Eating Disorders Aren't Just for the Young: Anorexia Killed My Grandmother

My grandmother, Flossie, died from anorexia in her 70s, but it wasn't until I got to college that I realized how many little things are ingrained in me from this experience of loving someone so much who did not love herself. I've never actually had an eating disorder, but I operate in one of two extremes, either always eating healthily -- all. the. time. -- or eating whatever I want under the guise of not wanting to be like the suffering women in my family, all the while hating myself for it.

Flossie decided she would quit eating altogether early in the summer before my junior year of college. What followed was a violent process for something that occurred almost entirely in her bed and at a snail's pace. She starved to death a few days before my 21st birthday at the end of September.

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