I don't remember exactly when I started getting funny about my food, it was sometime in my mid-teens but it wasn't really bad back then. My sister's eating problems were always so much worse compared to mine so I felt like the big eater of the family! I developed an obsession around age 16 where I was unusually preoccupied with every symptom I developed, such as worrying if my swollen lymph glands from a cold was really cancer. I read the book, 'I Never Promised You a Rose Garden' and worried for weeks that I was really a schizophrenic.

After I graduated from high school, I took medical classes so I could join a volunteer fire department and drive the ambulance. I met my first husband there and got married at age 21. We were both young and stupid with no communication skills. We had no idea of what it took to make a marriage work. He ended up having problems with drinking alcohol and I was obsessively involved with volunteering. I even quit work to volunteer full time. After 1 1/2 years of marriage, he told me he wanted a divorce. Even though I was unhappy in this marriage, I had always assumed our problems could have been worked out so his suggestion was totally devastating to me. I went into quite a depression after that. I didn't worry a whole lot about it when I lost a lot of weight during this time. I knew I was grieving over my ex and I figured this was just something I had to go through. I did go see a doctor when I started having some physical symptoms, mostly an irregular heart beat but he never expressed any concern about my low weight. Soon afterwards, I ended up hurting my back on an ambulance call and had to stop volunteering for about a year until it healed. During this time, I was totally lost. I felt like I had no identity. No man and no career. Even when I was finally able to return to the fire department, the joy I once got from doing this was never the same. I went to a psychiatrist, who referred me to a social worker for some help in dealing with my anxiety and unhappiness. We usually just discussed day-to-day issues and how to resolve them. She mentioned my low weight, but because I did not deliberately diet and because I didn't think I was fat she didn't seem too concerned.

I ended up moving back in with my mom, started working at a local hospital and got myself back on my feet a little. After about 2 years, I ran into an old buddy of mine that used to volunteer at the firehouse with me and we started dating. We quickly realized that we were soul mates and got married the next year. Although I was finally happy with my job and my marriage, I guess the stress of being newly married and the possibility of having children really scared me. I began feeling nauseated and physically tired *all* the time. I was obsessing that there was something terribly wrong with me and I consulted with a new doctor, who did exhaustive diagnostic tests in order to try and find out what was wrong with me. It got to the point that I had absolutely no appetite. I was scared because I knew I was losing too much weight but I gagged every time I tried to make myself eat. I was soooo tired, yet every time I tried to sleep, I would wake up after an hour or two. My doctor hospitalized me for 2 days and, after turning up nothing more than a mitral valve prolapse (minor congenital heart valve problem). He finally came to the conclusion that I was depressed and started me on the anti-depressant Pamelor. This drug was pretty good, it immediately helped my appetite and my sleeping- however it constipated me horribly. My doctor gave me all sorts of advice to combat this but this was a severe case. I tried all sorts of remedies, even took laxatives for a month but all that did was give me horrible cramps once a week as I crapped out a rock. I finally made the decision to come off of this drug because of this problem. I quickly became very sick all over again.

I finally decided to consult an eating disorders specialist. I knew I wasn't anorexic or bulimic but I figured maybe they could help me anyway since many of my obsessions involved food. Over the years, my phobia about vomiting had gotten worse and I was afraid to eat anything because I thought I would get sick from it. I became very concerned with food freshness and contamination issues. I rationalized that if I only ate small portions of food, there wouldn't be a lot in my stomach to barf up I ever actually got sick.

In late 1990, I started seeing the ED psychiatrist and he tried to work with me on an out-patient basis but I continued to lose weight. I also became very depressed to the point that I was having frequent anxiety attacks and calling out sick from work (something I rarely do). Once I fell below the 100 lb mark (I'm 5'6") he recommended in-patient hospitalization. I don't think I ever cried so hard in my life as the night I had to tell my co-workers, husband and family that I was going into an eating-disorders unit. I was so ashamed and terrified. How were they going to get me to eat? I had visions of being strapped down and fed with a NG tube! When I finally got in the hospital, they started me on 2 different anti-depressants. (I remember that one of them was Deseryl to help my sleeping). They had all sorts of classes and lectures going on during the day to educate you about your eating disorder. Group therapy was one of my favorites! They pretty much kept me busy for 8 hours a day doing something. The best part of the whole ordeal was the other patients. I really liked most of them and we became fast friends. Most of the staff were pretty cool, too- I only met one nurse who could give nurse Ratched (from 'One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest) a run for her money! The atmosphere was kind of like being in summer camp - I finally felt safe and would have actually enjoyed my stay if it wasn't for the eating part! Eating regularly was the hardest part of my stay. I soon discovered that the hospital used a merit system to encourage you to eat. You had 45 minutes to eat your meal. If you didn't- they let you sit in the hall with your food in front of you (like a naughty child) for an hour. If you didn't finish it by then- they would give you a liquid supplement to drink (Ensure). If you didn't eat, they restricted your phone call and visiting privileges. I think I cried every day for the first two weeks in there. I was terrified of having to eat normally again. Although I totally enjoyed the other patient's company, I didn't always identify with them. I certainly had low self-esteem, but I never thought I was fat and I certainly didn't purge or exercise or do anything deliberately to lose weight. So in that aspect, I felt like a freak. I couldn't even have a normal eating disorder! It didn't help that the staff and some of the staff doctors didn't believe me, either. When I told them calories didn't bother me, they would look at me and go "Yeah, Right!" It used to really piss me off to no end when they wouldn't believe me. I actually didn't mind the supplements because they helped me to gain my weight back and they weren't as hard to get down for me as the actual food was. After drinking 1 to 3 of these a day for a few weeks though, I quickly got tired of them and started dreading the tin can taste. I have to admit that I went berserk in there a couple of times, too. I'm really embarrassed to think about how I acted and what I must have looked like! At the time, I was so overwhelmed with terror that I didn't care. They discharged me three weeks later, on Christmas Eve, but I had to be back the very next day for "day" treatment (partial hospitalization), which I did for a few weeks more. I think I packed on roughly 12 lbs during this time, which I didn't mind the looks of but keeping it on was really tough.

The next year was really, really hard for me because it never seemed to get easier. Every meal was a stinking chore. I was very discouraged because it wasn't getting easier fast enough for me. The following winter, I had a little relapse. Even though I didn't want to die, I was having suicidal thoughts. I thought about death all the time. Now, I don't believe in suicide, but my rationale was: we're all going to die anyway, so why wait for some horrible disease to strike me and go painfully? Get it over with! I had lost a few lbs too, so my doctor admitted me for a few weeks and changed my anti-depressant. When I came out the second time, I had gained a few lbs back and was feeling stronger. I was still apprehensive because this stupid problem is not like getting your appendix out. It always hangs over me like a guillotine- waiting to fall down on me if I am under any stress. I couldn't trust my hunger signals so I vowed to myself that I would sit down 3 times a day for meals and one snack *regardless* if I was hungry or not. (Even if I didn't finish it all, I would at least try!) I finally made some small progress this way. I was also working with the dietitian because I had totally forgotten what size portions a person my size should eat. I stabilized at around 119 lbs and I pretty much stayed at this weight for a couple of years. In addition to remaining in individual therapy, I also went to group therapy every week for over 2 years.

I tried to educate myself by attending lectures and reading everything I could about eating disorders. I've bounced around over the years a little bit with my medications- experimenting with different anti-depressants. I'm always in search for the one that will work the best with the least amount of side effects. After a few years in therapy, my doctor told me that he thought I had obsessive-compulsive disorder. Now up to this point, my knowledge of OCD was mostly about people who washed their hands a million times or checked things- none of which I did. But I trust my doctor's expertise, so I went home and read up on this disorder and realized that yes, this was precisely what my sister and I have had all along. My sister took a little longer to realize that she had a problem. She was also afraid to seek help because she saw the terror I endured while learning how to eat again. She never had a depression episode like I did, but she did stop getting her periods and she looked horrible.

Finally, in 1998, she admitted that she had a problem and she was tired of living like this. (Feeling gassy and bloated all the time, and the anxiety attacks when eating). So she decided to get treatment and started on Paxil, which has helped her a immensely. Unfortunately, her insurance plan is not as good as mine so I don't think she has gotten the same quality of treatment as I did.