Last spring Laura Fitzgerald ’14 published an article in the Daily Gazette describing her suicide attempt in the fall of her junior year. At the end of the piece, which describes feelings of hopelessness, cutting and the night she overdosed on sleeping medication, she signed her name.
But four weeks ago, when Fitzgerald published “De-glamorizing My Eating Disorder,” she chose to remain anonymous.
“I’ve definitely been a lot less vocal about the eating disorder,” Fitzgerald said. “I didn’t have a choice whether or not I was going to feel depressed, and while I don’t have a choice whether or not I have an eating disorder, it does seem like there’s more agency involved in the act of actually starving myself or purging or binging and then purging. So I think there’s more shame involved in that.”
Despite the difficulties of speaking about their experiences, nutrition specialist Debbie Westerling says that those suffering from eating disorders on campus want to talk. Students she sees for disordered eating frequently express an interest in group therapy, an option that currently isn’t offered by the college. The student-led “Eating Issues and Body Image” support group listed on the Health Center’s website has waxed and waned over the past ten years with student interest and initiative, according to Worth Health Center Director Beth Kotarski.
Athletes on sports teams also report a lack of discussion on topics of body image and nutrition; according to Fitzgerald, a varsity swimmer, the Athletic Department’s pre-season meeting with fall athletes included a single line reminding students to eat healthily and get enough sleep.
The result of the silence is that students struggling with eating disorders often feel that they’re alone. When Katherine* was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and anorexia as a sophomore, she felt like it was possible that other students struggled with the former two illnesses, but not with eating disorders.
“I definitely didn’t think anyone was going through something like [anorexia],” she said. “I was like, ‘No, this is Swarthmore, we don’t have anorexic people. That’s for big universities […] for girls who snort cocaine and party, and are obsessed with their bodies […] and that’s not Swarthmore.”
As varsity swimmers, Katherine and Fitzgerald spend practices and meals together — along with two other members of the women’s team who also struggled with eating disorders in the past, and who have contributed their stories to this series. All four of these women believed they were alone in dealing with disordered eating.
For students whose eating behaviors fall outside the clinical definitions of anorexia or bulimia, silence may result from feeling like their condition doesn’t merit treatment. Molly*, who falls into restricted eating and purging in periods of increased stress, suffers from an eating disorder not otherwise specified (ED-NOS). The category includes people with signs or symptoms characteristic of anorexia or bulimia which fail to fulfill the clinical definition of either; by some estimates, 70 percent of all those suffering from eating disorders come under this heading.
Molly kept her condition a secret for nine years. It was only after losing approximately ten pounds in a single week as a first-year that she made an appointment through Counseling and Psychology Services (CAPS) to seek help — and only out of fear that her deteriorating physical health would result in her removal from the college.
“A lot of people are normal weight or overweight who have eating disorders, and I think those people are often the ones who are silent the most because they don’t feel like there’s a place for them in the conversation or they feel they don’t merit treatment because they aren’t sick enough,” Molly said.
According to Westerling, eating disorders are often a coping mechanism for emotions or stresses that leaves men and women feeling a loss of control over their lives, and can provide comfort by offering a regulatory outlet. In seeking help or sharing their eating disorders, those who suffer from them run the risk of losing that feeling of control. For both Fitzgerald and Molly, this was the hardest element of starting therapy and telling friends.
“It was really scary at first to talk about it, because it was giving up all of my control,” Molly said. “The way I rationalized through that was if I wanted to keep doing things as I’m doing, [the counselors at CAPS] actually don’t have any control over me […] It was an overwhelming feeling because I didn’t know how anyone would react.”
For students who struggled with eating disorders before arriving to campus, silence can protect them from the scrutiny of their peers, especially for those whose eating habits still fall outside the norm. Esther*, who was diagnosed with anorexia as an eighth-grader as her parents seriously contemplated divorce, worries that recounting her experiences will invite criticism of current eating habits, which sometimes include skipped meals after feeling she’s already eaten too much. Her parents’ failure to understand that her eating habits were involuntary contributes to her fears of potential prejudice.
“I don’t think my parents recognized the nature of my disorder in that it wasn’t my choice, and it wasn’t like I could just flip a switch and decide to change,” Esther said. “They were just really angry at me throughout the whole process.”
Remaining silent is also a way to avoid the stigmatization associated with anorexia and bulimia. Matt*, who struggled with body dysmorphia and restricted eating in middle school, says gendered perceptions of eating disorders contribute to his unwillingness to confront comments on his nutritional choices. Amy*, whose restricted eating and purging caused her weight to fall to ninety pounds as a seventh grader, says she still finds conversations about her disorder challenging, especially in budding relationships.
“I’ve had a lot of people who see it as something that’s wrong with you, or see you as damaged,” Amy said. “It’s definitely something that when I’m dating someone or hooking up with someone it takes me a while to tell them, because it’s definitely something that makes you viewed [as having] something wrong with you […] and nobody wants to be viewed as that person.”
In Amy’s opinion, the silence surrounding eating disorders on campus is surprising in contrast to a culture in which “silence around so many other issues is broken.” For the eight students interviewed for this series, breaking the silence was described as an emotional — and sometimes triggering — process in the interview setting.
These students are telling their stories now out of a belief that other students are dealing with similar feelings and issues privately, and that it may be helpful to those students to know they’re not alone. There’s Fitzgerald, who decided to allow her name to be published because she “[believes] it’s important to be someone who talks openly about these topics,” and Esther, whose struggle with anorexia ended before Swarthmore, but who wanted to speak in case others on campus identified with her story. There’s Ella*, a cross-country runner, who declined an offer to remove certain identifying components of her story because she “[wants] other girls on the team to feel like I’m someone they can talk to,” and Katherine, who offered herself as a resource to any students who might respond to the series with questions. There’s Amy, a member of Kappa Alpha Theta’s executive board, who is currently organizing a panel discussion for the spring semester focusing on student struggles with eating disorders, during which she plans to share her story.
And there’s me. Initially, I considered the reporting itself to be my way of speaking out about an issue I’ve been dealing with for the past eighteen months. After silently listening to students tell their stories, which in many cases had only been previously shared with their immediate family and closest friends, I feel I owe the topic the same openness.
When I met with Laura, it had been four weeks since she’d written the piece on her eating disorder. After it was published, commenters thanked her for describing the struggles they’ve also faced and are currently facing.
Since its publication, she hadn’t purged once.
“Just knowing that other people really understood what I was saying […] was really helpful, and I do think about those people, even though I don’t know who they are,” she said. “When there’s times when I want to purge, it’s almost like I don’t want to do it for them as well as myself.”
Next week’s installment will look at eating disorders/disordered eating in the context of athletics.
*This student chose to remain anonymous
