Magersüchtig

I got these flowers today from a woman who came and spent some time with me this morning. I'm feeling a like a bit of an uncharitable bitch, truth be told because I have, in the past, expressed a dislike for this woman but today we actually had a nice chat and the time flew by.

As inevitably happens when two women get together, the chat turned to weight loss. I told her I was trying to lose weight, she told me she was careful about her weight but had been seriously thinking of throwing her scales away. She considers scales a danger to womankind. I laughed along with her but soon the conversation turned serious and she opened up to me about her Magersucht. Magersucht/Magersüchtig translates from German as Anorexia but my coffee companion used it in a general way to talk about Eating Disorders.

The particular eating disorder she suffered from was Bulimia. As the result of low self esteem and not being able to accept her body as it was from the age of about 16, she made herself throw up her meals for nigh on twenty years. She did this through her pregnancies despite all her misgivings about harming the babies. Only her husband knew about her bulimia and it wasn't until she told someone else who helped her spiritually that she was able to stop, seven years ago.

She wanted to tell me, be happy with yourself, live your life, don't spend the rest of your life hungry and/or denying yourself just to conform to someone else's idea of beauty. She has come to accept the fact that she will never be Claudia Schiffer and she's now happy with her weight, her body, her life. I admire her for that.

I, on the other hand, still have a way to go. She understands that. During the morning she not only opened up to me about her previous eating disorder but a few other parts of her life. We parted company friends instead of acquaintances.