Hey my name is Patricia. I'm 18 and I’m a senior in High School. I'll be lucky to graduate on time though because of this damn eating disorder and the choices I've made. But I'm working really hard on recovery and school so I can have a future. I have struggled with an eating disorder for a few years now. I've been in and out of hospitals more than I can count. Several times for overdosing or other suicide attempts. I cut myself, starve myself, binge and purge, to numb myself of the pain. The pain of the self hatred I have for myself. People know I have an eating disorder, or knew I had one anyways. They think I'm better, they never really understood in the first place. I have a few great friends I can talk to about it. I love them with all my heart! They are Jenny, Sarah, Erin, and Kacia. I’ve been in an eating disorder IOP group with 7 other wonderful ladies so I can trust them with anything to and know that they’ll understand. I never thought recovery would be so hard, I was fooling myself all along that I could stop whenever. I do have a new outlook on life sense I’ve been in IOP. I’ve realized that I do want to live, just not with this eating disorder. But I’ve also learned that I can beat it. I’ve already made some huge progress. I have a long way to go yet but I won’t give up. Eating disorders kill so many people (check out the statistics) and I won’t be one of them. I also won’t be another teenage suicide statistic. It would be easy to give up, But I’m going to take all that energy I put into the eating disorder, into recovery. I will be free one day!