The Hungry Ghost with Erin Ward

The Hungry Ghost

I want to share a part of me that in hindsight paints itself with clarity, and only now, years removed am I able to send compassion and tenderness to the young woman in my memory. A girl and her dance with the hungry ghost.
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I was 20 when I stopped eating. I had witnessed peers in high school experimenting with different methods to find thinness, but it wasn’t until college that I turned towards deprivation to try to “fit in.” I stopped eating because I didn’t feel like I was doing “enough” to be worthy of love.
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I felt overwhelmed by my finances, the pressure of a rigorous academic course load, surviving in a new and powerful city, and my uncertainty of what