It was pneumonia; I had pneumonia many times – at least once a year all my life into my early thirties. My Bulimia didn't cause the illness. But, it made it so much more life-threatening. My parents put the dramatic weight loss down to the illness. Mother thought the weight loss was "good for me" because she was fixated on that all my life.

The doctor who had my previous weight from just a few months prior was alarmed by the weight loss. My stomach wasn't flat, it was sunken. The doctor didn't realize it was bulimia – or maybe he did and just didn't say anything where I overheard it. But, he berated my parents for leaving me sick so long that I lost that much weight before bringing me to the hospital. I'd been out of school for a month at that point. My dad came home from work and found me on the couch, but couldn't wake me.

I spent over a week in the hospital with an IV and an oxygen tent. I didn't realize it then, but they don't give you an IV and feed you meals and snacks as rule. I gained five pounds in the hospital and was sent home with a meal plan and orders to gain 25 pounds – which my mother was not happy about. She didn't do the meal plan at all. Fortunately, a month later I was off to Gran's where she made sure I ate.

From the time I was a mildly chubby seven year old, mother always said Gran made me fat. She was so obsessed with the idea that she made the USN family practice doctor put me on a thousand calorie diet when I was only nine years old. I spent the better part of the next thirty years on and off diets.

Every diet I was ever on worked – for a time.

Then it didn't work.

And, I'd gain back more than I'd lost.

Every.

Single.

Time.

The truth is, the diets, her imposing a distorted self-image on me, and an unhealthy relationship with food is what made me fat. I even developed a blackout-binging problem. I would find myself eating something or find the remains of where I'd eaten, but have no clear memory of going out and getting or of preparing the food. That was really disturbing and it took therapy to come out of it.