Deception' is the word I most associate with anorexia and the treachery which comes from falsehood. The illness appears inviting. It would seem to offer something to those unwary or unlucky enough to suffer from it - friendship, a get-out, or a haven - when, in fact, it is a trap.

— Carol Lee

Doesn't' t she cares what she does to her family? ' People will ask. ' How can she starve herself like that? 'She has fallen into bad company, been influenced from within by something she thought she could control, but which has ended up controlling

— Carol Lee

Her eyes are unfathomable to me, hostile, even, as if she had removed herself to a place where I cannot reach her - somewhere I cannot know.

— Carol Lee

I started crying when the group [therapy] was over because the last thing we did upset me - we all held a piece of the same cloth, leaned back and supported each other's weight. I couldn't do it. Furthermore, I bent my legs and elbows and stood very firm, yet. . . I needed to feel supported, as I do in life, but I can't let myself be, and I pretend not to need that support.

— Carol Lee

I think maybe they come out into the grounds in nightwear. But no, in typical anorexics type they have read the fashion magazines literally. This is their version of thin girls in scrappy clothes. The girl in the petticoat talks to me, as Emma has done on occasion, in a rather grand style, as if she is a 'lady' of some substance and I am visiting guest. Do they chat much about clothes? I ask Emma in the car. She shakes her head. So, does she, Emma, see the difference between underwear or nightwear and 'going out' clothes?' Yes,' she says, her voices strained again. 'But it's one of the things you don't know properly when you're ill and confused. You see these pictures and the people in the magazines are real for you.

— Carol Lee

I want to kiss the bottom of the ocean before I burst through its surface into the sunlight. Otherwise, I'll always be wondering about what was left unseen at the bottom.

— Carol Lee

Locking away appetite, anger, the fullness of life, anorexia helps cover up whatever struggles inside. With its controlling bouts of bingeing and starvation, of trance and half-life, it becomes a shield to fend off despair and longing and what most use would see as ordinary responsible behavior.

— Carol Lee

She fails to see who I am, even, for her eyes do not, will not, take me in. Instead, they transmit a powerful message. She is like a billboard flashing, starkly: 'Keep Out'.

— Carol Lee

The reasons for Emma's illness and for her decision to allow life in, rather than die, are intertwined and involve the beginnings of her feelings of belonging, of safety and of competence to be in the world.

— Carol Lee

There was another problem with Emma's father, difficult for a small child who already thought of herself as greedy - his way of trying to keep her attention, to bribe her, with gifts. On each of her visits, he would appear with you presents, beautifully wrapped> And her confusion that she liked - and wanted - the presents, but not the man, was painful. He used 'sparkly Scotch tape' and cut things into nice shapes and she wistfully w

— Carol Lee