"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.

I have run into many people who just don't understand eating disorders since I developed anorexia in my early forties. Many people would ask me, "Why don't you just eat?" They did not realize I was terrified to eat. In this video, I talk about some common misconceptions about eating disorders and what we can do to educate people.

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?

Jess Weiner: " Did Loving My Body Almost Kill Me?" That is the headline splashed across an article in September's Glamour magazine and online site. Weiner, a well-known author and speaker, has stressed for years that women of all weights and sizes can live happy and fulfilling lives right now. She lived her words, and created a successful career and life while being a size 18. That alone sounds radical in today's society that worships thinness and works hard to make women feel unsuccessful and unworthy if we dare to take up more space than a will-o'-wisp. Then Weiner went to her physician, and that is all it took to take her down the familiar weight loss path of dieting and excessive exercise.

I recently read HP blogger Natasha Tracy's Breaking Bipolar post, "Bipolar Disorder is Caused by a Bad Childhood." Her words made me think about the many myths that have been perpetuated and still exist about the cause or causes of eating disorders. For example, many clinicians believed years ago that a cold and distant mother was a cause of her child developing an eating disorder. I refute this myth, and talk about the variety of theories about the causes of eating disorders in this video.