Hungry, Starving

A little while ago one of my closest friends  said to me, ‘You know Ann’, when I first met you I thought you were really quiet and moody. I’ve just realised that will have been the time when you were getting over the bad break up, now  I know you I know you’re one of the bubbliest, craziest people around!

Standing posing for a photograph a couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend looked like he was wincing and with one lazy arm. Had you gone up close you will have seen a major sling contraption hidden behind him, pull his T’shirt to one side and you will have seen a bandage covering a wound which can only be described as creditable to a WW2 wound.

What is my point? My point is that by looking at someone ,  you can never ever judge  what you see; you never know the full story. Today the Daily Mail caught my eye as ‘ANOREXIA’ was blaring loudly from the front page. As I read the article it entitled, my anger turned to burning fury. According to the article, the rise in the number of young girls being diagnosed with eating disorders, particularly anorexia, is due to girls being more and more conscious of their figure in a skinny orientated society.

I want to make it clear now that THIS. IS. RUBBISH. What four year old wants to attract a boy and have a flatter stomach than her friends?! What four year old takes this to the extent that she will become terrified of food and be consumed with guilt after eating half an apple?! No four year old that’s whom. I know of NO eating disorder case in which the sufferer is purely striving to look like what she sees in the magazine. Rather, the sufferers are deeply unhappy and emotionally traumatised. They are looking to the ideals shown around them to try and obtain some sort of happiness and break from their pain. They copy parent behaviour in an effort to please or get attention.

A four year old child with anorexia is not image conscious.  She crying for security, happiness, comfort, attention, ease from her pain, explanation, control, regularity. And in the majority of cases, she wants to be loved.

I looked like I was stick thin and craving to look like the models. But rather, I was in pain: I had lost my brother, I had been bullied for 14 years, my emotional development was not complete. I once visited a girl in hospital who had not eaten for 7 weeks. She had been abused and neglected all through her childhood. She was forgotten, in pain, and thought she was disgusting. She thought she was a mistake.

Do not judge an eating disorder by what you see. These sufferers, male and female alike, re exactly that: suffers. Not model striving attention seekers. These perceptions have GOT TO BE CHANGED.

Please, please, if you do nothing else, advertise this blog to at least one of your friends. Tell someone the truth and help me to beat this, once and for all.