“You’re very thin, Elyn. Can you tell us why you’ve lost so much weight?” “I think it’s wrong to eat,” I told them. “So I do not eat.” “But why?” they asked. “Food is evil,” I said. “And anyway, I don’t deserve to have any. I am evil, too, and food would only nourish me. Does it make any sense to you to nourish evil? No. It does not.” After a few more rounds of questions, the doctors carefully explained their recommendations to me. In England, treatment recommendations were always just that—recommendations. To leave a hospital, to stay in it, to take medications, to participate in group
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