• 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.
Marya HornbacherWhen I was growing up, I always felt there was an expectation that I would do one of two things: be great at something, or go crazy and become a total failure. There is no middle ground where I come from, and I am only now beginning to get a sense that there is a middle ground at all.
Marya HornbacherThe anoretic operates under the astounding illusion that she can escape the flesh, and, by association, the realm of emotions.
Marya HornbacherIt is, at the most basic level, a bundle of contradictions: a desire for power that strips you of all power. A gesture of strength that divests you of all strength.
Marya HornbacherThe madness is there, and will always be there. But it will keep sleeping, as long as I don't wake it up.
Marya HornbacherMy god! people say. You have so much self-control! And later: My god. You're so, so sick. When people say this, they turn their heads, you've won your little game. You have proven your thesis that no-body-loves-me-every-body-hates-me, guess-I'll-just-eat-worms. You get to sink back into your hospital bed, shrieking with righteous indignation. See? you get to say. I knew you'd give up on me. I knew you'd leave.
Marya Hornbacher