DISTENDED:

At my maximum girth, I have been 60" in diameter or 5' around which means that I am nearly as round as I am tall. Not a happy thought.

I hate the feeling of fullness that comes when I put food in my stomach. The rumbling and grumbling of my bowels disturbs my peace. The occasional outbursts of diarrhea that accompany eating too much or eating the wrong kinds of food leave me wasted physically and in pain.

My belly is often so distended that I appear to be nine months pregnant, the skin stretched as tight as in late pregnancy. I have sometimes been so bloated that I couldn't breathe properly or bend to put on socks and shoes.

Hand and hand with the severe bloating is the ongoing lack of bowel movements. For up to a week, my body produces no stool, only responding when I eat a normal-sized meal. Yet, I often feel "so full" that I literally cannot eat; the food will only go so far down my throat and stop there.

I have come to relish the calm, serene feeling in my body that is associated with not eating. No pain, no sounds, no fullness. Just peace and quiet.

When I was diagnosed with celiac disease at age forty-five, and began to eat a gluten-free diet, I realized that the "creepy tummy" I had tried to quell with eating all my life, was indeed a reaction to enzymes in the foods I was eating. Though I began restrictive eating at age eight, and avoided breakfast and lunch completely until age twenty-five, this was my first experience of not eating whole groups of food.

I lost sixty pounds that year. People told me I looked great. I thought I felt great, but the arthritis in my hands and hips became so bad I had to drive with my wrists and walk with a cane. I developed idiopathic urticaria; my body covered in looney-sized hives, so sore and itchy that I couldn't wear clothes. I slept most of the day, being active only four hours. My doctor said I was too thin.

I began to eat again maxing my calorie intake at 1000 calories, and slowly I regained the weight I'd lost plus another thirty pounds. Desperate to stop this, I restricted my caloric intake intake to 800 calories. My health declined further and I developed systemic lupus erythmatosis. I became so weak that I could no longer take my 3-5km daily walks for my legs would hardly hold me up. I started to have falls. My doctor said I was not eating enough real food. My friends started to bring food when they came to visit, encouraging me to eat. I lied to them and said I'd already eaten or wasn't feeling well. Anything to avoid putting food in my stomach.

It was at this point that I became aware that there was something seriously wrong with me. I slept only one hour at the beginning of the night and two hours at the end, spending the intervening hours dealing with restless leg syndrome. My head, face, arms, hands, legs and feet were plagued with the sensations of peripheral neuropathy. I was always cold and so tired that I could barely move. My brain was fogged in, often unable to complete a sentence.

My doctor referred me to an eating disorder program, and here I discovered fellow sufferers. What we suffer from is a life-threatening illness, and though we are not all at the same place on the eating disorder spectrum, the reasons we do what we do are similar.

It is such a relief to know what is wrong with me and understand that I am not alone. I had become paralyzed with dread and thoughts of suicide were my constant companions. I now face the future with a degree of curiosity about how I came to be in this place, and a commitment to love myself by resting often and eating freely. When I offer to feed someone else, I will feed myself first.