My Sister The Anorexic

If life were a little more 'Sound of Music', and a little less 'Final Destination', the beginning would indeed be a very good place to start.
However, I can't really say where it all began and so the 'beginning' is really just a blur of tangled threads running though the family loom. Threads which, over the years, have merged and fused, stretched and thinned, snapped and frayed.
For a long, long time, I didn't know where my sister ended and I began.

This is difficult to write.

My sister is anorexic. Severely.
Until recently, I always thought that there are 3 kinds of anorexic. Those who are 'reactive' anorexics, people who are responding to some kind of trauma, tragic life event, loss, abuse etc.
Then there's the second type, 'cultural' anorexics, those who are influenced by the media's disgusting portrayal of beauty... and now in particular, the younger generation's 'emo' population - 'beautiful is broken' image...
And then there is the third type, 'Pure' Anorexia. Anorexia that is not a reaction or a rebellion. Anorexia nervosa in it's purest (and most deadly) form. Up to 20% of anorexics die from their illness and I would argue that most of that 20% fall into the third category.

I preceeded that paragraph with 'until recently', because nowadays I am not as certain about this (or anything else) as I used to be.

My sister almost certainly seems to fall into the third category though.
She is quite undoubtedly mentally ill. Her anorexia is a personality, a pathology.

When I was 14, I lost my sister. Not because she died, but because this illness scooped out every part of her that I had known and loved, took command of her mind and infiltrated her cells. It's almost impossible for me to remember who my sister was but one thing is for certain, she no longer lives. Her fragile body is just a home for her disease.