My bones are brittle, my heart weak and erratic, my esophagus and stomach riddled with ulcers, my reproductive system shot, my immune system useless... I'm not going to have a happy ending.

We think of bulimia and anorexia as either a bizarre psychosis, or as a quirky little habit, a phase, or as a thing that women just do. We forget that it is a violent act, that it bespeaks a profound level of anger toward and fear of the self.

• Eating disorders are addictions. You become addicted to a number of their effects. The two most basic and important: the pure adrenaline that kicks in when you're starving—you're high as a kite, sleepless, full of a frenetic, unstable energy—and the heightened intensity of experience that eating disorders initially induce. At first, everything tastes and smells intense, tactile experience is intense, your own drive and energy themselves are intense and focused. Your sense of power is very, very intense. You are not aware, however, that you are quickly becoming addicted.

My parents say that even as a very, very little kid, the way that I acted was dramatically different from other little kids.

You can only whine for so long. Then you need to get your life back.

Starvation is incredibly frightening when it finally sets in with a vengeance. And when it does,you are surprised. You hadn't meant this. You say: Wait, not this. And then it sucks you under and you drown.

I grew into it. It grew into me. It and I blurred at the edges, became one amorphous, seeping, crawling thing.