The U & Ed's Alanna in her senior year of high school had some tough decisions to make. She was really excited to be graduating and to be going to university, her grades where high enough that all the universities she applied to had accepted her, except one, the one in her home town. This meant that she would have to go away to university. She was both excited and terrified by that prospect, especially since her second choice university was 8hrs away from home. Alanna was used to being able to go out for coffee with her dad if she was stressed, or shopping with her mom. Her mom did all her laundry, the cooking, cleaning, everything. she didn't always get along with her parents, but she didn't really like the idea of leaving their security either. Alanna was at a crossroads, she couldn't decide. Her parents thought it would be great for her, her friends did too, but she wasn't so sure. So her parents took her out to visit the university, and she fell in love with it, her decision was made, and she spent the rest of the year perfecting her plans to go there. They had to be perfect, much like everything in Alanna's life. By the time graduation rolled around she had already made lists of everything she needed, established a website to keep in touch with her friends, and set up a instant messenger name for her parents so they could talk for free. She had a blast that summer, all five foot nine of her, running around town buying thing, reading books on university, partying with her friends, who were also all going away to different universities. She even died her strikingly blonde hair a wild raspberry colour the week before she left, in fact all of her friends did, it was a form of friendship bracelet, they could remember each other by when they were each in there dorms at there separate universities. Alanna's entire family insisted on driving her the 8hr to school. This meant packing both her parents, her 14 year old brother, her baby sister, and her dog, a huge golden lab, into the family minivan with all her clothes, her computer, and of course yours truly, Alanna. It took them 4 hrs just to load everything and everyone in. Before taking off Alanna said a last goodbye to her best friend and neighbor Mara, she was really going to miss her. They talked about everything, she was the only person who knew that Alanna was not as confident as she appeared to everyone else. She saw a side of Alanna that Alanna didn't let anyone, not even her parents see. In school Alanna was seen as the girl who had it all, she was fun loving, always had great grades, and was always willing to listen, people she barely knew felt comfortable telling her their darkest secrets. Mara was the only person however that Alanna felt she could really talk to, they met in 5th grade, when Mara's mom died, and Mara and her father moved in next door. Alanna was really excited, she felt relatively confident going into universtiy with her senior year average of 88% she knew that she should expect those to drop ten percent, and she was determined to not let that happen. Alanna was in a single room, of a co-ed residence, on her floor there turned out to be equal numbers of quys and girls, and everyone was in their first yr, the student R.A. was a second yr student, and he seemed really approachable and amicable. She spent the entire first day just unpacking, saying goodbye to her family and meeting her new dorm mates. It was frosh week, and everyone was joking about the freshman 15 and the frosh 30, no one took the joking seriously, but already an air of appearance importance was setting in. Alanna was very appearance conscious, she always chose her clothes carefully and did her hair impecably, it was just the way she was raised, that you need to present yourself well at all times. so she did. quickly though she realized that a lot of her perfectionistic attitudes about appearance had to be thrown out the window at least while in her residence because well these people saw her 24hr a day, it really didn't matter around them what her outward appearance was, they knew the real her. Within 2 weeks of arriving Alanna had pretty much settled in. she was diligently working, and she was pretty sure she was doing well in her courses. She had made a few good friends, her neighbors mostly, and she had kept in good contact with Mara. she found university to be a lot more stressful than she ever expected, but was enjoying it none the less. A week or so later she got her first essay back, a 52% a bare pass, she was devastated, she had never gotten below a 65% in her life, she couldn't believe it. Alanna was so distraught when she called Mara that night that Mara new instantly something was wrong. when Mara probed her, Alanna broke down, incredibly this was the first time Mara (or anyone) had heard Alanna cry. Alanna tended to keep her feelings bottled up. Mara reassured her that everyone does worse there first semester at university and that in no time she will adjust and be once again the honour role student she was in high school. Alanna felt better after that conversation, but it didn't last long. She had been really feeling the pressure of being on her own, everything was a struggle and she as starting to feel like she really wasn't able to deal with university life. Her self confidence took a nose dive and she felt like she was in a whirlwind half the time. She needed to get hold of her life she kept telling herself. But she wasn't quite sure how to do it. With her self esteem damaged, and the amount of stress pilling up around her she felt like she was going to explode. She had to focus, her attention elsewhere, she knew she wouldn't be able to deal with another mark in the 50's- by now she had gotten 2 50's and a couple of 70's. If you asked her now, she wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what happened next. There where a series of events that led to ultimately the development of an eating disorder. What she does know is what she developed it for, or why she hung on to it for so long. She did start trying to lose weight after a dinner conversation where the quy's at the table where discussing the overall weight of girls at the school, the statement that stuck in her head the most was" man, there are so many fat bitches in this school, where do they come from and what's with their lazy attitude". Alanna took this personally even though she was far from fat, she was always worried that people thought she was lazy, and she was never quite sure how she really looked, since she spent so much time trying to be perfect. She didn't consciously go on a diet, she just started eating less and less. Eventually she realized how little she was actually eating, and she found it oddly exhilarating, it was one thing that seemed to be going "well" for her at the time. So she thought she would take it a step further, to see how "well" she could do at not eating. She became obsessed with it, every free moment was taken up with food, calories, weight, numbers, and she started to be able to calm herself down after a bad grade, or hard day, simply by "showing" herself how "well" she had done at not eating. At first no one noticed. the only person who noticed a difference in her was Mara, and since Alanna was so paradoxically energized by her new obsession she sounded much better to Mara than she had when Alanna first got her 52%. Alanna's life now consisted solely of school work, exercising and thinking about food. She was quickly losing weight, and was having a really hard time concentrating in class. She attributed her difficulty in concentrating to her "laziness" and to make up for it forced herself to eat even less. It wasn't long before her dorm mates started noticing something was wrong. she hardly ever came to the cafeteria with them for dinner and when she did she didn't eat, claiming she was too full. Everyone became immediately concerned she had an eating disorder, since they all knew that they were so rampant in dorms, but no one knew what to do about it. so they all ignored it, and some even went to her asking for tips and tricks of the trade, just how she did it. This only encouraged her more. she was convinced that because she was "proving" she wasn't "lazy" that they where all jealous of her self control and was convinced that they where trying to sabotage her happiness. she was becoming more and more paranoid that she was inadvertently consuming calories she didn't know existed. she was starting to fail courses because most for the time she was too exhausted to concentrate on her lessons, and homework hours where reserved for calorie counting. It was December exam period, and Alanna was terrified she was going home for the holidays. she wasn't sure how that would go, she was sure they would be so proud of her for her weight loss, and was looking forward to all the compliments, but she also new she had gone about it the wrong way, she was starting to realize that she was making more problems for herself than she solved but she wasn't about to give it up for the world, because she still believed everything would come crashing down around her if she did. Everything she predicted came true when she got home, everyone was astounded by her weight loss, and at first they where congratulatory but it didn't take long for people to get concerned, her mom one day was really anxious to talk to her and she barged into Alanna's room while Alanna was changing, and she saw just how skinny Alanna had gotten, she got really worried, and she started to pay more attention to what Alanna was eating. This frustrated Alanna to no end, the mother who she really liked was suddenly a threat to her happiness, and as much as she wanted too she couldn't hate her mom and she understood at some level that her mom was right she was hurting herself. This however was something she wasn't quite ready to admit too. Her parents begged her to go see someone as soon as she returned to school, but Alanna refused, she was afraid of being labeled crazy, or worse by her residence mates, and thought the counselors would put her away somewhere. Alanna started to spend more and more time away from her mothers eyes, what she did eat she ate in her room or over at Mara's. Towards the end of the holidays she was over at Mara's and Mara broke down, and started bawling, " I am so worried about you Alanna, you are scaring me you are so thin, and barely eat, your always dizzy and your loosing your hair, I am terrified that when you leave here Sunday i will never see you again, because you will have a heart attack and die at school" Alanna was dumbfounded, she didn't believe a word of what Mara was saying, she couldn't possibly die from being thin. could she. sensing Alanna's disbelief, Mara dragged her to her computer where she showed her all sorts of information on the dangers of eating disorders. Alanna still didn't believe she was sick but she promised to go to a doctor just to make sure none of those things where happening to her, like the lanugo, or a slowed, arrhythmic heart beat, and to check to make sure her electrolytes where ok. (even though neither her nor Mara actually had a clue what electrolytes where). Mara wasn't sure that Alanna would actually go so the next day she called Alanna to come over and told her they where going to the local clinic, that she had made an appointment with her doctor for Alanna. Alanna hesitated but then she heard the pain in Mara's voice, she was almost crying, pleading with Alanna and reminding her about the promise she had made. Alanna was really anxious and scared but she knew she had to go. When they got to the clinic it was really busy, but since they had an appointment the doctor took Alanna right away. Mara's doctor was young and a woman, 2 things that for Alanna made things more comfortable. The doctor before examining her asked her a lot of questions, like how school was going, and what courses she was in, did she like the people, how she saw herself, did she compare herself to others a lot, then she showed her these silouettes of 7 womens bodies, all different sizes and asked Alanna to choose the one she felt most accurately fit her body shape. Alanna chose the one with the generous curves, the doctor than asked if she was happy seeing herself like that and if not which would she prefer, Alanna said no and pointed to the almost skeletal body size. Dr. Lalonde asked her why she wanted to look like that and Alanna stated that if she where that thin than she would have less things to worry about, she felt that if she had less of a body she could concentrate solely on her mind. The doctor finally asked Alanna to get on the examining table so she could give her a thorough check up. Alanna complied, and the doctor started by testing her reflexes, which where kind of slow, the doctor then moved on to take her pulse and her blood pressure. the results did not surprise Dr. Lalonde at all, having worked in an eating disorder clinic during her residency she had already recognized the signs of an eating disorder in Alanna, and her pulse of only 56 and blood pressure of 80/40 where helping her to confirm this, she asked Alanna to lie down she listened to her heart looking for any arrhythmic activity, and then took her blood pressure again, this time it was 70/40 it was clear that Alanna had all of the tell tale signs of an eating disorder, in fact she was in the danger zone, and Dr. Lalonde was surprised Alanna still claimed to be functioning well. at the end of the appointment Dr. Lalonde informed Alanna of her suspicions, that Alanna was suffering from Anorexia Nervosa, and that she was in a really dangerous situation, she asked to take blood so that she could evaluate Alanna's risk of heart attack, Alanna terrified agreed, this was not something she had intended on when it all started. Dr. Lalonde continued to talk, she told Alanna that there was a really good eating disorder program in the neighboring city, and that the hospital affiliated with her university also had a strong program. She told Alanna that she really felt that she should go into one of the two and that it was up to her which one and that Dr. Lalonde would do all the "paperwork" to get her into one of the programs. Alanna was about to answer her but dr. Lalonde shushed her, she handed her two website addresses, (for the two hospitals) and told her to go home and think about what she learned today, and that she would see her again tomorrow when she got the blood test results back. Alanna was dumbfounded, it was a lot to absorb all at once, she could really die? she felt weird, because she realized that was almost sounding good to her...except it also sounded painful and scary. she REALY didn't like the idea of going into a hospital    *one out of every 4 college age women have some form of eating disorders