My mother apparently “went into hypoglycemic shock” when I was born. Not enough blood sugar. Her blood sugar numbers were so low she “passed out.” This is what she remembers about my birth. “Was there anything else?”

Now, after having had two babies, I have many memories of those first precious moments. The rush of my daughter coming in. The first breath. The warmth of her little body on my chest. The overwhelming Love. Lots of feelings come up. My husband insists I shouted, “I am going to die!” which I do vaguely remember. I have memories of him helping with both deliveries. Memories of the immediate and shocking first latch- on of my daughter clamping down to nurse. Conflicting feelings of being incredibly vulnerable as the surgeon sewed me up and the elation of holding my daughter for the first time. Those first few moments are a whirl-wind.

My daughter came out screaming in the middle of the afternoon. My son came out quiet and blue with the “extra long” umbilical cord wrapped around his body and neck in the middle of the night. People heard my daughter’s entrance several rooms down and in the waiting room. My son lay silent on my chest for almost a minute before he took his first breath. I remember lots of things. I don’t remember what my blood sugar levels were, but they were high enough to be present.

Yesterday, a fellow parent asks me, “How does an eating disorder get started?” She feels helpless watching her teenage daughter waste away. This is a complicated question.

In my new blog, I’m going to share with you the life of an eating disorder daughter. My life. This is a story of the life of an eating disorder, the family of an eating disorder, the culture of an eating disorder, and the continuous recovery from an eating disorder. My hope is to demystify the many complexities of this disorder from a first person point of view. My hope is to bring awareness to how it is born, how it survives, how it takes over, and how it kills. This is my hope.

What compels me to share my story is my own daughter and others like her. Daughters born to eating disorder mothers. Daughters born into a culture where the motivation to be svelte outweighs fulfilling one’s potential in other areas because it is all consuming. Daughters growing up confused why people restrict their food and exercise compulsively in order to achieve a sense of self-worth based on the false belief that this is satisfying. Daughters being fed with ideas that their appearance and athleticism are vital to living a fulfilling and “healthy” life. Daughters whose authentic Selves are ignored.

I was the son my father never had. Born the middle daughter in a family with three daughters, I received attention for dressing and acting like my father’s boy. Growing up this way was very lonely and often confusing. I was the only girl who played football with the boys at recess. I wore Bronco shirts to school and a baseball hat every day. I had a crew cut. I desperately wanted to be a boy. I hated that I was a girl. As a preteen, I grew into my new body with such intense loathing that I could not even stand up straight in the shower. I would even beat my chest in hope that it wouldn’t betray me. I rarely cleaned myself or brushed my teeth or took care of my body.

In the mind of my ten year old self, I was my father’s son. He desperately wanted a son and I could be that for him. He enjoyed it. I got attention. I was special. Until I wasn’t.

At the age of thirteen, my father remarried and acquired an actual son. I remember giving up on being a boy almost to that day. I wasn’t unique anymore. I changed my persona and interests almost as easily as I changed clothes and hairstyle. Overnight. Snap. A childhood of trying to be something that I wasn’t was gone. Right?

Wrong. I have been in recovery from anorexia and compulsive overeating for over 15 years. Much about this disorder is a denial of the female body…it’s curves, it’s softness, it’s fleshiness. The need to be angular, athletic, tough, and, yes, invisible as a woman is the psychosis that drives this disease. Somewhere along the road from girl to woman the power of being born a female is denied and made into something bad. In my case, it was horrifying and depressing to have been born a girl. Women were weak. Women were chatty. Women couldn’t do math. Women were bad drivers. Women were manipulative. Women were pleasing to look at, but also a trap. So many messages. Most of these I grew up hearing from my dad in the hundreds of thousands of little side comments. Harmless comments Right?

Wrong. I am 5 feet 10 inches tall. At age 29, the day the ambulance picked me up off the roadside after I almost passed out driving,I weighed 90 pounds. Just for perspective, a healthy weight for a female of the same age would be 135 to 160 pounds. 135 pounds would be considered very thin. I was 90 pounds. I was a bright orange color from eating too many carrots. I wore at least three layers of clothes because I was cold all the time. If you asked me, I was in great shape, except I ate too much at night. I hated myself for eating the skins off of almonds all night and sweet drinks made from stevia.