I have always been a very outgoing and spirited person, to say the very least. I have always had friends and rarely ever had problems finding a date. I had and have a great family life. After I graduated high school, I decided to go to college 9 hours away from where I lived. My freshman year of college was great. I was doing wonderfully academically. I ended the year with 3.85 GPA. I had incredible friends, was a member of a great sorority and I had a wonderful boyfriend.

The school year ended and I had to go back home to work for the summer. I didn't like being home and I started to get very depressed. All my friends were scattered throughout the country, my boyfriend was 7 hours away and many of my friends from high school weren't home. Everything I had come to love about my life was gone. I didn't know what to do. I had always been in control of my life and the thought of losing control was killing me. I couldn't control what was happening to me that summer and I was miserable. The only thing that I could control was the food that I ate. So I took control of that.

If I wasn't working I would spend most of my time being upset because I missed my boyfriend and friends. I turned to food as comfort. I would sit down and eat a whole pint of Hagen-Daz ice cream even if I wasn't hungry. Five minutes later I would feel guilty and throw up until I couldn't anymore. This process of binging and purging always made me feel better. I was happy because I was in control of at least one part of my life. Before long I was throwing up a lot of the food that I ate. My parents had no idea because they had no reason to suspect that I would throw up my food or that I was depressed. They just thought I was retreating to the basement to watch TV, but they had no idea I would go downstairs to throw up. That was one thing about me; I hid my depression from most of the people in my life. If they did see a glimpse of it, I would act like I was fine by joking about my emotional breakdown and they would suspect nothing. I was too strong of a person to break down and cry about things and too proud to show any weakness.

I continued purging my food throughout the summer and in August I finally realized that I needed to get help. I knew what I was doing to my body wasn't healthy and I needed to fix the problem. I decided to call the one and only person in my life that I could truly trust not to judge me. I called my friend Brian late one night and told him about my problem. He was loving and supportive, but he warned me that if I didn't tell my parents in two days that he would call and talk to them himself. I walked into my parent's room immediately after I hung up the phone with him and told my Mom. I don't think she knew the severity of the issue and my Dad could not relate at all. That turned out to be the problem with most of the people I knew. No one really seemed to know how to act around me after they learned of my problem and most of the time they would end up doing something that would drive me to hurt myself more.

Shortly after I talked to my parents, my Mom and I went to see a psychologist and psychiatrist. I started taking Prozac and both my Mom and I thought the medication would solve the problem. A few weeks later, I headed back to school to start my sophomore year of college. I was the house manager of the sorority house and moved in with five other sorority sisters, two of which were my roommates. I was excited to start my new position in the sorority. I loved being a leader and everybody said that I was going to be the future president, just like my sorority big sister.

My problems started as soon as I returned to college that year. During the summer I had broken up with my boyfriend because I decided I needed to take care of myself for a while. My best friends had become close to him during our relationship and our whole group was very tight-knit. They remained friends with him after we broke up and it was hard for them because I know they didn't want to take sides. Shortly after I arrived back at school, I became friends with another group of guys that most of my sorority sisters didn't hang out with. I slowly retreated from my best friends and started spending more time with the new people I had met. My best friends knew my problems, but my new ones did not. I was able to hide my secret life from my new friends because they didn't know my past. My best friends tried to help me, but the more they tried, the more I pulled away and before long they were tired of dealing with me. They deserted me. I know they didn't want to, but they just didn't know how to help. I wasn't myself and it was hard to see "The Real Kim" beneath all of my secrets and lies.

At the same time as my friends were pulling away, the problems in the sorority house began. I lived differently than my sorority sister roommates and we fought a lot about the room. I was supposed to be in charge and didn't handle the conflict very well. I was always one to stick up for myself, so I never backed down from the fights. Not to mention, I was very stubborn and felt that people should adapt to my way of living. My eating disorder had progressed again and things started to turn ugly. Throughout the first few months of my sophomore year I decided that my eating disorder was getting better and I didn't need to take my medication anymore. Shortly after my decision to stop taking my medication, I spiraled into a deep black hole.

In October, I met a guy and started dating him. We had nothing in common. I was the so-called all American girl and he was the classic, pot-smoking, slacker. Despite our differences we got along very well. I never started doing drugs, which I think was one of the best decisions I ever made because I had enough problems controlling my drinking. I went out drinking at least 4 or 5 times a week and I wouldn't have just a few beers. I was drinking about a 12 pack per night. This went on for months.

In January, I realized that I couldn't control my life anymore so it was time to really start controlling my eating habits again. I started to binge and purge often. My roommates became aware of my problem and hounded me all the time, which only made it worse. The problems in the sorority house escalated and I barely talked to my roommates unless we were fighting. The situation got so bad that at one point that I was actually in a fistfight with one of my sisters/roommates. Within 2 months I was hardly eating at all and if I did I would throw it up. The only calories I ended up consuming for months were beer calories. I still think that if I didn't drink I would have ended up in the hospital and looked like all of the stereotypical anorexics.

So my life consisted of starving and throwing up, drinking and sleeping all day. The only school related activities I would partake in were my duties as the special events coordinator for all of the sororities on campus. I barely went to class and I had dropped from a 3.85 to a 1.3 GPA. I think that the only times I was truly happy that spring of my sophomore year was when I was planning events or drinking.

Acquaintances never suspected that I had a problem. They just thought I was a party girl. I never dropped massive amounts of weight that would cause great alarm so people never knew that I would starve myself all day, so I could go out and drink all night. Don't get me wrong: I lost weight. If I hadn't, I probably wouldn't have drank so much. But I learned that I could still party and lose weight as long as I didn't eat. In my mind, I had worked out a great system.

In March, I realized once again that I was in big trouble and if I didn't get help, I could die. The only problem was that I had alienated myself from all my true friends that they didn't want to help me. They thought that I had changed into a party girl and that my moods swings were just part of who I was. They thought the Kimmie they had all grown to love was gone and they were not willing to help find "the real me" again. So my recovery battle was pretty much fought alone. I couldn't turn to my housemates because we weren't on speaking terms and they had enough issues with their own weight. Every time I turned around they were talking about dieting, exercising, or what diet pills they were taking. It was very rough. My boyfriend had broken up with me months before because I was completely out of control, I had practically no friends and my parents were 9 hours away. I had hit rock bottom.

I started to see a psychologist on a one-on-one basis and I also started going to group therapy. It took me a few months to break some of my bad habits. I knew I had to stop, but I didn't want to. I continued to starve myself and binge and purge. I also continued to party and lied to my psychologist about how much I drank. Finally, I was given an ultimatum from my psychologist: Start making progress, or have my mother withdraw me from school. For me, that hit home, and slowly, but surely, started eating normally again and began to cut down on my purging. That was the one and only thing that made me start getting my life together.

I went through recovery with the help of my friends in group therapy. It was nice to talk to other girls who had the same worries and concerns as I did. They understood me. I couldn't believe that I was acting just like someone else. There were even a few girls who wouldn't eat just so they could drink at night. I had finally found friends that wouldn't judge me for my actions and I felt comfortable talking to them. We were all great girls with great futures. We were just on the wrong track. I was one of the lucky ones, however. I never ended up in the hospital. Almost all of the girls in group had been forced to go to inpatient therapy. I heard their stories and decided that I wasn't going to end up in the hospital. I found the courage and motivation to start taking care of myself.

I went home that summer and was finally starting to feel confident again. However, I wasn't totally recovered and I had my bouts with purging occasionally. I returned to school with a wonderful outlook. I still slipped up from time to time with purging, but luckily I had a wonderful roommate who helped me every step of the way. I am happy to say that I have not purged for over a year and I don't plan to ever do it again. It's not to say that I haven't thought about purging from time to time when I eat a big meal, but I quickly realize how stupid it would be. I feel great about myself and I have learned other ways to deal with life when it starts to get out of control.

When I look back on my years dealing with the eating disorder I realize a few things. I wasn't a textbook case because I never dropped massive amounts of weight and turned into a skeleton. I always looked fairly normal. There was a time when I dropped lots of weight, but not enough to really alarm people. I would eat in front of people, but what they didn't know for a long time was that I was throwing it up. In the public eye I was the fun loving, outgoing Kimmie that everyone had grown to love, but in private, I was a completely different person. The only time people saw me acting out of the ordinary was when I was really run down and would start to snap, or when I was drunk, but even then I was very outgoing and happy. It was only when I got home that all hell broke lose. I don't think that people realized that I didn't like to be that way. I didn't want to yell at my friends and I didn't like being so mean. I felt horrible, but after a while people didn't want to hear my apologies anymore. I only wish that my friends could have known how much it was hurting me inside to be the way I was. But I could not let myself eat. Eating a normal meal was all I had to do. It seemed so simple, but for me it was the hardest thing in the world for me. I don't blame my friends for turning their backs. They didn't know why I was acting the way I did and they didn't know the signs to look for. I was a horrible person when I was sick and the only friends I had were lucky enough not to see me during one of my tantrums or drinking binges. I didn't know how to reach out for help and they had no idea how to help me. Many of them tried, but to no avail and like most people they just gave up because they were exhausted with me. I tried to make amends with many of them, but it was too late. Like me, they were stubborn and couldn't forgive me for some of the awful things I did when I was sick. Still to this day, I hold no animosity towards them. They were and are good people who didn't know how to deal with my problems.

My only hope is that in the future people are better educated about how to help family and friends with an eating disorder, so no one will have to go through recovery alone like I did. As much as we try to talk about eating disorders and trying to prevent them, little is being done to educate how to help people who already have one. Ultimately, it is my hope that no one has to go through this horrible disease and we can teach our children to love themselves for who they are, inside and out.