Anorexia is not a choice but an issue with relationships, a speaker told about 30 students Monday evening.
Frank Gorman, the T.W. Phillips chairman of religious studies at Bethany College, talked about his experience being married to an anorexic in his speech, "I Will Not Watch You Die: How to Help a Loved One."
In the lecture, part of Eating Disorders Awareness Week, Gorman described all the wrong things he said and did throughout his wife's sickness.
"I believed that every day she made a choice," Gorman said. "I didn't understand she was in an unhealthy relationship with food."
He said he thought the problem was his wife's simply not eating food, and if he told her to eat food, she would be better, he said.
"It's hard to believe that eating or not eating food is not a choice," Gorman said.
Gorman married Kimberly Gorman, a psychologist at Ball State's Counseling Center, in 1990.
Gorman said his wife first showed signs of anorexia in February 1992.
After getting married, she went through an identity crisis, he said.
"Women are susceptible to eating disorders during transitional phases," Gorman said. "That's why college is such a breeding ground for them."
Over the next nine months, Kimberly Gorman got worse.
Gorman said his wife began by dieting, then exercising, then counting calories.
"She didn't go to the store to get food, she went to read the cartons," Gorman said.
She then progressed to constantly weighing herself, sometimes 20 to 25 times a day, he said.
"We reached the point where I could no longer touch her because it made me sick," Gorman said. "At some moments, I hated her. I wanted her out of my house, my life, because she wasn't getting any better."
Gorman described one of his mistakes was getting upset with his wife for not eating.
One night, the only thing she would eat was a cup of cottage cheese.
"I tried to make her eat what I was eating, and she said she didn't want to," Gorman said. "I grabbed her hand, said 'You're not eating this,' and threw the (cup) against the wall."
She then got up, got another cup of cottage cheese, and sat down and ate it, he said.
Other mistakes he committed were to make deals with her, plead with her and not take care of himself, Gorman said.
"If I could go back, the three things I would change would be: pay more attention to myself, be selfish and try to understand what she was going through," Gorman said.
Some students had never encountered his side of the disease.
"It really opened my eyes and showed me how much it affects the spouse and family," junior Chrisy Muhlar said.
Gorman said he talked her into seeing a doctor in September.
The doctor diagnosed her with depression and anorexia, and she began to see a therapist who she saw for two months, Gorman said. He described that time as "months of horror."
"This was a bad therapist," Gorman said. "The therapist's approach was to tell her to keep a little peanut butter in the drawer to get her through the day."
Gorman said he also had taken the "Just eat something!" approach.
He finally went with her to a session Nov. 3, 1992, expecting an easy solution.
"I went to get some good one-liners," Gorman said. "I was so stupid.
"The first words I heard from the therapist were, 'Oh my God, Kim. You're dying.'"
He said he was able to convince his wife to check herself into a psychiatric hospital that month.
Gorman's anger continued to be a problem during his visits to his wife.
"If they were to take a vote after I had left, they would say I am a real butthead," Gorman said about temper tantrums he had.
When she was released Dec. 9, 1992, she was in worse shape than when she went in because "she had learned better ways to starve herself," Gorman said.
Gorman said intervention by friends and going back to school were crucial to his wife's recovery.
They began a long-distance relationship in August 1993 when she went back to school. They were finally able to talk about their ordeal two years later and now are in an honest and open relationship, Gorman said.
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