Erin Kiniry, 25, thought she’d left her battle with anorexia 10 years behind her. In fact, she and her family were content to never think about how she was only 15 and the disease had taken control over her family’s lives.
Then the Orcutt resident began to hear from others who were struggling to understand the battles their own loved ones were going through with anorexia. For whatever reason, more and more of them continued to cross her path.
She knew she needed to do something.
Having been through the nightmare and come through it a healthy person once again, Kiniry was struck by the idea that so many people misunderstand anorexia—and don’t understand what their loved ones are going through.
“People say things like, ‘Can you not see how skinny you are?’ or ‘Why won’t you just eat? Just put this sandwich in your mouth. What’s the problem?’” she said.
It’s not so easy, Kiniry added.
She decided to write a book about her own battle with anorexia. She called it Demon. An avid journal keeper, Kiniry adapted much of the content for it from her journals, which sheds light on what she was thinking and feeling during her fight.
According to statistics from the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, up to 24 million people of all ages and genders in the United States suffer from an eating disorder, such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Women are the ones most often affected, and 95 percent of the people suffering from eating disorders fall between the ages of 12 and 25.
But it doesn’t just touch teens. The national association reported that 42 percent of 1st through 3rd grade girls want to be thinner, and 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat.
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Reaching out to those battling the disorder isn’t always easy. Kiniry said there are three common misconceptions people need to be aware of in order to help loved ones with anorexia: Sufferers can’t see themselves as skinny, they can’t eat even when they really want to, and they don’t just decide one day not to eat.
They don’t see themselves as skinny
When Kiniry looked in the mirror, she didn’t see what everyone else saw.
“I can tell you, I’d look in the mirror and I was 80 pounds, but I’d still see the Erin I was before all the weight loss,” she said.
Kiniry explained that something happens in the mind that doesn’t allow a person to see the reality of the way he or she looks—or at least it did in her case: “It makes it hard to believe your brain again. I thought, ‘If I can believe my brain and look in the mirror and see a normal person when there’s a skeleton, what else am I believing?’”
They can’t just force themselves to eat
Kiniry said, for her, the struggle was almost like hearing a voice that told her not to eat—though she didn’t hear an actual voice.
“My mom would bring out food and I’d be excited about it, but then it would be in front of me and it’s like a switch would turn on in my brain and it would tell me, ‘Don’t you touch that; you’ll lose everything you’ve worked for,’” she said.
That feeling inside that told her not to eat was something she couldn’t control. Kiniry, who said she’s not a religious person, called her book Demon because it was the closest thing to describing the influence her anorexia had over whether or not she ate.
They just decide one day not to eat
Kiniry said she’d heard of instances of people going through something traumatic—such as a death in the family—and they stop eating that day. Then they don’t get back to eating normally without help.
With Kiniry, however, there was never a decisive moment when she stopped eating.
“I thought, ‘I think I’ll get healthier before tennis season.’ Then it was, ‘I’ll eat more fruits and vegetables.’ Then it was, ‘I don’t need the vegetables.’ I cut out the vegetables,” she explained. “So, so slowly before you ever realize what’s happening, you’re losing calories, until one day all you’re eating is an apple. It’s very manipulative.”
Kiniry said she hopes the book will help families understand what their loved ones are going through.
“The misconceptions are really my main point,” she said. “If you believe those things, you can’t help the people you love.”
She also wants people dealing with anorexia to know that despite having a great family whom she loves and a lot of support, she went through it, too.
And she’s better.
“The message is if you are sick, you can recover,” she said.
Arts Editor Shelly Cone supports healthy reading. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 5-12, 2012.