"As food worked its way into my psyche and my body, my numb, petrified emotions sought refuge deep within. Then slowly, slowly, parts of me began to dissolve, and pain filtered in like drip coffee. I was told to sit with the pain, the deep, infected pain that I had stored for years. Pain that was confusing. Pain that was elusive. I was told just to sit with it as though it were a sick pet. There were no bandages, ointments, stitches, or morphine to ease the pain. Had I undergone surgery for broken bones, I would have been told to lie in bed, recover, doctor’s orders, and people would have sashayed in to visit and sit by my bedside and spoil me with gifts and hold my hand and wipe my brow. But there I was, suddenly sober in the real world without my fix, without my starvation." — Excerpt from Being Ana: A Memoir of Anorexia Nervosa