Mary McRae had a secret that was going to kill her.

She had lost more than half her body weight in just three years and was down to just 68 pounds. She had lost her job as a teacher in California and spent much of her day exercising and refusing to eat.

The only reason anorexia didn’t claim McRae’s life was a few friends making a call back to the Flathead Valley for help.

“My father came and got me,” she said. “That was a long, quiet ride home. I was not happy.”

But nearly two decades later, McRae is alive, happy and has a husband and three children. Her days playing with a dangerous margin of her weight are over — but still always in her mind.

That’s why during National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, she wanted to tell her story.

“I made a move into healthy eating, but at a normal level,” McRae said. “But the breakup of an engagement kind of tipped me over the edge. I started exercising more and eating less. You aren’t defined by your eating disorder.”

According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, up to 24 million Americans of all ages and genders suffer from some form of eating disorder, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

While 95 percent of those with eating disorders are between 12 and 26, McRae entered into the depths of her disorder in her late 20s and early 30s.

She limited herself to just 500 calories a day while working out frantically.

“Most anorexics have a limit,” McRae said. “They tend to be perfectionist, driven people. And stubborn.”

While that Type A personality can be a benefit in some ways, she said, it also means eating disorders can hit you harder.

In McRae’s case, her own determination nearly ruined her.

“My lowest point was having to move back with my parents,” she said. “I couldn’t go out except to go to the doctor. I had no immunity left and they didn’t want me burning calories. I actually had to get my nutrition right for several months before I could even get therapy. You can’t think when you are like that. Your head is in a fog.”

She recalls breaking a fat-free saltine cracker into four parts and challenging herself to finish it by the end of the day. The dread of living day-to-day life was nearly too much.

“I was afraid to go to sleep,” McRae said. “I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up.”

For the remainder of her life, she will struggle with heart and bone density issues caused by the disorder. Her husband, Sean, married her in 2002 and had questions about her health as well.

“We weren’t sure if she could have kids,” he said. “Whether she had done too much long-term biological damage to herself.”

The McRaes now have two daughters, 11 and 9, and a 7-year old son. But they still have justifiable concerns.

“We worry about our oldest daughter,” Mary said. “There is a genetic element. Our niece has just gone through a second round of treatment for an eating disorder.”

According to dietitian Linda Fredenberg, who works with the Body Balance program at The Summit Medical Fitness Center in Kalispell, genetics account for 88 percent of risks for developing anorexia nervosa and a significant factor for bulimia nervosa.

She said the stigma around eating disorders is an unfair one.

“People think this is a thing which only happens to teenage girls,” Fredenberg said. “According to the National Eating Disorder Association, 20 million females and 10 million males in this country will struggle with a clinically significant eating disorder at one point.”

She said media portrayals make it difficult for people to be happy with their bodies, particularly young people. She has seen patients as young as 9 years old in Kalispell as well as several in their 70s.

The Body Balance program involves Fredenberg as a physician referral point and social worker and mentor Barbi Webber, who survived eating disorders of her own and helps these people rediscover how to eat normally. Multiple other counselors and providers assist those in need.

“I will not work with a person who is not meeting with a therapist,” Fredenberg said. “They need the counseling. That’s where the healing begins.”

One of those therapists who specializes in the treatment of eating disorders is Steve Bryson, a nurse and counselor in private practice in Whitefish. He attempted to get an eating disorder clinic running in the Flathead in the past.

“The first problem was trouble securing any funding,” he said. “The second is bigger facilities are within a day’s drive and we wouldn’t be able to compete.”

Facilities in Bellevue and Spokane, Washington, made the Flathead Valley project a nonstarter. The only facility in Montana is Rimrock in Billings, which is primarily an addiction treatment facility. Eating disorders are a life-threatening disorder and should be treated as such, Bryson said.

“Anorexia is the most fatal mental illness,” he said. “More than PTSD, more than suicidal thoughts. The brain is confused. These are bright, pro-social really good people and they need help.”

 But for many, the help isn’t there, as McRae can attest.

“There were no support groups,” she said. “And I didn’t like going to four, five, six different places just to get all the treatment I needed because we didn’t have a clinic.”

McRae’s niece Randee, coming off a second stay in a clinic in Oregon, wrote a summation of her experience.

“I think what’s hard for our supporters to understand is that recovery from an eating disorder will not happen overnight, nor will it be linear,” she said. “Now we have to get to a healthy place to be able to see that we weren’t really living at all.”

McRae said her treatment emphasized self-worth and she wouldn’t be alive today without someone sharing her not-so-secret secret.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.