No one has been teaching children how to find coping strategies. Kids kind of happen on behaviors which make them feel better. Purging falls into that pattern.

Aimee, what is the correlation between anorexia and plastic surgery?

It is an artificial idea of perfection. There’s an emptiness inside, or no core sense of self. Ideally we develop as a child, with a strong sense of who we are, a parents’ reflection of nurturing. Then when we enter the world, we know these are just images in magazines. Something goes wrong with women who fall prey to eating disorders and plastic surgery.

They are empty inside, and desperately ashamed of who they are naturally. They try to show the world they’re different than who they feel themselves to be inside. This happens more in status or image-conscious families. They are surrounded by people who judge them by how they look and what they have, rather than what they think. They become confused with who they are.

Your recovery you say is an “ongoing process of restoration and discovery.” Are you gaining more than just weight?

I think at the risk of sounding sort of new agey, I’ve discovered principles of scientific mindful awareness. It’s been relegated to spiritual-psychobabble, but researchers are now proving how and why mindful awareness holds the key to many mental problems, such as OCD and eating disorders, and also helps to raise auto-immune levels. With mindful awareness deep attention is given to everyday life - the moment I’m living in, what’s going on inside my head, and who I am physically in this life. It is central to more and more recovery treatments. Pay attention as more science comes out about this; it is a rapidly expanding field.

Aimee, what do you consider yourself - a recovered anorexic, a recovering anorexic, or another category?

I consider myself to be a healthy human being - people can’t recover from being who they are. You can’t recover from having an innate temperament, but you can redirect it. This is a tricky thing, particularly with eating disorders.

Thank you Aimee, my best to you.

Thank you Kelly.