by Amanda Dack - COPE Board Member and Social Media Manager
At 14 you don’t expect to lose your life. Your parents don’t expect to lose their only daughter. Your little brother doesn’t expect to lose his only sibling before the age of 10. I remember being in 8th grade watching the Tracie Gold Lifetime movie on eating disorders thinking how weird it was, who would ever do that to themselves. One year later, I looked like I had cancer, and was slowly killing myself, as I had Anorexia Nervosa.
I remember when I battled my eating disorder it was the biggest secret I carried around. It was a secret my family had to hide as well. My community thought I had cancer, no one could suspect or believe an eating disorder. There were so many questions, so much misunderstanding, and it only isolated me more. I am marching because it is time eating disorders are not in the shadows, it is time we bring to light the mental illness with the highest mortality rate. I survived my eating disorder, my family got to keep their daughter, their sister, and my community got to see the severity of all that an eating disorder is and what it can do. No one thought, including myself that I would ever get an eating disorder but I did, and I almost lost my life, so I march because awareness matters, our lives matter, our family and friends lives matter, and I have the amazing support of C.O.P.E., the Community Outreach for the Prevention of Eating Disorders, a group of amazing individuals who are trying to change the world right in their own community and they inspire me.
I think Margaret Mead says it best, “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For indeed that’s all who ever have.” If we have the potential to make a positive difference in this world by uniting together, the bigger question is: Why wouldn’t I march?
Thank you to my family, my community, to C.O.P.E., and to all the people who march every year.
I remember when I battled my eating disorder it was the biggest secret I carried around. It was a secret my family had to hide as well. My community thought I had cancer, no one could suspect or believe an eating disorder. There were so many questions, so much misunderstanding, and it only isolated me more. I am marching because it is time eating disorders are not in the shadows, it is time we bring to light the mental illness with the highest mortality rate. I survived my eating disorder, my family got to keep their daughter, their sister, and my community got to see the severity of all that an eating disorder is and what it can do. No one thought, including myself that I would ever get an eating disorder but I did, and I almost lost my life, so I march because awareness matters, our lives matter, our family and friends lives matter, and I have the amazing support of C.O.P.E., the Community Outreach for the Prevention of Eating Disorders, a group of amazing individuals who are trying to change the world right in their own community and they inspire me.
I think Margaret Mead says it best, “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For indeed that’s all who ever have.” If we have the potential to make a positive difference in this world by uniting together, the bigger question is: Why wouldn’t I march?
Thank you to my family, my community, to C.O.P.E., and to all the people who march every year.
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