There was a period of time in my life - fifteen years to be exact - when I wondered if full recovery from my eating disorder was possible.

Yet today, here I am, ten years later. Fully recovered.

After my recovery from anorexia and bulimia, I was able to start writing and performing music again.

As I write about in "Beating Ana", music was my "key to life" - the dream that the eating disorder had taken away from me that I was determined to reclaim.

One night after a small coffeeshop concert, a young woman approached me and asked me if I was in recovery too. She said my songs made her feel like she wasn't alone. She invited me to go to her treatment center to sing to her friends and reassure them that recovery really is possible.

It started there.

After that first experience with sharing my story, I began informally mentoring several women I met at the treatment center. When they discharged, they came home to nothing. No support. No one who understood.

They wrote to me with questions and I wrote back with answers from my personal recovery experience, just as my own mentors had answered me when I needed help and support.

Our personal correspondence in time became Beating Ana: How to Outsmart Your Eating Disorder and Take Your Life Back.

As I continued to share my story and volunteer as a mentor, I began to meet other recovered women and men who wanted to give back and support others too.

At some point I realized it would be great to connect those who wanted to help with those who needed support!

So I assembled a team of recovered women and men and asked them to help me brainstorm into life the first global online eating disorders mentoring community, MentorCONNECT.

Today MentorCONNECT is a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization that serves over 2,000 members from 15 countries who join seeking support for eating disorders recovery. 

Wow.

There was a day I thought I would never recover. Look at me today.

YOU have that same potential, and power. If I could beat my eating disorder and take my life back, you can too.

With great respect and love,

p.s. Oh, and after I beat my eating disorder I recorded several CDs of my original songs - take that, "Ed"! Woohoo!!