This book is the truest, most important thing I will ever write. I remember thinking I was fat when I was five, wishing my hips and thighs gone at seven, and feeling powerful when I pushed away from the table in the school cafeteria at twelve. As a teen and then an adult, I lost jobs. I lost friends. I lost myself.
When I finally realized I needed help, I attempted to admit myself to a treatment facility, but there were problems. I had no insurance, little money and even less in the way of personal support. After being turned away from one treatment center after another however, a door finally opened.
I went to treatment not once, not twice, but three times emerging stronger, and more committed to recovery each time. Today, and every day, I make a choice to eat. I make a choice to participate in life and to take risks. I am a mother, a teacher and a writer. I am so much more than a disease.
If you are in the throes of an eating disorder, I’d like to say this to you. Don’t give up. Life is glorious and tragic, unpredictable, exciting and mundane. Life is all those things. Give yourself permission to experience them. You are worth it.
Catherine Alene 