My name is Elena Dunkle, and I was first diagnosed with anorexia nervosa the summer before my senior year in high school. For the next three years, I tried to find a way to share my life with that deadly disorder, but the disorder took it all. Finally, I left college and spent almost a year in residential and full-day treatment to develop the skills to combat it.
When I was in college, I read every eating disorder novel or memoir I could get my hands on, but most of them didn’t match what I was living through. This disorder thrives on secrets, and I felt that in a number of the books I read, those secrets were still being kept. Those protagonists still got to be the good girl, the brave girl. They skipped over the dangerously self-destructive behavior that feeds the anorexic mindset. Or maybe those girls were never like me, I thought. Maybe the shame I was feeling was mine alone. A year in group therapy, telling my story and hearing other patients tell theirs, convinced me that wasn’t true.
I wanted my memoir to bring the whole spectrum of anorexia behaviors to life, not just the sanitized ones that would let me to stay the good girl. I wanted to shine a light on the shameful parts of this illness so that other young men and women wouldn’t have to carry their burden of shame alone.
Clare and Elena B. Dunkle
I also wanted to go into the lengthy and complicated recovery process. Almost half of my memoir takes place after I make the decision to seek help, and it chronicles the ups and downs, breakthroughs and missteps, of my time in therapy.
My greatest hope for my memoir is that somewhere a teenager may read this book and then go to a counselor or teacher and say, “This is me. I need help.” If I can make that moment of truth and vulnerability a little bit easier for that teen, then this memoir will have done all that I want it to do.
Elena Vanishing is the story of my life and almost-death with adolescent anorexia nervosa. My mother, Clare B. Dunkle, and I wrote Elena Vanishing together. Her name is on the title page because, even though I did the bulk of the remembering, she’s the one who did the bulk of the writing.
My mother also wrote a companion memoir telling our story from her point of view. Hope and Other Luxuries: A Mother’s Life with a Daughter’s Anorexia is also available May 19th, 2015. For more information on both books, go to www.chroniclebooks.com/elenaandclare.
If you or someone you love has an eating disorder, the one thing I will advise you to do is seek professional help. Do not try to manage an eating disorder on your own. Do not think that you can quietly share your life with anorexia. Anorexia will take it all.
Educate yourself with up-to-date information. Eating disorders are complicated, and the professionals are trying out new approaches all the time. In the years since my eating disorder began, I have seen treatments and theories change radically. I recommend going to the websites run by the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) and the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD). Their websites will help you find the latest resources available.