My Support Forums - View Single Post

*Beth* · Dec 01, 2022, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mountaindewed

I actually first learned about eating disorders from Karen Carpenter. I was 4 or so and they had an informercial for a CD set of her music. I was interested by her appeareance so I asked my mom who she was and my mom told me and then said what happened to her. My mom said "she died by sticking her fingers down her throat." Ahh how my parents were so blunt and a bit too honest with me when I was a kid.

Yeah, that's pretty, umm...that's a bit of a harsh description of how she died. Her story was so damned sad. I remember when the news came over my car radio when she died. It was the most dreary February day. She was quite a bit older than I was, but I'd always loved her voice, and I cried.

I remember my friend and I walking to our neighborhood grocery store and flipping through the music magazines there. We were pretty young, not even teenagers yet, so we didn't clue into her being so thin or anything. But I remember that in one of the magazines was an interview with her. The interviewers in those teen magazines back then would ask cheesy (no pun intended) questions. So the dude asked Karen what her favorite date would be. She said she'd like to go out for burgers. Then she detailed what she meant by "burgers" very specifically, as though she were describing a magnificent painting.

Many, many years later my friend and I talked about it, remembering that interview, and how Karen gave her luscious description of a hamburger. She spoke about the food, not about the date. It was clearly strange and that no one caught her mental illness - and worse, that they kept blaming her for it - is heart wrenching. Her mother was a grand beyotch, by all accounts.