Eating Disorders are grave and can be quite lethal. Also, they are not a choice

Eating Disorders are grave and can be quite lethal. Also, they are not a choice. They are an illness. No healthy human being would consciously choose to self-destruct and engage in slow motion suicide.

Here are some alarming statistics from ANAD:

-At least 30 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder in the U.S.

-Every 62 minutes at least one person dies as a direct result from an eating disorder.

-Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

While I have not had a full blown Eating Disorder through my journey of mental illness, addictions, and Recovery, I was married to a woman who had Bulimia and whose condition became so dire that she had to be hospitalized in an Eating Disorder unit. Thst was in the 90’s. We are no longer together. I hope that she found Recovery.

My personal “flirtation” with anything akin to an Eating Disorder was my Freshman year away at college in 85. I began running compulsively (3-8 miles every day and had never run before) and severely restricting my food (a bowl of Grapenuts in the AM and some fruit at night). My weight went from 155 to 119 and my body fat hit 3%. It was torture, I could never run often or far enough to get enough of the runner’s high. And restricting my food made me feel morally pure and in control. All of this was driven by obsession and compulsion. Not a conscious, willful choice.

Fortunately, I returned home after that one semester, removing the stressor that triggered that first of MANY manifestations of my Bipolar Disorder. My running/food restriction moderated, ending my involuntary campaign to run and starve myself to death.

Love and prayers to all suffering from the excruciating and potentially lethal affliction of an Eating Disorder.