Well - it was a long time coming. I mean, I'd read that book a while before he made that comment. I'd been absorbing the information and already being more conscious of at least some of what was going on.

Plus - one thing I didn't say in this story (because it was already really long) is that around the same time, I read another fantastic life-changing book, Hope and Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes.

It was insanely good for teaching me how to change my thoughts to get rid of anxiety. .And anorexia is an anxiety disorder. I got rid of OCD, agoraphobia, panic attacks, even an addiction that had come up to deal with the anxiety.

So this was all going on at the same time. I was calming my mind and body, learning how to change my thoughts with that book, and then the Golden Cage, too, so the doctor's statement just kind of tied it all together in enough of a way that I started to make a huge transformation. I was ready; there'd been all that other stuff shifting inside me and it just needed a little nudge to bring it all together.

This is not to say that I didn't still have LOTS of residual issues because I did. I spent many years chipping away at my healing on a deeper level, but at least those two books plus the doc's comment helped to get me eating again.

The part where I was reading those two books and starting to process the information - that was probably several months. But after the doc's statement, the changes happened a little more noticeably so it was another few months - not sure - 3-6 I guess - gradual change - till I was functioning fairly normally.