look what i found!

http://www.drsarahravin.com/web/pdf/AN-Guisinger-article.pdf

I don't think this article is the be-all-end-all, but I do think this here is a big piece of the puzzle to the maze so many of us are trapped in.
We are, quite literally, built this way. Pics to prove it in there.

Lots of people grow up in abusive homes. Not all those abused kids go ana as a result.
Something about our brains is just plain different.
It's not caused by abuse any more than alcoholism is caused by abuse. When someone's in pain, she tries to deal.
And genetics can play a huge role in how she deals.

I wanted out of that house desperately. So this article clicked home for me when it said that my body was trying to migrate away. Trying to pull up stakes and run.

When that "church" voted to basically deny me a place at God's table (or their corner of God's table) i wanted OUT OF THERE. How i got out was irrelevant. I wanted to leave.

Whenever i get unhappy enough to want to leave... i stop eating. Like a compulsion. It is a compulsion. Often without even thinking about it, i stop. Autopilot.

Emotion is still mixed in there... but i also feel like I've got another part of the puzzle. When faced with the need to leave, even if i don't physically go anywhere, i still have this huge need to not eat.
Who knew that that might have been an evolutionary advantage at some point?

I do think she needs to show more respect to emotional upheavals. She seems to think ana is all just a matter of purely objective brain chemical interactions. Umm.. I disagree. And I think an ana-sufferer knows a bit more about this stuff than someone who can only look in from the outside, don't you?

(edit: to Peri... what clef is the recorder in? I don't know anything about wind instruments but if you can give me the basic info I can find someone who does. i know lots of music teachers!)