Eating disorders can be extremely isolating and lonely. Counting calories or throwing up your food after you eat makes it hard to be around other people. There is the fear that you might eat too much, or that someone will notice that you are just pretending to eat. It takes a lot of energy to hide your eating disorder symptoms, and that makes it easier to stay home and disconnect from your friends. I have been very lucky. My friends know about my struggles with anorexia, and we have stayed close in spite of my attempts to isolate and hide at times. This week I was again reminded how important friends are to me, and how they play a role in helping me stay in recovery.

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." ~ Joseph Campbell I have struggled with anxiety and depression for weeks. Several mornings I stay in bed, huddled under my covers where it feels safe, until the very last possible moment. I think about the life I had before I developed anorexia. My husband and I were still together, sharing life and love, enjoying each other's company and spending time with family and friends.

For some reason, I knew drinking a glass of wine at 9:30 in the morning was not a good way to start off the week. I have been struggling, and that includes continuously arguing with that Nazi Brunhilde voice in my head that keeps telling me I am fat and don't deserve to eat. It has been a bad week.

Many days I don't want to get out to bed. I am dealing with some difficult life issues right now, and of course the first thing I turn to is restricting my food intake in order to numb the pain and anxiety I am feeling. There are some days that I feel as if this will go on forever. I contemplate my future and I can't see the light at the end of the eating disorder tunnel.

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.

What would a world without eating disorders be like? It would be a world of unimaginable freedom for everyone. It would be a world that each one of us could thrive in. It is only a dream of mine. But think of the possibilities . . .

"Maggie Goes On A Diet" is described by Amazon.com and other retailers as an inspiring tale about a 14-year-old who loses weight and becomes the school soccer star. The premise behind the book is to show how Maggie gains confidence and develops a more positive self-image after losing weight and achieving her goals. There is just one problem. This diet book's reading level and content makes it more appropriate for girls of elementary and middle school ages. The exact group that is  beginning to struggle with body image and weight issues. The exact group that is vulnerable to developing eating disorders.

I struggle with anorexia even now because eating disorders are complex and deadly illnesses. They manifest differently in each individual. For me, anorexia was not about being thin. And yet it was. That is the paradox of anorexia. I was addicted to starving, driven to be thin. I could never be thin enough, and it took years to break the chains of those thoughts. But have I completely broken free?

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?