Lindsey Allgood's reflection was her arch-nemesis.

If she couldn't feel and see her bones protruding from their thin skin-casing, the pressure was too much.

Allgood, a University College freshman, said her closet eating disorders went unnoticed by her parents and friends.

Her starvation, purging and binging became a ritual.

"I would go in the bathroom, turn on the shower and take my radio and turn it on. I would throw up every night, and my parents didn't know," Allgood said. "The s----- thing was that no one ever said anything to me."

Every second of her day revolved around the numbers: calorie intake and output.

"My freshman year (of high school), I remember all during the school day ... that's all I would think about: not passing a thousand calories before I got home," she said. "It became an obsession."

What calories Allgood didn't discard by way of her gag reflex she shed with daily exercise.

"A person subconsciously uses it as a way to not deal with life," she said. "For me, it was feeling like I wasn't doing enough."

Diatribe of a bulimic

At her worst, Allgood estimated that her already petite frame shriveled down to a mere 87 pounds.

"My body wasn't trained to ... when I'm feeling sad ... I'm going to cry or kick something," she said. "It was like, I'm sad ... I'm going to eat a gallon of ice cream and barf it up."

But her health began to deteriorate as her body experienced fits of trembling and bouts of fatigue as a result of malnourishment.

Allgood said, during one of her binge-and-heave episodes, she remembers looking at the ground and thinking, "I could die right next to this toilet."

"I was really tired of throwing up. I was sick of hiding it," Allgood said.

So Allgood sat down with her mother, Susan Allgood, and confided in her that she had been waging a losing battle with an eating disorder right under everyone's noses.

Allgood said her mother responded: "Is that all? I thought you were going to tell me you were pregnant or something."

Susan Allgood, Lindsey's mother, said she was in denial for the first few months and had never given eating disorders much thought prior to her daughter's confession.

"My parents thought that it was a phase, and I would grow out of it," Lindsey Allgood said.

Susan Allgood said there were very few therapists and doctors in Norman who would even consider taking on an eating-disorder case and with the waiting lists it would take months to seek professional help.

"You think, oh, just make yourself eat or quit throwing up or just quit doing that. But they can't," Susan Allgood said. "Through the help of her therapist, she's learned to deal with her anxiety and express her emotions."

Lindsey Allgood said that after four years of therapy, her emotional wounds from the disorder are still healing.

"Recovery is all uphill. You find yourself slipping every now and then," she said.

Allgood said OU may have its own underground conclave of the eating impaired.

"I see it among a lot of the greek population. Conversations you hear like, 'God I'm a pig, look at all this food,'" she said. "I hear self-degrading things, and that's normal in the college world."

Allgood said her message, however clich?, to anyone with body issues or an eating disorder is, "You're not alone."

But she also has some food for thought about the disorders that starved her of life.

"Our bodies are our temples, and we're not guaranteed them tomorrow or even the next second. All we have is now," she said. "You might as well let your stomach hang out and be happy."

Allgood will discuss her eating disorders as one of the panelists at Tuesday's eating disorder discussion at the Kerr-McGee Banquet Facility in Lloyd Noble Center from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Susan Allgood said she is a little wary of her daughter's openness about the subject.

"It's not something I'm comfortable with," she said. "But if this will help one person seek help it will be worthwhile. She's grown tremendously and she's much braver than I am."

Diatribe of an anorexic

An OU sophomore who wished to remain anonymous said she was different from Allgood in her philosophy on eating.

"It's different for everyone," she said. "Some focus on the numbers. Some focus on body parts."

"I would say, 'Oh my God! My stomach isn't flat today -- I can't eat!'"

Her anorexia went hand-in-hand with her position on her high school track team, as pushing herself to extremes was all in a day's work.

"I was pushed by my coach, and he pushed me to be the best, and to be the best you need to be thin," she said.

Oblivious to her problems, she said she restricted herself to a daily 400 calorie count and whittled 25 pounds from her physique.

Although she kept her disorder under tight lock and key, her body began to tell her secrets.

She said her body was constantly cold and, as a mechanism, her arms started sprouting fuzz.

On her quest to drop even more weight, she said she came across a diet book which may have ultimately saved her life.

"In the back (of the book), I took an eating disorder test," Doe said.

After seeing the results, she sobbed, unaware that the one aspect of her life she could control had spiraled out of control.

If she thought she had been unaware of her disorder, the wool had been pulled far further over her parents' eyes.

"I had to convince my parents to take me to the doctor," the sophomore said.

But her confession got her help.

The anonymous student said she had to first realize she had a problem; then realize food was good for her; and then regain weight.

She now goes to a dietitian three times a week and has been in recovery for more than two years.

But the student says there are aspects of anorexia from which she will never recover fully.

A lasting imprint of the disorder in the form of an irregular heartbeat could and may ultimately be the final word on the student.

"I never said anything, and that's why people did nothing," she said.

So although she can not put a face on the issue, the best she can offer are her words to those suffering from anorexia:

"You're beautiful, and accept the way God made you. No one expects you to be like that but yourself."
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