Monday, June 29, 2009

Life Story: Chapter Thirty

So the numerous physicians that I was forced to continually visit finally came to the conclusion that my problem was in fact psychological. If only they'd listened to me in the first place. Then I wouldn't have had to know the discomfort of radioactive fluid being pumped into my veins followed by a cramped scan in a large machine.

It was determined that I was suffering from some sort of eating disorder, most likely anorexia nervosa. Statistically, most of the people who are diagnosed with the disease are girls. Roughly 90-95% of cases are girls. So that could have something to do with the fact that I was not diagnosed right away. Usually the onset of the disease hits around age 17. So not only was I the wrong gender, but I was too young. The human mind is a tricky thing.

So thanks to this new psychological disease, I was sent to the first in a series of psychologists. Honestly I don't remember these first few people. I saw school counselors. I saw non-profit therapists. Finally I saw Debra.

Debra was the therapist that I would end up seeing for the next few years. She was a counselor that specialized in adolescent eating disorder cases. Every other week or so, she would have me come into her office and open up about what was going on in my life. Sometimes these sessions would turn into family sessions.

Something that was typical of my time at her office was when I would weigh myself on her scales. She would have me weigh in just to see if I was making any progress in gaining weight. Much of the time my pounds stayed pretty stable. Sometimes I'd go up one or two, and sometimes I'd go down.

During this time there was a lot of forcing myself to eat. Thus I became a much pickier eater than I had been in the past. I even got spoiled by that fact. My grandmother would even cook special food for me at family get togethers, just to make sure I would eat.

So things were stable for a while. But I wasn't over it just yet.

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