Goodbye Ana

ISBN: 978-1-84991-042-2
Published: 2009
Pages: 116
Key Themes: poetry, anorexia, empowerment, suffering

Description

‘Goodbye Ana’ is Kate Le Page’s first publication of poetry. This collection of poems shares the author’s battle to achieve and maintain recovery from anorexia nervosa. The work offers the reader a powerful, emotive insight into what life is really like when viewed through the eyes of an anorexic.

This book aims to explain the cognitive distortions that accompany starvation and seeks to hold the sufferer captive as well as to challenge the many misconceptions about the illness.

About the Author

Kate Le Page is 32 and lives in Guernsey, Channel Islands. Kate was first diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in 1998 and has used writing poetry to cope with her eating disorder and depression. Multiple hospitalisations in Marchwood Priory, helped Kate to learn how to eat again and start to find a new life, where anorexia was no longer in charge. After many years working in Early Years, Kate is currently Feature Writer for Eating Disorders at Suite101.com and is involved in mentoring through MentorConnect.

Book Extract

Agitation

Can’t sit still,
Need to be re-active,
Got to stay on my feet,
Calories unconsumed left to cheat,
New thoughts swirling - left to greet,
Why can’t I just let go of the will
That path results in a dying girl,
perched on a middle court sill.

Trust the program all logic cries so clear,
Trust ME Kate, I’ll always be here,
Screams a familiar voice lurking in my ear

You LIE all the time about your games
If I listened to you I’d wind up insane,
Drown out your poisonous voice,
I’ll stand firm ignoring the noxious noise.

Hope for Tomorrow

The darkest night brings new light,
A world without anorexia, depressive fear,
New day is coming so don’t quit your fight,
It’s been a long hard struggle year after year,
Believing the dawn soon is to appear.

You can feel the warmth of many who care despite the fog threatening isolation,
Everyone says call or write but you don’t,
A self-willed cry of can’t or won’t,
It’s you that it hurts as tears begin to fall,
We forget there are others left outside.

My decision to hold on to a future and some hope,
The day is not the end just one to learn from,
So next time you fall to the end of the rope,
Remember how much easier life is without the ana-con.