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I began to measure things in absence instead of presence.
Marya Hornbacher
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Marya Hornbacher
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: April 4
Author
Essayist
Journalist
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Minneapolis
Minnesota
Absence
Presence
Instead
Things
Measure
Began
More quotes by Marya Hornbacher
When you are mad, mad like this, you don't know it. Reality is what you see. When what you see shifts, departing from anyone else's reality, it's still reality to you.
Marya Hornbacher
The joy is an absurd yellow tulip, popping up in my life, contradicting all the evidence that shows it should not be there.
Marya Hornbacher
There are women in my closet, hanging on the hangers. a different woman for each suit, each dress, each pair of shoes. I hoard clothes. My makeup spills from the bathroom drawers, and there are different women for different lipsticks.
Marya Hornbacher
After a lifetime of silence, it is difficult then to speak.
Marya Hornbacher
The anoretic operates under the astounding illusion that she can escape the flesh, and, by association, the realm of emotions.
Marya Hornbacher
I mean, we all know the dangers of starving, but bulimia? That can't be that bad. It's only bad when you get really thin. Who worries about bulimics? They're just gross.
Marya Hornbacher
I know how this feels: the tightening of the chest, the panic, the what-have-I-done-wait-I-was-kidding. Eating disorders linger so long undetected, eroding the body in silence, and then they strike. The secret is out. You're dying.
Marya Hornbacher
I think many people with a chronic illness would prefer not to have their chronic illness, simply because it's high maintenance.
Marya Hornbacher
Never, never underestimate the power of desire. If you want to live badly enough, you can live. The great question, at least for me, was: How do I decide I want to live?
Marya Hornbacher
My relationships with both my mother and father are good. We spent several difficult years hashing over the problems and the past, and worked out a fairly solid middle ground. I wouldn't say my relationship with either of them - they're no longer together - is exactly typical, but that would be difficult after all we went through.
Marya Hornbacher
I had a love affair with books, with characters and their words. Books kept me company. When the voices of the book faded, as with the last long chord of a record, the back cover crinkling closed, I could swear I heard a door click shut.
Marya Hornbacher
My students know I have a life, they know I've written about my life. They know some detail, probably more than they know about their physics teacher, but I would've told them anyway!
Marya Hornbacher
I am feeling fine. I remember these words and recite them. These are the things you say when asked how you are. After all, it would be odd to say: I'm not feeling. Or, more to the point: I'm not, I have ceased to be. Where am I?
Marya Hornbacher
We think of bulimia and anorexia as either a bizarre psychosis, or as a quirky little habit, a phase, or as a thing that women just do. We forget that it is a violent act, that it bespeaks a profound level of anger toward and fear of the self.
Marya Hornbacher
But new love only lasts so long, and then you crash back into the real people you are, and from as high as we were, it's a very long fall, and we hit the ground with a thud.
Marya Hornbacher
In truth, you like the pain. You like it because you believe you deserve it.
Marya Hornbacher
You can only whine for so long. Then you need to get your life back.
Marya Hornbacher
My parents say that even as a very, very little kid, the way that I acted was dramatically different from other little kids.
Marya Hornbacher
When I returned, everything was different. Everything was calm, and I felt very clean. Everything was in order. Everything was as it should be. I had a secret. It was a guilty secret, certainly. But it was MY secret. I had something to hold on to. It was company. It kept me calm. It filled me up and emptied me out.
Marya Hornbacher
...Someone speaks in soft tones to me and says I am psychotic, but it's going to be all right. I put on my hat, unperturbed, and ask for some crayons.
Marya Hornbacher