Healing Hope-An Eating Disorder Story
May 15, 2026
By: Kathy Salisbury
I don’t need to explain the culture of thinness we’ve lived in for over a hundred years—we all know it. We were taught that thin is better, more beautiful, more worthy. I believed that completely when my eating disorder began, and if I’m honest, I still struggle with that belief when it comes to myself.
When I was about 12 or 13, I found something I had written about myself. I wrote that I was fat. That I didn’t want to eat because I was fat. Looking back, I wasn’t fat at all—I was just tall. By then I was already 5’7”, towering over everyone in my class. But the belief had taken hold.
That belief followed me for decades.
In my teens I was a competitive figure skater and felt limited by my size. I wanted to do pairs skating, but only the tiny girls got lifted into the air. I told myself, I’m too big. I’m not good enough.
My mother’s friends used to say, “She’s going to be beautiful when she grows up.” They meant it kindly, but I heard something else: I’m not beautiful now. If I were thinner, I would be.
By college, food and weight controlled my self-worth. I learned to starve, then binge when I couldn’t stand starvation . And in the late 1970s, a tip I read in a fashion magazine introduced me to laxatives. That small suggestion turned into decades of anorexia and bulimia.
In my early 20s in 1982, I moved to New York City to model—probably the worst profession for someone with disordered thinking about food and body image. My life revolved around starving, binging, and purging. I left the modeling field.
Outwardly, I looked successful and put together and had a great career as a meeting planner. Inside, I was exhausted, isolated, and unwell.
Over the years I went through marriage, careers, substance abuse, therapy—sometimes stopping behaviors, sometimes replacing them with new ones. I was suicidal at times. I began cutting myself. I went to outpatient treatment 3 times. I tried remission through fear. I tried being “thin enough.” None of it cured me.
After my mother died in 2022, I turned to binge eating and alcohol to self medicate. And like so many people, I looked to a drug—Ozempic—as the solution. While it helped quiet the food noise, it didn’t heal my mind. Because the truth is, the solution isn’t in a shot.
Today, I still live with an eating disorder. But I also live with hope.
Healing for me isn’t about being thin enough—it’s about understanding my mind, learning healthier ways to cope, and having support. Mindspring helps me do that. Through their programs and resources, I can explore the underlying causes of my illness and learn how to care for my mental health.
I’m grateful to be on the board of Mindspring and for the hope they provide to people like me—and to so many others who are struggling silently. I hope you’ll continue to support this organization and the vital work they do.
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