I cannot believe it's been almost a year since I've updated. I'm not even sure anyone is still reading this, but I'm bound and determined to finish it, if only because it was such a huge part of my life at one point and got me through so much. That being said, it may end sooner than I originally planned for it to but it will be completed.

You would think after all this time I would have chapters finished, but no—unfortunately, I am still trying to finish chapter 38. The document is open on my laptop as I type this up right now. I haven't forgotten this story or just tossed it aside and decided to abandon it. The past six months have been insane.

I don't know how many people will read this, but I feel like it needs to be said. Not just to explain my lengthy absence, but also because I need to do my part to help raise awareness for a disease that is far more common and ignored than anybody wants to admit.

You see, I'm anorexic and bulimic. I spent time in a treatment center earlier this year finally getting help after trying to hide just how bad it was for the last year. Technically I've had my eating disorders since I was 19 (I turned 23 two months ago), but nobody knew until last year. Honestly I have no clue how nobody knew because I lost over 120 pounds strictly from this—no dieting, no exercising. I was officially diagnosed last fall. I say "officially" because we kind of knew, but I was borderline alcohol dependent at the point in time and it wasn't until I quit drinking that the eating disorders fully surfaced.

I don't say this to gain pity or attention from anyone—in fact, I'd be content if nobody knew. However, I know first hand the hell this disease causes. It robs you of life. You can't think, can't focus, can't remember anything, have no strength to do anything, and above all you're lying and manipulating to the people you love the most. Nobody ever expected it to be me with an eating disorder. I knew in the back of my head that something wasn't right for a long time before I ever admitted it to anyone. Having to look your own mother in the eye and tell her you're starving yourself or that you want to throw up what you eat is a conversation nobody wants to have. I had that conversation almost a year ago. Five months after that, I was purging and a month and a half later I was so far gone I told my mom that this was going to kill me and I didn't care anymore. Eating disorders are not a choice, they are a disease. Just like nobody chooses to have a mental illness like depression or bipolar disorder, nobody chooses to destroy their body the way only anorexia or bulimia does. These diseases are very, very similar to alcoholism. Yes, one does make a conscious choice in the beginning but at some point it takes over and you can't just choose to stop.

My point is this: if you suspect anyone you know could be starving themselves and/or binging/purging, DO SOMETHING. This disease kills women and men. Some of the most amazing people I've ever met are the ones I met while I was in treatment. I can tell you right now if I had walked by any one of them on the street prior to going to treatment, I would have never guessed they suffered. These people are some of the strongest, smartest, beautiful women in the world. This disease targets the characteristics we often strive to have—determination, motivation, intelligence. That's how we get away with it so well.

Without help, eating disorders will kill a person. It's a very slow, very painful form of suicide. Society encourages this. Society encourages this distorted view of perfection and beauty that is destroying not just my generation, but the younger one as well as those before me. I saw adolescents and mothers while I was in treatment. Girls from the ages of 12 years old to mid-40s. We need to raise awareness. We need to save all these lives that are being destroyed by the very society that should protect them and remind them every day that they are beautiful no matter how they look. We are not a nation of clones, we are a nation of individuals whose beauty and inherent uniqueness make them so incredibly special and we should embrace that.

Now that I'm off my soapbox, the chapter should be up soon!

Brittany…I know I never emailed you back the last time you emailed me (pretty sure it was in November), but hopefully this explains why! So very sorry m'dear, hope you'll forgive me!