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Brosseau's Anorexia Nervosa

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The sun was dipping below the horizon, and a fiery young girl’s room began to sink into a deep shade of gray-- deepening the ceaseless melancholy that settled upon her. Each night, Cassie would break; she would look at me with her all-too-sobered eyes and solemnly whisper that she couldn't eat, or that the latest slice in her skin was just a little too deep. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. The pain inside her was so great that she had to resort to extremes: She had to slice her skin, hoping that she just might be able to distract herself from the excruciating chaos of her mind being torn apart. It didn’t matter how much harm came to her as a result. She honestly believed that her frail, undernourished body was “pudgy” and “disgusting.” Reading …show more content…

She watched both her body and her mind deteriorate yet still found herself believing that she was not thin enough; consequently, Brosseau resorted to a life without eating. Doctors first dismissed this behavior as a “phase” that is normal among teenaged girls, but then diagnosed her with Anorexia Nervosa soon after realizing the weight-loss was not a temporary ordeal. Brosseau continued to starve herself to the very point of breaking her fingers because the bones were brittle due to malnourishment, before receiving help. She was sent to a psychiatrist to try to solve the emotional aspect of the disorder, and eventually did begin to heal-- both mentally and physically. It did, however, end up leaving irreversible damage, still present years …show more content…

What kind of mindset have we created that not only allows young girls to starve themselves, but encourages it as well-- often going as far as dismissing their cries for help? Brosseau describes herself in her piece as having the appearance of a skeleton and her organs feeding on themselves; nevertheless, it took until after she’d broken seven of her fingers due to the frailness of her bones for her doctors to realize that she needed help. It bewildered me: Why hadn’t they helped earlier on? Within her piece, Brosseau states that she was diagnosed with anorexia-- seemingly before the incident-- leaving clearly questionable actions, as to why she was not given help earlier. The Mayo Clinic-- a world-renowned medical facility in Minnesota-- put it well: “Anorexia isn’t about food. It’s an unhealthy way to cope with emotional problems.” According to Brousseau, there are over 6,000 girls a year dying from this emotionally induced disorder. One would think that there would be a more concentrated effort to at the very least discourage it. Examples such as her own, however, prove that there clearly is still a misconception; moreover, Anorexia is still looked at by many as a silly phase among teenaged girls rather than the reality of it being a life-threatening

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