Kelsey s 5th and 7th grade pictures show a smiling, happy, healthy-looking girl. The 6th grade picture is different. Sometimes I feel tears well up when I look at that 6th grade picture and know, again, how very close we were to losing her. Sometimes I feel angry, or lost, or hurt, when I see that picture, knowing the hell we all went through for her sake. Mostly, however, I feel a profound gratitude to have her back, whole and healthy, regardless of the cost along the way.
Girls can and do recover from anorexia.
However, recovery certainly asks no more from family members than it requires from the anorectic girl. The bottom line is that girls recover from anorexia. My girl has. Yours can too. Many of the messages contained words of aching despair and panicky need.