Petrified of gaining any weight, anorexia took over the life of a local girl.“It’s a completely separate thing from me,” she explained to Body & Soul. “I become a completely different, horrible person. Sometimes, when it is in control, I do not know the difference between it and me.”

“Sky” (not her real name) was 15 when she believes the anorexia began. A Bermudian student in boarding school in Canada, she said she didn’t realise she had a problem until she was 18.

When she returned to school that September she was especially sad because many of her friends had graduated. She was a senior and her boyfriend had broken up with her.

“I started consciously not eating even when I was hungry,” she said. “I didn’t think it was a problem and I ignored people who told me it was. I told them they were crazy.”

It was a friend who quietly asked her if she felt she could sit down and eat a meal, who finally got her attention.

“I told her I could and she said, ‘Good then you are fine’. But I tried it and I couldn’t.”

Realising she had a problem, Sky called her parents in Bermuda and broke the news to them. It was still September and she had lost 11 pounds. At 5ft 4ins she weighed 104 pounds.

“After I told my parents it spiralled downward. I lost about five pounds in the next week, so my parents brought me home,” she said.

But in Bermuda her parents didn’t know what to do and her weight continued to fall. Christmas came and went and she remained averse to food and unable to eat. In the New Year she wanted to return to school but her parents were reluctant.

“I really wanted to go back to school, I was in my final year and really wanted to graduate,” she said. Finally her parents relented and her mother flew back to Canada with her.

Aware of her problem, the school refused to let her board there. So her mother decided to stay with her and got an apartment.

“First I was rolling. I was going to school just to get the grades. I saw a counsellor but she didn’t know what to do. She was really nice but didn’t help me and by the end of February my mom was at her wits’ end. I was down to about 87 pounds,” Sky said.

Her mother tried to get her into an eating disorders programme at Toronto General Hospital and in the second week of March, Sky was accepted.

“But there was a waiting list. They didn’t have a bed for me,” Sky said. “In the meantime my mom decided she was going to feed me herself. It was a forced thing. I would throw food across the table. I would make myself throw up. I would cry and wail, spit in her face. It (the anorexia) is a completely separate thing to me.”

And there was no way around the tack Sky’s mother took. In all treatment programmes the patient must first gain sufficient weight so that their physical health is not declining. During that period, she and her mother were seeing a therapist who instructed her mother on how to feed her. What to say and what not to say.

“I was on the edge but I was still at the age where I still listened to my parents and I didn’t want to have to leave school,” she said.

“Slowly I put the weight back on and by June I had gained about 25 pounds. I weighed 110.”

Sky graduated from high school and was accepted to an acting school. She returned home to Bermuda that summer. But without her therapist, she slid back to skipping meals.

“I ate breakfast and dinner because they were supervised but no lunch,” she said. Her parents allowed her to go to university in the fall with the understanding that she would be seeing her therapist there regularly. I wanted to get better but I wanted to lose weight,” she said. “I was really afraid to gain weight. I thought if ate a sandwich, my life would be over, that I would gain 10 pounds. It was a convincing thing.”

This thinking soon led her back to dangerous weight loss and by February she left school and went to stay in Toronto for stricter therapy. Almost 20 years old, she was determined to learn to manage the disorder on her own.

“I got better and gained the weight back without my mom there,” she said.

She did have family support as her grandparents live in Toronto but she lived in an apartment on her own and even had a car.

The following autumn she returned to the university but when she began to have problems with her roommate, the anorexia took hold again. Her mind was consumed with nothing but thoughts and worry of food.

“I couldn’t do the simplest project,” she said. “I thought about food 24 hours a day. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I would be thinking about what I’ve eaten, what I’m going to eat next, what I’m going to eat tomorrow. I know it sounds crazy but that’s all I would hear in my head.”

Determined to regain control of her life, Sky has not returned to university. She now lives and works full-time at home in Bermuda. She is 21 has a boyfriend and said that she feels good. “I don’t think you can fully recover, I think you are recovering for the rest of your life,” she said. “I’ll never get over it. I have to control it. It’s all about control. When in it’s in control you lose weight.

“Like every person, I have good days and bad days. I control my life through food. If I feel out of control, I gain that control back by controlling what I eat. The only way to get better is to confront it, ignoring it you only get sicker.”

Sky sees psychotherapist Lorrie Peniston (pictured) once a week. She said after seeing a slew of professionals who could not help her, having a therapist who understands the disorder has been great. “Lorrie is so good. She is amazing she helps me sort out my thoughts with the stresses in my life that cause the disorder,” she said.

“I have anorexia, everyone thinks I’m crazy. It is not curable but it is manageable. I truly believe that you can live a completely normal life.”lIf you have a health matter you would like to share, contact Cathy Stovell on gazettehealth<$>[AT]yahoo.com.