W i s h b o n e (page 2, also pg 1; pg 3 and pg 4)

The Secret Wish To Be or Continue To Be Anorexic

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Subject: wanting to be anorexic

At my college the other day, I overheard a girl in one of my classes say about another girl, "She's so lucky- she's anorexic. I wish I could be." Wow. It knocked my socks off as an anorexic myself. I wonder why anyone would WANT to be this way. I think that people don't realize that it's beyond a "diet" and "losing weight." It's hell on earth. Thanks for all of your hard work advocating health. I'm sure you gets lots of crap about how Anorexic Web is "triggering," but I know for a fact that your heart is in the right place and you have created this site purely so that one less woman will have to you through what you have. Love, Allison

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Subject: wishing

I remember wishing I could be anorexic for a while...so I would lose weight and then I could eat anything I wanted to. Funny thing is now that I'm anorexic I can't eat anything I want... I won't let myself.

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Subject: the thinner you get the fatter you feel

In 1993, a gal that watched me bowl every Wed. night (hey, Wednesdays are boring sometimes!) sat me down in desperation, quite literally, to tell me she wanted to know how she could be like me, if only for a week. She went on (and on) to tell me how she wanted to be so thin, so free of the fat. I was stunned. That whole night, I felt nothing but shame at the bold "showing" of my huge butt, the humiliation of my slovenly, lazy figure as I stood up to knock the pins down. All of this, I felt BEFORE she ever approached me. Talk about confusion!

What was worse, bowling night started less than a half hour after my support group. Here, I'm supposed to feel motivated to put-on-a-couple...., yet spend the rest of that evening ON DISPLAY- for all to see my fatness. Then this chick shows herself as MY ADMIRER! I told her I wouldn't wish this on anyone. That to be like me would be like asking for never-ending frustration. That, the thinner you get, the fatter you feel. That my perverse hugeness does not deserve such a compliment...... And, there lies the problem. That I still see that as a compliment. Less than 2 months later, she approached me again regarding weight loss tips, (I had to stop bowling because I couldn't anymore), and never got to me. I had told my husband and dearest friends about it when it first happened, and she had no way of getting to me,Thank God.

The sad thing is, she isn't the only one, and it's still a compliment somewhere in my stupid head. And that sucks.

That anyone would WANT to be sick to be thin sucks. All she wanted was to FEEL thin. All I've wanted is to FEEL thin. Being, feeling, looking, or merely wanting to exist as a thin person cannot be enough to reduce a life to nothing but that wish. That wish never comes true. In the mind of an eating disorder, thin does not exist. It simply cannot. I will never feel thin unless I don't take her comments as compliments.

At my last hospital stay, I heard something I found very profound for me, I'm not sure if it will to anyone else-- " Don't think of being here as a way to make you fat, think of it as a way to make you FEEL thinner. For you to feel thin, you need to gain weight." Wow! Suffice to say, I try to remember those incredible words. It's really hard, and I have no business preaching- but the folks who believe that "being eating disordered" for a bit will give them a SELF are so wrong. It TAKES the self. It redefines the self- It's a thief and a cheat. And it's a liar.

The thinner you get, the fatter you feel. Simple. Hello!!!!!! Hopefully, someday, my words will ring in my own ears. Always, Michele

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Subject: that wish

Oh my God... I thought I was the only one who actually had that serious WISH to be anorexic. Every word in that passage amazed me more than the previous one because I knew exactly what you meant. It's true, it doesn't FEEL anorexic when you're in it. You deny it up and down and all around, but it is nevertheless there. Thank you so much for this website, even though I am free from the eating disorder, it somehow comforts me to know how un-alone I was and am. *debbie3*

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Date: Wed, Feb 9, 2000, 7:44 PM

Subject: Wishbone Section

I just sort of "discovered" your website one night while roaming the internet. I'm a young teen who has been touched by eating disorderss in many ways. I've had friends die from eating disorders and watched them and others struggle. I myself developed an eating disorder about 3 or 4 years ago and have had numerous hospitalizations and treatments tried. I'm doing better but does it ever totally go away?

I'm not sure of the answer yet, but then I'm only 14.

Tonight I found the wishbone section of your webpage and found that you and others who talked on your page spoke about people saying, "I wish I could be anorexic for a few weeks." I've come to know and hear the same thing. When I first told one of my friends what I had really been sick with for the past year (anorexia) she replied,"You? I'm the one that needs to be anorexic!"

As others at school, church, the community, etc. found out, they would sometimes echo her reply. I'd forgotten about the years, before the disease actually formed, when I had wished to have an eating disorder to be thinner. I hope that for these people, that they can keep their wishes as wishes only. For it's not the glamoras disease that it's portrayed as. It's the disease

that takes over and hides the real you from yourself (and often others). The disease that steals your soul. I wish there were a cure for it. I've had to do a lot of hard work to get to where I am today and I hope that somehow, my experience can help others.

~Nicki

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Please travel on to page 3 of Wishbone

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