Angela Minard is 42 years old, married, and they have four sons. She is also an  anorexic.

A gifted poetess with a proclivity for brevity, Angela blogs about her her recovery journey at Here and Now ~*~4 Angel~*~ and Beating ED.

An interview with Angela:

What was your life like before you started the healing process?
My life was an endless obsession of dieting, weighing, measuring, over exercising, and calorie counting. It was all consuming.

I don’t really even remember a time when I wasn’t worried about my weight and the size of my body. I was raped by two teenage boys when I was 11, and that is when the total self loathing and hatred began, and I started dieting and restricting the intake of my food.

How do you define anorexia?
I define anorexia as an illness characterized by an obsession with being thin, a very low body weight, and body image distortions.

What does “anorexic” mean to you?
To me personally, my anorexia was a way to have control over my own body, and it was also a way to distract myself from the horror of being raped. I used it as a coping mechanism, and for a very long time, it worked.

How did your anorexia progress?
The anorexia became a real problem after the birth of my first child, and then my husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and my life felt so out of control, and the eating disorder felt like the only way to have control over anything. My weight plummeted to 78 lbs, and my mother and husband threatened to hospitalize me. I did gain some weight back after that, but it continued to be a problem until I started seeing a therapist about 3 yrs ago. We began working on the rape issues and the anorexia kicked into full gear once again. Last year I was hospitalized and spent 2 months in an eating disorder treatment facility called The Renfrew Center. There I learned how to begin nourishing my body, and was able to make it back to a healthy weight.

What is your life like now?
I wish that I could say that I’m 100 percent recovered, but it is still a work in progress. I see a nutritionist and a therapist once a week, and I could not do this on my own. This past year has been so hard, but I’m determined to beat this disorder. I want to be here for my family!

How does writing help with your recovery?
Writing for me has been essential to my recovery. It is the way that I am able to use my voice to be heard. I’m not always able to express or verbalize my feelings and emotions, and writing is the perfect outlet for me to do that. Besides keeping a blog, which is an on-line diary of sorts, I also write quite a bit of poetry, and that is mainly where my passion lies.

I would like to share a poem that I wrote called Pieces Of Me.

Pieces Of Me

Parts and pieces,
never the whole.
Parts and pieces,
a ravenous hole.

A tilt of the head,
and narrowing eyes.
Only too well
how the mirror does lie.

Hollow and shadow
turned inside out.
Curving around
the darkening doubt.

The flesh torn and angry
expands much too soon.
Leaving room for self-loathing;
an empty, cavernous gloom.

The fragmented memories
behind silent eyes.
The departure of childhood
and bittersweet goodbyes.

~ Angela Minard

Thank you Angela for sharing your story and riveting poem. All the best with your recovery.

Please check out Angela’s blogs at Here and Now ~*~4 Angel~*~ and Beating ED.

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Roxie

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