It was a cold November afternoon in 2009, my family and I were in the car on the way to Delaware to visit my family for Thanksgiving. I had just started reading the book Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.
Halfway through the trip, when I had finished the book, I looked up and thought to myself, “This book just saved my life.”
I had never had such a powerful experience from a work of literature, and this book became my bible.
A few months early, right before the start of my senior year in high school I had been diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa. This is characterized as a fear of eating, fear of gaining weight and starving/depriving yourself of food. I had been suffering from this disorder for months before, but I decided to go to the doctor because I noticed my hair was falling out, I could barely stand up without someone helping me, I felt like the walking dead, and I had begun to look like it too. No matter what the doctors told me, and no matter how many times I watched my mother cry when she saw I had yet again lost more weight, and no matter how many times I cried getting my blood taken, for some reason I couldn’t snap out of it. Every day I concentrated on calories in and out, I sat in all of my classes with a composition notebook writing down over and over what I had eaten that day and leaving notes for myself to not eat anything else. Even passing out in economics class didn’t change anything for me. I needed to hit rock bottom before I could decide it was time to start really trying.
Right before thanksgiving break, my doctor had given me an ultimatum. Come back from Delaware having gained weight, or I would be put in the hospital. After that and reading Wintergirls , I knew it was time. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, it wouldn’t happen overnight or in a few weeks. It was going to take time, and some days I felt like I was never going to get better. Know I’m sitting here in my dorm room writing this article, a senior in college, and I can proudly say I can now order French fries without having an anxiety attack.
Wintergirls is a YA novel, and without it, I don’t know that I would be here today. It reassured me that I wasn’t alone, and gave me hope. I have recommended it to many people since then, and every time I get the same response. It was extremely helpful at giving people a bit more insight into the minds of people who are suffering from such disorders. Many times things like eating disorders get swept under the rug and people assume, “Oh she just wants to be skinny.” I have even seen people use the word Anorexic interchangeably with the word skinny. This is infuriating. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness and yet they seem to not be taken seriously by the public. Many people often say, “Just eat something, I don’t understand why it is so hard.” Yet we would never say to a cancer patient, “Just stop having cancer.”
People do not realize how serious these disorders can be and how often they lead to permanent problems. Many people who suffer from prolonged eating disorders end up with things like organ damage, infertility, poor dental strength, and this is if they are lucky enough to survive. Our societies attitudes towards body image does not help the case and many times eating disorders go untreated because people do not think they have a problem or they think they can fix it on their own.
The main types of eating disorders are Anorexia Nervosa, which I explained earlier as a fear of eating, fear of gaining weight, starving/depriving oneself of food. Bulimia is another very prevalent one, which many people use interchangeably with Anorexia because they assume it is the same thing, when in fact it is very different. People who suffer from Bulimia tend to collect a large amount of food and “binge” or eat it all at once until they feel extremely full, and then “purge” which means making themselves throw up. Sometimes people who suffer from one of these disorders will display symptoms of both. Over exercising is another eating disorder that is becoming more prevalent. This disorder is essentially when a person exercises and burns off more calories than they have eaten, experiences anxiety when they cannot workout and often overworks themself. This is also incorporated into the other eating disorders at times, especially in athletes.
Like many mental illnesses, eating disorders can go hand in hand with other mental illnesses as well. People who suffer from depression, anxiety, have gone through trauma, or have OCD have a higher probability of developing an eating disorder. Eating disorders can cause people do develop these disorders as a result, while they are still suffering or after they have gone through recovery. I know for me, I developed generalized anxiety disorder as a result of my eating disorder.
With many of the issues addressed by YA novels, there are many misconceptions that come along with them because of society. I think it is important to have these novels and to recognize that the stigmas placed on mental illness by society make things much harder for people to get help. It is also important to be educated on these disorders and know that they affect many people, and can change their lives in many ways. It helps us to see that we never know what others are going through, and enables us to recognize that our judgments and negative perceptions of those who are suffering from mental illness are more often than not, unwarranted.
Becky is Nicole's best friend and a student at SUNY Oswego. She is currently studying to become a psychologist for teens with disorders such as these.