

progress while, I, at least,

seem to be in a standstill.

I donât want you to win at this race,

so I ask your weight again and again,

I need to know,

I need to compare,

I need to have at least some sense of being a few steps ahead of you.

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I continue to be moved by everyone's honesty, this is so important. Thank You.