It's really interesting to me how all of us can experience the exact same event, and yet come away with wildly disparate interpretations of what happened. We each have totally different ideas of what was said, what was intended, and what really took place.
Marya HornbacherYou can't teach an ear, you can't teach talent, but you can teach people who have those things not to just fly by the seat of their pants.
Marya HornbacherWe know we need, and so we acquire and eat and eat, past the point of bodily fullness, trying to sate a greater need. Ashamed of this, we turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how to not-need.
Marya Hornbacherโข 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 starvingโyou're high as a kite, sleepless, full of a frenetic, unstable energyโand 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 HornbacherI mean, we all know the dangers of starving, but bulimia? That can't be that bad. It's only bad when you get really thin. Who worries about bulimics? They're just gross.
Marya HornbacherThere is never a sudden revelation, a complete and tidy explanation for why it happened, or why it ends, or why or who you are. You want one and I want one, but there isn't one. It comes in bits and pieces, and you stitch them together wherever they fit, and when you are done you hold yourself up, and still there are holes and you are a rag doll, invented, imperfect. And yet you are all that you have, so you must be enough. There is no other way.
Marya Hornbacher