I want to encourage everyone to seek help.This is just one experience and I don’t intend to give up. Life is fleeting and precious and too much of it is already lost to dealing with this awful illness. Please consider seeking help or at least telling someone you trust about your problems. To the young people reading this, I want to say, please don’t let your future self become a version of me. There is nothing I regret more than spending my late teens and early twenties completely consumed by this disease and there is nothing I wouldn’t give up to be able to live those years again free from constant bingeing and purging.
I tried.
I tried to ask for help.
I sat in the chair in your office and I tried to tell as best I could. That I am, I have, for a long time, struggled with food. I want to get help. I don’t want to spend my evenings and nights coughing up dregs of my lunch and dinner.
But you don’t say anything.
I can understand.
I am not thin, not thin enough for any diagnostic criteria in the books on your desk. Perhaps, I don’t look ill.
I wake up in the morning, my mouth covered in sores from last night’s purging, my knuckles raw and red and drag myself to the bathroom. I wash away the smell of vomit in the shower, I put on lotion and perfume. I scrub my face and put primer, then foundation. A dab of concealer for the dark circles, a tap of blush to make my cheeks look bright and perky. A bit of lipstick to cover up the sores and peeling skin.
I know I might not look like it, but I am it.
I have a problem.
It took me every ounce of courage I could muster to tell you and when you ignored it, some thing just fell apart inside.
The Cage of Hunger 