Winning An Eating Battle

Tuesday, Feb. 23, may be just another day to many of us, but to 28-year-old anorexia survivor, Nicole Roberge, it is a momentous benchmark in life. It marks the fourth year of her living and choosing to be healthy, without anorexia.

Likening her eating disorder to the powerful addictive force of drugs or alcohol, Roberge, a Stonington-Mystic Patch contributor, chronicles her life in the throes of the disease, her struggle to get well and her full-time job staying healthy, in her book, Hang In There... Wherever ‘There’ Is.

Exposing her hurt through humor, Roberge’s ambition is to give hope to others struggling with the illness.  More than 10 million women and 1 million men live with the disease, and she said she is reaching out to all of them, hoping to touch even one.

Roberge said one of her first steps after admitting she had an eating disorder at age 23, was to look to the pages of a good book to help her through. To her dismay, she couldn’t find one.

“I couldn’t find a book that was beneficial to me and my recovery from this disease, so I said that if I make it through this, I will write one in hopes of helping someone else,” said Roberge, who kept journals through everything. “It is actually very scary to go back and read them because it seems like a different person.”

Passing on her message of hope, Roberge, who grew up in Montville and lives in Mystic, also mentors others with anorexia and their families. She is working with people ranging in age from 18 to 35.

“Typically, this disease is seen as a teenage girl’s disease, but I want people to know that it does not discriminate,” Roberge said. “It affects older people and men as well."

In addition to her countless hours of mentoring, Roberge also travels to middle and high schools educating students about anorexia, talking about her experiences and giving a voice to the disease.

“I love getting out there and giving back, being there for others and letting them know that if I can do it, they can do it,” Roberge said. “There is always hope and every life if worth living.” 

“When this was happening to me, I had no appetite for food or life. I used it as a coping mechanism,” she said. Roberge said she became trapped by the affliction to fight the extreme loneliness and homesickness she experienced when she left the East Coast to follow her dreams of becoming a screenwriter in Los Angeles.

“The gym became my best friend," she said. "I worked out excessively; at least four hours a day, and I restricted my diet to fruit only. It is a very secretive, isolating disease. It is mind-controlling. You don’t want to be doing what you are doing, you know it is illogical, but you can’t fight it. I knew I really had a problem when I didn’t want to go to the gym one day, but I went anyway. I cried through the entire workout.”

While in L.A., Roberge experienced heart problems and chest pains, and visited the hospital several times. Doctors chalked it up to anxiety, but she knew it was something more.

“My heart rate was too high to take, and I knew at that moment that I had to get well, because I never wanted to feel that way again. I didn’t want to let this disease kill me. I didn’t want to never see my family again. So I chose to get better!” she said.

Kicking off National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, Roberge will be signing her new book, on Sunday, Feb. 20, at , in Mystic, at 12:00 p.m. On Feb. 22, she will be at Saint Anselm College, in Manchester, New Hampshire, at 7 p.m. giving an eating disorder talk, followed by a reading from her book and on Saturday, Feb. 26, she will be at Books on the Square in Providence, Rhode Island at 2 p.m. For more information about Roberge and her book, go to www.nicoleroberge.com.