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Marya Hornbacher Biography

Marya Hornbacher

Marya Justine Hornbacher (born April 4, 1974) is an American author and freelance journalist.

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Marya Hornbacher Quotes

I developed a deep, abiding fear of jeans, which I still have. I hold my breath and shut my eyes when I pull on a pair in the dressing room, afraid they will now, as then, get stuck at my hips and there I will stand, absurd, staring at the excess of hips that should, if I were a good person, be „slim“.

Absurd, Eye, Jeans, Pairs, Pull, Stand

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.

Long, Silence, Strike, Tightening, Waiting

You will miss her sometimes. Bear in mind she's trying to kill you. Bear in mind you have a life to live.

Anorexia, Bear, Life, Mind, Miss, Missing

I have never been normal about my body. It has always seemed to me a strange and foreign entity. I don't know that there was ever a time when I was not conscious of it. As far back as I can think, I was aware of my own corporeality, my physical imposition on space.

Body, Know, Physical, Space, Thinking

Recovery isn’t easy, at first. It takes time. It takes more work, sometimes, than you think you’re willing to do. But it is worth every hard day, every tear, every terrified moment. It’s worth it, because the trade-off is this: you let go of your eating disorder, and you get back your life.

Day, Letting Go, Recovery, Takes, Thinking, Time

. . . 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.

Ask, Crayons, Hats, Speak, Tone, Tones

• Eating disorders are addictions. You become addicted to a number of their effects. The two most basic and important: the pure adrenaline that kicks in when you're starving—you're high as a kite, sleepless, full of a frenetic, unstable energy—and the heightened intensity of experience that eating disorders initially induce. At first, everything tastes and smells intense, tactile experience is intense, your own drive and energy themselves are intense and focused. Your sense of power is very, very intense. You are not aware, however, that you are quickly becoming addicted.

Energy, Numbers, Sense, Smell, Tactile, Two

I have a type of bipolar that swings up and down all day long. There are significant mood swings within a day, within a week, within a month. I go through at least four major episodes a year. That's really the definition of bipolar rapid cycle. But I have ultra-rapid, so I have tiny little episodes all day long.

Swings, Years, Long, Month, Day

People with eating disorders tend to be very diametrical thinkers – everything is the end of the world, everything rides on this one thing, and everyone tells you you're very dramatic, very intense, and they see it as an affectation, but it´s actually just how you think. It really seems to you that the sky will fall if you are not personally holding it up. On the one hand, this is sheer arrogance; on the other hand, this is a very real fear. And it isn't that you ignore the potential repercussions of your actions. You don't think there are any. Because you are not even there.

Arrogance, Everyone, Fall, Potential, Real, Thinking

Children take in more information than we'd like to believe.

Believe, Children, Information, Take

Madness will push you anywhere it wants. It never tells you where you're going, or why. It tells you it doesn't matter. It persuades you. It dangles something sparkly before you, shimmering like that water patch on the road up ahead. You will drive until you find it, the treasure, the thing you most desire. You will never find it. Madness may mock you so long you will die of the search. Or it will tire of you, turn its back, oblivious as you go flying. The car is beside you, smoking, belly-up, still spinning its wheels.

Car, Flying, Long, Shimmering, Thing, Water

. . . painfully curious. . . about how it feels to fall.

Curious, Fall, Feels, Painfully

In truth, you like the pain. You like it because you believe you deserve it.

Believe, Deserve, Pain, Truth, You Like It

That’s the nice thing about dreams, the way you wake up before you fall.

Dream, Fall, Nice, Thing

It's really interesting to me how all of us can experience the exact same event, and yet come away with wildly disparate interpretations of what happened. We each have totally different ideas of what was said, what was intended, and what really took place.

Disparate, Events, Happened, Ideas, Interesting, Took

The anoretic operates under the astounding illusion that she can escape the flesh, and, by association, the realm of emotions.

Anoretic, Anorexia, Association, Astounding, Flesh, Under

It is, at the most basic level, a bundle of contradictions: a desire for power that strips you of all power. A gesture of strength that divests you of all strength.

Bundle, Desire, Gestures, Levels, Strips

I was perpetually grief-stricken when I finished a book, and would slide down from my sitting position on the bed, put my cheek on the pillow and sigh for a long time. It seemed there would never be another book. It was all over, the book was dead. It lay in its bent cover by my hand. What was the use? Why bother dragging the weight of my small body down to dinner? Why move? Why breathe? The book had left me, and there was no reason to go on.

Book, Dinner, Grief, Move, Moving, Seemed

I threw up again that night, half-afraid that my eyeballs would explode. But it was, by far, more important that I get rid of dinner. Of course, by then, throwing up was the only way I knew how to deal with fear. That paradox would begin to run my life: to know that what you are doing is hurting you, maybe killing you, and to be afraid of that fact--but to cling to the idea that this will save you, it will, in the end, make things okay.

Begin, Cling, Eyeballs, Hurt, Night, Running

Anorexia and bulimia seem to be getting much more common in boys, men, and women of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds; they are also becoming more common in racial groups previously thought to be impervious to the problem.

Anorexia, Backgrounds, Becoming, Boys, Men

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