Karen Carpenter, would you still be alive today if I had been there for you?

For some reason or another today, during my marketing rounds in the beautiful district of Dalhousie in Calgary, I started thinking about Karen Carpenter.

A tragic tale of Anorexia Nervosa...

I grew up listening to the positively charming songs of The Carpenters, composed of Richard and Karen; a brother and sister powerhouse of the 70s and 80s.  His lyrics and arrangements, with her singing talent gave this dynamic duo a staying power that has lasted until today.  But their ultimate end was such a sad thing indeed and it deserves an epic poem, by only which Homer of Antiquity could write.

As many guys like me today are still inclined to be, Knights In Shining Armour, I am usually found in this state of mind and when I was thinking of her I was firmly locked in that role and I began to ask myself, “If I had been there for her, could I have stopped her deadly decline into Anorexia Nervosa?”  This disease of the mind is an OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) like state of thinking oneself to be too fat.  This affliction is found to be amongst girls by the overwhelming majority and although rare, a very small percentage of guys do suffer from this affliction as well.  As is the nature of females to be very much aware of their appearance, this affliction takes advantage of a young girl’s desire to be physically desirable.  Some may consider this desire to be simple vanity, but it is not, as it is more of a desire to be accepted by society and because of the differences between men and women, this is the role that women have been placed in society; their physical attractiveness.  Call it oppressiveness, call it a lack of acceptance, or call it what you will, a young girl’s desire to be called pretty and slim is what drives our society at present.  And it is that desire that drove Karen Carpenter to be less than 91 pounds at the time of her death on February 4, 1983, as a result of complications due to Anorexia Nervosa, which caused her death, ultimately, by heart failure.

As I think of her now, it brings an uncontrollable stream of tears to my eyes as I think of the joy her music/singing brought to the world and how her life could have been so much fuller than what it was.

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So then again I ask myself, if I was there as a friend of hers, could I have prevented this disease from tightening its grip on her?  Could I have told her, on a daily basis if need be, that she was not fat, that she looked absolutely beautiful, that she was a picture of femininity and that I wouldn’t change a thing?  Would that have made a difference in her life?  Could I have been there instead of all of those other guys who simply wanted to use her for her fame and told her that I loved her for who she was and that she could eat normally and not lose anything from me as far as my love for her?  Could I have said to her that being too skinny was NOT a good thing and that she should eat normally and that it would not affect her career or her singing?  If I was there and If I said to her that she was the prettiest thing that I had ever seen and that her weight was just fine and that if she lost anymore weight that she would be hurting herself in ways that she could not imagine and that I would not be happy with this at all?

The Carpenters' current website.

I suppose with such things, a guy’s imagination can only do so much and reality sets in and says, “there’s nothing you could have done, she died and there is nothing you can do for her.”

But maybe I can with the girls that I am associated with.  Perhaps just a little positive reinforcement can make all the difference in the world.  Of course, with today’s females a compliment is a hard thing to get across without insulting their sense of independence.  Such is the state of today’s female.  It is hard for them to accept a compliment because they are trying desperately to disconnect their reliance on men in general.  Only the most intrepid man can get through to today’s woman.  This, of course, does not bode well for today’s woman.  If our reliance on each other is disconnected to such a distant degree then our own demise must be a sure thing.  One only needs to look to the world’s most “advanced” society to see where women are headed.  Sweden.  This is where the current female suicide rate is approaching that of men’s.  Is this advancement?  Is this where we as a human race are headed?

Only too soon will we see…