chapter 5 - rapid weight gain

Anna gained 9 pounds in May. She gained another 11 pounds in June. In July she gained 14 pounds. By mid-August she had gained another 7 pounds. For the first time in her life, at 167 pounds and growing, she was overweight.

None of her old clothes fit anymore. She had gone from a size 6 to a size 12 in some of her new clothes. Even worse, almost all of her gains were in her stomach and hips. At first, she could hide it by wearing looser clothing, but she couldn't hide it anymore. Her belly was a visible pouch in everything she wore.

She had seen neurologists, gastroenterologists, and an endocrinologist, but no one could figure out what was wrong. Several times a day now she was engorging herself and had no memory of doing so. She had stretched her stomach from all the overeating and now could eat far more than she could when the symptoms first started. As a result, she was gaining weight faster and faster as more time went on.

Anna didn't tell anyone this because she worried, they would think she was crazy, but the voice in her head telling her to eat was near constant now. She could not drive by a fast food restaurant or bakery without hearing it. The blackouts and stuffing herself always followed hearing the voice. It was so embarrassing. She knew people must just stare at her when she stuffed herself like that. Lately she would come out of her feeding blackout often to find that she had either unbuttoned her jeans or pulled her stomach out of her leggings to make more room for food.

They had to keep their pantry stocked with high calories foods for her as otherwise she would tear through their kitchen in one of her trances, scattering pantry items and other kitchen items everywhere. To keep the kitchen clean, her roommate had taken to leaving large bowls filled with Little Debbies, Honey Buns, Pastries and so on just sitting out on the counters so that Anna could easily engorge herself with them during her blackouts.

When Anna looked at herself naked, she looked almost pregnant now. She was desperate. So desperate that she had made an appointment with an alternative medicine practitioner that specialized in eating disorders.