That Nothing - Not Booze, Not Love,

I Get Absolutely Shitfaced. I Am Shitfaced And Hyper And Ten Years Old. I Am Having The Time Of My Life.

I Don't Think People Realize, When They're Just Getting Started On An Eating Disorder Or Even When They're In The Grip Of One, That It Is Not Something That You Just "get Over." For The Vast Majority Of Eating-disordered People, It Is Something That Will Haunt You For The Rest Of Your Life. You May Change Your Behavior, Change Your Beliefs About Yourself And Your Body, Give Up That Particular Way Of Coping In The World. You May Learn, As I Have, That You Would Rather Be A Human Than A Human's Thin Shell. You May Get Well. But You Never Forget.

I Was Perpetually Grief-stricken When I Finished A Book, And Would Slide Down From My Sitting Position On The Bed, Put My Cheek On The Pillow And Sigh For A Long Time. It Seemed There Would Never Be Another Book. It Was All Over, The Book Was Dead. It Lay In Its Bent Cover By My Hand. What Was The Use? Why Bother Dragging The Weight Of My Small Body Down To Dinner? Why Move? Why Breathe? The Book Had Left Me, And There Was No Reason To Go On.

I Have Not Lost My Fascination With Death. I Have Not Become A Noticeably Less Intense Person. I Have Not, Nor Will I Ever, Completely Lose The Longing For That Something, That Thing That I Believe Will Fill An Emptiness Inside Me. I Do Believe That The Emptiness Was Made Greater By The Things That I Did To Myself.

You Wake Up One Morning And There It Is, Sitting In An Old Plaid Bathrobe In Your Kitchen, Unpleasant And Unshaved. You Look At It, Heart Sinking. Madness Is A Rotten Guest.