Author and journalist Carol Lee spent many years helping her god-daughter, Emma, in her battle with anorexia and bulimia.

 

The following is an extract from her book, To Die For: The true story of a girl with anorexia and the woman who tries to help her, which is available to purchase on Amazon.

 

 

My personal view of anorexia comes from two perspectives. First of all, through seeing my god-daughter, Emma’s journey as I visited her over five years.

 

The second comes through Emma’s eyes when, after asking me to write a book about her involvement with anorexia, she handed me her diaries ‒ and access to the world inside her, the way she saw it.

 

What Emma’s diaries told me is that ‘adopting’ anorexia was a decision she made to have something ‒ one thing ‒ in her life that she could be in control of: her eating.

 

 

The trigger for this was the death of a friend when Emma was 15; a pen-pal whom Emma had poured her heart out to in hundreds of letters.

 

But the deep root was Emma’s unhappiness with her life. Her mother was a single parent who worked to support them both and was often tired when Emma needed attention. Emma, who was very bright, lacked enough stimulus and outlets for her creative nature.

 

Frustration and dissatisfaction were building in Emma for many years. When her pen-pal died, something eventually gave way. If life wouldn’t offer Emma what she needed, she would take charge.

 

 

The one thing she could control was her own appetite. So, this became Emma’s form of revolt against a world which hadn’t given her what she needed. It was her howl of protest.

 

I began to realise this as I watched Emma go through long episodes of anorexia and bulimia, her weight see-sawing from just over five stone, to over thirteen stone. At one stage, she managed to ‘starve’ herself for seven months.

 

As she said later, this control of her appetite was the first thing in her life which made her feel really good about herself.

 

But it ended up being a dangerous game. For what Emma hadn’t bargained with was what lack of nutrition would do to her mind as well as her body. She began to suffer memory lapses and to get panicky when her weight began to rise in the specialist Unit, where she eventually ended up.

 

 

So I stepped in. I knew her so well. I knew how bright she was, and I began to confront her. I held her as well, of course, comforted her when she sobbed in my arms, but I began to be tough with her too.

 

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” I said one day. “You’re bright enough to know what lack of nutrients does to the brain as well as the body.”

 

“What are you so afraid of?” I asked her eventually. And she broke down.

 

“I can’t do it,’ she sobbed. “Life is too big, too frightening.”

 

 

At last, I understood. “Yes, the world out there is big,” I replied, “And you have so much to offer it. Take it on, Emma. Take on the challenge.

 

“I’ll be here.”

 

Reading her diaries years later made me understand that Emma’s anorexia was a choice she made, but one in which she nearly lost control.

 

 

She was shocked when another girl she had befriended on the specialist Unit died. Vomiting up her food one day after binge-eating, her heart muscles, weakened by years of malnutrition, failed. This tragedy helped to bring Emma round.

 

But it took a further five years after leaving anorexia behind for Emma fully to regain her strength. Now, she’s a lovely woman in her mid-thirties with a zest for life and a lot of love to give the world she nearly turned her back on.

 

To Die For: The true story of a girl with anorexia and the woman who tries to help her by Carol Lee, published as an eBook by Corazon Books, is available to purchase exclusively from Amazon from Wednesday, February 8, 2017. You can check out the book at this link.

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