For weeks, I have struggled to do anything beyond the bare minimum. Eating disorders are in part coping mechanisms, and can be deceptively helpful in masking painful emotions. That can make recovery from an eating disorder very difficult, because most people struggle with painful emotions and would rather push these feelings aside than face them. I always like to think I am different - but I am not - and that I can push through the emotions the recovery stirs up. Each time I begin the recovery process with a fierce determination to beat anorexia nervosa for the last time. I feel strong and sure as I start to eat regular meals and snacks and stop all related eating disorder behaviors, and I know in my heart that I will travel the road to full recovery without roadblocks or detours. But emotions can only be suppressed for so long, and I inevitably become anxious and depressed as I begin to eat like a normal person. Determination fades and strength wavers as all the emotions that I couldn't feel while in the middle of my eating disorder come roaring back, leaving me cowering in the corner.

I recently learned that several friends of mine also are struggling with their eating disorders, and that it hurts even though I also have an eating disorder.

You cannot always tell a person has an eating disorder simply by looking at him or her. I stressed that because one of the most common and enduring myths about eating disorders is that the person must be young, female, and extremely emaciated to have an eating disorder. That is simply not true.

My thinness is an outward manifestation of my inner pain that I am unable to voice. This is my last year of graduate school and I have started working on my thesis. It will be a creative non-fiction piece divided into two parts. One part will be about my struggles with anorexia nervosa, and my ultimate decision to begin the work of recovery in the midst of personal chaos. The other piece will review the memoirs and creative non-fiction writings written by women who have experienced anorexia and/or bulimia. I deliberately chose to write my thesis about women only, in part because I plan to apply feminist theory to my thesis and I believe that eating disorders develop differently in women and men. I have been enmeshed in writings about eating disorders these past few weeks, and I have found a common thread throughout the writings that resonate with my own experiences with anorexia. Silence. At some point, each of these women have written about feeling silenced and having to regain their voices during recovery. I believe at heart that eating disorders are illnesses of silence, of an inability to speak about inner pain, to give voice to what we are feeling and going through in the deepest reaches of our souls.

Recently I was invited to write on my personal blog about weight stigma and what does it mean to me as part of fellow blogger and ED activist Voice in Recovery's Weight Stigma Blog Carnival. (ViR is HealthyPlace blogger Kendra Sebelius, author of Debunking Addiction.) I wanted to continue the conversation about weight stigma on Surviving ED. I was very nervous about writing "Weight(ing) For Change: Why Weight Stigma Impacts Us All." Why? Because it forced me to face my own prejudices and fears towards people who are overweight or obese, and about weight in general.

In part one of this series, I talked about the lure of anorexia and how, at first, I didn't think of anorexia as an addiction. But it is and, of course, the first step to breaking the chains of addiction to starving is both very simple and complex at the same time. I needed to eat and reach a healthy weight. That required me to eat three meals and drink three Ensure Plus daily, and watch as the scale slowly climbed upward. This is very frightening for those of us struggling with anorexia nervosa. But there is no other way. Until I achieved full and consistent nutrition, the eating disorder part of my brain was going to keep telling me to starve myself. I would be forever chained to anorexia.

Addiction is a strange thing. No one sets out to become addicted, whether it is to cigarettes, prescription medications, alcohol or any other substance. My father had been an alcoholic and he had made our lives a living hell. I never wanted to see myself in that light. Then I developed anorexia nervosa. At first, I didn't think of it as an illness of addiction. My husband and I argued about it one night several years ago. I had again started the cycle — restrict, starve, purge with laxatives as needed, and repeat every day. "You're addicted to starving," he said. "Anorexia isn't addiction. Anorexia is totally different," I argued. "If you would read some books or something . . . You don't know what you're talking about, you don't understand at all." "I did read that one book, and anorexia is an addiction. Just like alcoholism."

Today my doctor said to me, "You know, you deserve to be happy. You deserve to recover." I sometimes question if I do deserve to recover. I'm not proud of some of the things I have done in life. I have not always been the kindest person. I have sometimes ignored people who needed me. I have put my husband and loved ones through years of anguish and fear as I slipped further and further into anorexia nervosa and failed at recovery many times. I have made them cry as they thought that I could possibly die from my eating disorder. I blocked myself off from their fears and pleas, and continued to pursue thinness ruthlessly for years like a person possessed. All of these things make me question my worth and if I deserve to recovery. But there's something more. My doctor, a wonderfully perceptive man even when I sometimes sit silently and dive back into the safety of my thoughts, said I have this space within my brain that allows the eating disorder to tell me that I do not deserve to be happy, healthy, and free. This is so true, and I sometimes want to scream at the voices to stop and leave me alone.

A 2008 Harris Interactive study found that about 0.5 percent of Americans are vegan and 3.2 percent of Americans are vegetarians. That equals 1 million and 7.3 million respectively. That's a pretty low number. Why then does it seem that I know so many people with eating disorders who either are vegan, vegetarian, or practice some other type of eating different from the normal population?

In this video, I reflect upon society's obsession with looks and how this can be dangerous for both young girls and women with eating disorders. Watch here: