the ‘rexia’ series:

an introduction

Over the past couple of years, some weird words have found their way into mainstream vocabulary and, consequently, into my ears and brain:

Drunkorexia.

Liarexia.

Mommyrexia.

All of these words look oddly familiar. The root words are all words I’ve seen before. Drunk. Liar. Mommy. But they all share the same suffix, rexia, which I’ve only ever seen on one other word in the English language.

That word, of course, is anorexia, of anorexia nervosa fame — a horrible, debilitating eating disorder that millions of men and women fight every day.

Okay. So what do the words, “drunk,” “liar,” and “mommy” have to do with an eating disorder? Well, I’m sorry to be the one to inform you that a quick Google search says that they’ve all emerged as words associated with new ways people are going about starving themselves.

Oh goody. Just great. Yay.

I will say that the “rexia” phenomenon pisses me off a bit because anorexia nervosa is a legitimate disease and I feel as though tacking “rexia” onto the back of random words lessens the severity of the illness. But whether I’m upset about this or not, drunkorexia, liarexia, and mommyrexia happen to be very real issues in American culture today. (They also happen to be terms that prove that sometimes, we English-speakers are just too plain lazy to come up with new words. But I digress.) So, because they’re not going away any time soon and it’s what we do here at FBDC Inc., I will address these issues. Over the next few weeks I’m going to blog about these words and the behaviors associated with them one by one.

That said, here’s my disclaimer:

• I am not a doctor.
• I’ve never published anything in a medical journal or… you know… any official, smarty-pants doctor’s reading or research material.
• I was diagnosed with EDNOS, not anorexia nervosa.
• I like to exaggerate and use funny words sometimes.
• Even though I got a minor in psychology from the finest university this side of the Mason-Dixon line, I don’t claim to be a psychologist or a therapist or anything like that. I can merely speculate about the psychological causes and effects of these disorders. (I majored in communication though, and I think I do a pretty good job at communicating, yeah? So I’ll stick to what I know.)

The point behind this series is to bring these situations to light and have open discussions about them. Some people reading this blog (maybe even you) may have exhibited these behaviors, or some variations of them, at some point during their lives and might not even know that they’re dabbling with disordered eating. My hope is that, through my blog, I can encourage people to stop and think about what they’re doing to their bodies before it’s too late.

Tune in next week for my riveting post about drunkorexia. And, like I said, I’d prefer it if this was a conversation. (Because I majored in communication, remember?) I don’t want to spew a bunch of information your way and just expect you to lap it all up like a thirsty puppy. If you have any questions or comments pertaining to this series, feel free to leave them in the comment section. I’ll try to answer them in my posts if I can!