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family’s life forever. Know that you’re not to blame, you’re not alone, and you can make a difference in your child’s life.

{ chapter one }
Down the Rabbit Hole
    Starvation affects the whole organism and its results may be described in the anatomical, biochemical, physiological, and psychological frames of reference.
    â€”A NCEL K EYS , from The Biology of Starvation
    My daughter Kitty stands by my bed. It’s Saturday night, close to midnight, and I’m trying—and failing—to fall asleep. Even in the dark, even before she speaks, I can tell Kitty’s worried. I sit up, turn on the light, fumble for my glasses. Kitty’s hand is on her chest. “Mommy?” she says, her voice rising in a way that instantly lifts the hairs on the back of my neck. “My heart feels funny.” There’s fear in her deep brown eyes, different from the anxiety I’ve been seeing since this nightmare started. A month ago? Two monthsago? I can’t remember a beginning, a discrete dividing line separating before from after . There’s only now . And now is suddenly not good at all.
    â€œFunny how?” I ask, wrapping my arm around her narrow back. I could lift her easily. I could run with her in my arms.
    Kitty shakes her head. Closing her eyes, so huge in her gaunt face, she digs the point of her chin into my shoulder as I reach for the phone to call the pediatrician. I know, the way you know these things, that this is serious, that we will need more than soothing words tonight.
    Dr. Beth, as I’ll call her, phones back right away and tells me to get Kitty to the emergency room. She’ll let them know we’re coming, she says; she’ll tell them about Kitty. About Kitty’s anorexia, she means. I grab Kitty’s sweatshirt, because she’s freezing despite the 90-degree heat. I slip on shoes (a sandal and a sneaker, as I later discover), shake my husband, Jamie, awake. He wants to come to the hospital, but someone has to stay home with Emma, our sleeping ten-year-old. “Call me when you know something,” he says, and I’m out the door, the car screeching through the rain-slicked streets of our small midwestern city.
    Six months ago I barely knew what anorexia was. Six months ago my daughter Kitty seemed to have it all going for her: she was a straight-A student and a competitive gymnast; she loved friends, books, horses, and any kind of adventure, more or less in that order. One of her most noticeable traits, since toddlerhood, has been her reasonableness. I’ve seen this quality emerge in her again and again, even at times when I would have expected her to be unreasonable—at age two, being told we weren’t going to buy a particular doll; at age five, tired from a long train ride. I’ve watched thought battle feelings in her for a long time, and reason has nearlyalways won out, a fact that has, over the years, concerned me at times: Aren’t toddlers supposed to be unreasonable? Don’t kids have to go through the terrible twos, the unruly threes, the rebellious twelves?
    Which is why Kitty’s recent lack of reason when it comes to food and eating has been all the more puzzling. We’ve talked about it again and again: How her body needs fuel to keep going, especially since she’s an athlete. How food is good for her, not something to be afraid of. How human beings are meant to eat everything in moderation. Including dessert.
    Even now, I don’t truly understand why Kitty can’t pick up a fork and eat the way she used to, why she is suddenly obsessed with calories and getting fat. She’s never been fat; no one’s ever made fun of her because of her weight. She has always loved to eat. In one of our favorite family stories, Kitty, age four, ordered a huge bowl of mussels in a restaurant one night and devoured them, licking the insides of the shiny dark shells. The chef came out of the kitchen to see