I was sitting in my usual place in his den, firmly ensconced in a brown beanbag chair while James Taylor droned away on the stereo. I'd lost touch with my faithful companion of music during my anorexic months and it felt warm and reassuring to experience it again. I was as relaxed as I was capable of being then and waited for Dr. Haim to return from the kitchen, where he was talking to his girlfriend.

He came in shortly, bringing me a cup of herbal tea, then lit some incense and sat down beside me on the hardwood floor. There was even a door of beads and a Woodstock poster on the wall. I was tempted to ask him if he took in American draft dodgers, but decided against it. It wasn't my nature to be a smartass back then, although my mind worked that way at times.

We sat quietly for a few minutes and listened to the music. I breathed in the musk aroma of the incense and felt somewhat awkward at the extended "Pinter pause". Just then, Haim leaned over and started brushing a strand of hair from my eyes. I moved back,thinking that he was behaving inappropriately for a therapist. The next thing I knew, this hippie shrink was all over me, pressing his thin, unkempt body on top of me and whispering in my ear, "Just relax. Everything's okay."

Well, I didn't appreciate these clumsy advances, even if he somehow believed that being deflowered would help me tremendously and make me feel wanted and loved. I rolled over quickly and struggled to my feet, exclaiming breathlessly, "I want to go home now. Take me home, please."

That was the last of my sessions with "Dr. Love". I told my parents that the rest was going to have to be up to me and that I no longer needed therapy. I felt embarrassed, humiliated and betrayed. How could a man who wrote such insightful and sensitive poetry be such a lech?

Oddly enough, I began to improve after that incident. My eating levelled out somewhat and became more evenly balanced with my workouts for the track team. I even participated in several track meets, never placing anywhere near first, but running the 880 with an acceptable amount of aplomb.

I stopped weighing myself regularly after hitting eighty-six pounds and far surpassed the ninety-pound mark by the end of that school year. Weight, calories and numbers faded from prominence in my life and my old interests of academe, music, writing, art and piano took the forefront again. The panicky urgency of burning off calories was abandoned in favour of more cerebral pursuits, and thus I reclaimed my life.

I'm not sure what caused this transformation, but I think it was becoming fed up with the superficiality and emptiness of chasing a thin body. My mind craved other stimulation besides that singular and narcissistic one. Besides, I greatly feared losing the love and support of my family.

Dad's threat had struck fear into my heart, and I knew I would relinquish anything to remain at home with him, Mom and Jim. Maybe it took this negative, life-threatening experience to make me appreciate what I had and what I could have squandered. By that summer, I was back up to one hundred five pounds and though I would have chosen less weight, I knew that it was simply not meant to be. What was more, I had erroneously thought that weighing ninety pounds would cause my father to love me more, when in actuality it nearly alienated him for good. It was an invaluable lesson to learn and I had learned it the hard way.

Unfortunately, it would take twenty-three more years before that would eventually sink into my thick, stubborn skull. I would be plagued by at least five more life-threatening episodes of anorexia, along with bulimia, until the age of forty. I hope that now, as I write this, that this devastating illness will never lunge viciously at me again. It just takes too much and leaves you with nothing but broken dreams and spent spirits.