Hunger: Anorexia Nervosa

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I am always hungry. Sometimes I am physically hungry, most often I am intellectually hungry; hunger stimulates my world. It is both my greatest strength and my most dangerous weakness. It makes me impatient to understand the world, to learn, and to explore new places. It drives me to help others, to defend the environment, and to run a new fast time. Nevertheless it is also an importune life necessity, a bodily desire that I experienced conquering. The same hunger that nourishes my ambition gnaws away at my empty stomach, daring me to eat when eating seemed like an impossible task. 

Feeding your hunger and nourishing your body makes perfect sense. In a perfect world we would all be assured the means to nourish our bodies and our minds. But the world is not perfect, and neither am I. Describing an eating disorder (even when it is far in the past) is no easy task, for the most common response is that you are sadistic, narcissistic, or simply senseless, for who would ever …show more content…

There is no way around the sad fact that starvation has been my coping mechanism when anxious or insecure. In my last year of middle school I became a walking paradox: while I had no problem feeding my hunger to learn, I struggled every single day with feeding my hunger to live. I explored dark terrible places of starvation and mental anguish, where denying myself nourishment was a way to test my strength and fortitude. I found my way back from my disorder by exploring the joy of running, volunteering, and learning. Even though overcoming my disorder was by all means an undeniably painful process; deprivation and emptiness taught me what truly matters in life. My anorexic journey was one of self-discovery. It revealed to me, myself: a compassionate, highly organized, hardworking, and determined young man. My hunger to study medicine was born from the realization that I can make a difference in this world by helping those who cannot help

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