AKA_Monet -

Thanks! I was nervous about coming in here

To address some of the more vague issues - yes, anorexia is characterized by severely limiting the intake of food. A common misconception is that anorexics do not eat at all. This is not true in most cases. More often an anorexic will develop categories of foods she can and can not eat.... ie. lettuce and veggies are okay, grains are not, something like that. As time passes and she progresses into the disease, this limiting will often encompass almost all foods, with only a few things (commonly leafy vegetables, fruits, soluable fibers) being "allowed". She will eat only these foods... and severely limit the amount that can be taken in at one time. Often she will be will become so convinced of this "safe" amount that she will feel full. When I was at my worst I would often make a meal out of a single piece of white bread (no butter). I would literally feel full if I ate more than that, and would get sick to my stomach if I was forced to eat more. To this day there are still things I can't eat.... things I limited early on (like butter). My mind has convinced me so strongly that these things are bad that I will become nauseous upon seeing them.

Yikes, that got long-winded. Anyway, what I was getting at was that one of my tricks was to tell people I had food allergies. I would say I was allergic to all but the few things I would let myself eat. People would accommodate me without question and I could pick and choose what I wanted to eat. I would say that I'd just eaten and was only going to have a snack. I would make sure I always had things to do around meal times and say that I would just "grab a bit while I was out", or take a lunch with me and give it to some kid who didn't have enough to eat. I made sure to stay involved with activities that would run over meal times... in high school, extracurriculars and clubs that I could tell my parents served food, and I could tell my friends that I'd just eat at home. When I moved away to go to college it got even easier.

LadyPiPhi has a good point as well. No one wants to think their child, or their friend, or they themselves have an eating disorder. Often the realization is not made until the problems are drastic... heart damage, kidney damage, reproductive system damage (all of which I have).... and even then, sometimes it goes unseen. Not necessarily because of denial, but the fact is most Medical Doctors are not trained to actively seek out these types of issues in their patients. A medical doctor is going to see the pneumonia, or heart arrythmia, or iron deficiencies that come from having a weakened immune system and not enough nutrients. The fact is, most medical doctors are too overworked and see too many patients in a day to remember much beyond what's on the chart. And even that can be gotten around. I made sure never to see the same doctor beyond once or twice for fear they'd catch on. The one doctor who did (that I mentioned above) I made sure never to see again after I got out of the hospital. I made up some lie about how I felt he was looking at me in an inappropriate way and of course we switched immediately.

Well, sorry for this big long post, but it's obviously something important to me!