NEDA 2015

For my sufferers and survivors: I wish you strength to fight for health every day; to choose life; to find the freedom that is possible and to hope for it. I wish peace for you in your distress. I pray that you love yourself gently, then fiercely and without question. No love is merely deserved. It is necessary for our very existance and God gave it freely to the undeserving. Remember this every time you hate everything about yourself, when ED whispers lies that you hold as truth or as you recall the gospel of starvation to mind. I hope you find the perseverance to fight ED in any way possible: even the small ways are victories within us. I wish you passion instead of numbness. I wish you fullness of mind and spirit and even body instead of this all consuming emptiness. I pray that the demons which dog your soul would be put to flight – that you will have the faith to fight the good fight. I hope you never give up, even in the depths of your darkness. Believe.

Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2014

There is always hope.

Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2014

Strength and Perseverance

For my ED sufferers and survivors……have faith and courage for another day. You are worth it.

NEDA – Spread Awareness

“Quite frankly, my dear, no one has anorexia anymore. Everyone is just fat nowadays!”

This was said to me by a guest ballet teacher this morning as we were discussing what to do with a student who has developed ED.

“Is she bulimic?” a colleague asked.

“I don’t think so, although I did check her knuckles at the barre,” I responded.

“Why would you do that?” asked the guest teacher.

I looked at incredulously. “Don’t you know what signs to look for when you suspect an eating disorder?”

And that is when she deigned to tell me that no one has anorexia anymore, they are all just fat nowadays (while we are sitting in a ballet school and we are discussing students with ED).

Sadly, no one acknowledges eating disorders unless they see a walking skeleton. The only way they can identify them is with a stereotype. I feel like there is no recognition of the myriad faces of ED from the normal weight, over weight, under weight and everything in between. Of course, none of the faculty in my office know that I am currently puking several times a day and eating laxatives as if they were smarties. I know that NEDA is almost at an end but I hope that the awareness continues to spread because with this kind of ignorance being displayed by people who should know better, too many people are doomed to suffer unnoticed.

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