I dedicate this website to my former art therapist, Rachel Cherry. I honestly believe that Rachel helped me realize many of the underlying issues to my eating disorders. She helped me save my own life. Thank you Rachel. I lost Rachel in the summer of 2004. She is now my fairy angel in the sky, watching down on me and giving me strength to finish the work we started together. I love you.

I have known about my eating disorders, anorexia nervosa as my primary, since age 12. However, I feel I have had eating disorders my entire life. My eating disorders are a constant battle that feels like a never-ending roller coaster. I ask myself when this ride will ever stop? I believe that the ride will not stop unless your logical mind or soul can make the decision to get help. We must learn that it’s okay to feel and manage those feelings in productive ways not destructive ways. We all deserve to live. Many people do not understand that eating disorders are not a choice. Who wants to have a disease? Not me. The choice is to fight and recover or let it slowly kill you.

By 2003/2004, I was on my deathbed. I was living in hell on earth and I was on my way to Heaven. At my worst, I was throwing up everything I ate or drank, even water. I was mid-high 60lbs at 5ft8, in a wheelchair and barely alive. I had my spiritual awakening when God came to me and told me I was going to die. I was rushed to the ER and was told my heart was going to stop if I didn't consent to an IV immediately. At this point, I had to seriously make the decision to live or die. I choose LIFE and this is where my true journey to recovery began for the fist time in 10 years of treatment.

I survived to share my testimony, which I hope will help others with and without eating disorders. Recovery is a long road but I have ''pit bull faith''. Once I grab on to my faith, I don't let go. If I can do it then so can you. I had to reclaim the voice and life my eating disorders took from me. I have to fight everyday to find out who I am without anorexia, bulimia and orthorexia nervosa. I would have never made it this far if it weren't for all the support I have been given from my God, family, friends, therapists and doctors. For this, I owe you the world

The types of treatments I have received are eating disorder therapy, family therapy, art therapy, doctor supervision and monitoring (Stanford Hospital, UCSF Medical Center), countless ER trips for IVs, impatient hospitalization (Rader Programs x 2) and outpatient program (El Camino Hospital). I have also been tested and treated, locally, for many medical complications due to my eating disorders - some which have healed and others which still persist and/or are permenant medical disabilities. I have not found any treatment effective UNLESS I was willing to surrender and do whatever it took to get well, no matter how much discomfort I felt. I am currently in therapy, attending church and spiritual support groups, undergoing medical monitoring with a doctor I trust (trust is important!) and also receiving holistic health treatments for medical conditions that persist.

I would like to say that this disease hits us strong and it will speak for us if we give it voice and power. Sometimes it speaks so loud that we cannot even hear our own voices. I feel that the brain is split between a logical mind and an eating disordered mind. Both are accompanied by different voices; our own and our diseases. The disease can get so acute that a person’s logical mind can not make decisions on it’s own because it is literally trapped in the mentality of the disease. We come to feel that we have as little choices as a dog tied to a tree. This disease will leave us to sit and bark which really means suffer and die. But, we can choose to find our way out, to break away from the bondage of the leash and tree. We must pull and tug, scratch and hurt, bruise and bleed in order to set ourselves free. A person must be ready, wanting, willing and cooperative in order for recovery to be effective. I strongly believe that force is the wrong approach in treating any eating disorder. The desire to live must come from within.

You will see that I seperate myself from my eating disorders. I am not my eating disorder, neither are you. Eating disorders are another form of addiction no matter what your drug of choice is. Addiction is addiction and no one can do this alone. Eating disorders are on the extreme end of addiction and they kill and are killing as I type this. This disease took too much away from me. I almost lost my life to it but I was given a second chance. I made the choice to live and I am currently trying to recover from anorexia, bulimia and orthorexia! I live my live one moment and one meal at a time and that's all any of us can do. Eating disorders are a serious battle but every day that we are still here, we are fighting and winning this detrimental and addictive disease. Eating disorders want us DEAD and are slowly killing us as long as we choose to keep them. A person may appear healthy on the outside but the truth is, we can’t see what is going on with our insides. It’s not the weight that kills. It’s the mentality and the behaviors that kill. Statistics show that 20% of people with eating disorders will DIE, 60% will recover and 20% will make particial recoveries. In 2005, researchers indicated that the mortality rate for people with anorexia nervosa is now 25%.

Please choose wise. Choose life.

Pink Tutu Twirls,

Johnny Giovanni Righini