Less

On the surface of things, anorexia and diets look very much the same.  The behaviors are the same.  The words that follow such thinking are the same.  The goals look the same.  The differences are subtle, and lurking beneath the surface; it requires a trained a eye to spot the variances.  Deep beneath the surface, however, the thoughts are vastly different...  While a dieter may believe that it would be healthier to lose a little weight, it'd be great to fit back into some smaller jeans, or maybe he/she wants to look amazing at an upcoming event, the anorexic tends to focus more on being a better person by losing weight.  And the goals are completely different.  While the dieter generally has a numerical goal, the anorexic typically wants to weigh "less".  The trouble with aiming for less?  It's an unreachable goal...  Ever shifting, and dangerously so... 

To an outsider then, it might follow that determining whether a loved one is on a diet or truly sick is a fairly simple matter...  Why not ask??  "What are you trying to do?"  "Do you have a goal weight?"  "What is it?"  But these are dangerously loaded questions...  All anorexics begin as dieters.  And even after the disease has begun to gradually sink its teeth into the sufferer, the anorectic will believe he/she is a dieter.  He/she will likely have a numerical weight loss goal...  Health benefits will be articulated with ease, even, and perhaps most markedly, past the point of any healthy kind of loss.  When the goal is to weigh less, eventually that line will be crossed. 

It takes time for the casual observer to notice the subtle changes.  The weight dips lower than a healthy weight.  Hair begins to fall out.  The sufferer is always cold.  Dizzy.  Prone to headaches and sickness.  Dry skin.  Shaky hands.  Dark eyes.  Probably lethargic much of the time.  Strangely hyper-active much of the time.  Depressed.  Anxious.  Ever vigillant.  Stepping on the scale repeatedly.  Driven to follow the same patterns of behavior; routine-bound.  The signs are varied and completely individualized.  Sometimes they're obvious.  Usually they're carefully hidden, noticed only by the careful observer. 

Denial is a real, dangerous, palpable thing.  Even when anorexia becomes obvious to the outside observer, the sufferer continues to experience wave after wave of conflicting fears and emotions.  In one moment, the sufferer is desperate for help, feeling the pain and depression dragging him/her further away from life and the living.  In the next, the sufferer once again feels that he/she is just a dieter; fear of being pulled from the safety of the routine behaviors begins to lull him/her into believing that everything is fine just as it is.  Neither belief is stable nor accurate.  Neither is based on any kind of objectivity, for the sufferer cannot be objective, much as he/she wants to be.  Tries to be. 

Deep beneath the surface, something else is always lurking...  Low self-esteem, self-hatred, fear, pain, depression, feelings of inadequacy, feeling out of control...  Something is always driving the belief that one will be improved by losing weight...  Others will feel admiration, or stop noticing at all...  The sufferer will earn others' love and respect.  The sufferer will demonstrate great control, self-discipline, and determination.  And to add to those feelings, every dieter initially enjoys these rewards, and basks in the glow of others' admiring words.  For the anorectic, these rewards only spur on the disease.  Even words of caution, warning, concern can spur on an anorectic...  For once the disease has taken hold, the sufferer lives in fear that either no one will notice (i.e. care), and the strangely opposite fear that everyone knows and will eventually force the sufferer to give up the behaviors and obsessions which feel so impossible to live without. 

When weighing less is the goal, there is always something more beneath the surface.