Woman Uses Her Own Battle To Help Others

Laura Sferra Watkins reached the edge but didn’t plunge.

“I felt I had no control,” she says, lost in thought for a moment. “But I could control my body, what I ate.”

Laura doesn’t claim she had an eating disorder. But she knows she came close a few years ago when her life grew more frenzied than she could handle.

She was small and slim. Still, she exercised two to three hours a day, cut fat from her diet except for periodic gorges on huge desserts, worried about weight and fought the urge to induce vomiting.

“I knew logically what was going on, but it was hard to fight,” she says.

Laura had worked in a psychiatric hospital for several years while earning her college degree in counseling. She was no stranger to eating disorders. The hospital had a program devoted to them.

It took her years to recognize that she was just one step ahead of the same disorders she was treating.

It began when she was 23 and juggling graduate school, an internship and work. She already had relinquished some control of her life to live in California with her parents.

“I had to have the perfect body,” she says. “Life was so crazy, but I always made time to exercise. That kept me going.”

After graduation in 1993, Laura moved to Coeur d’Alene. It was her first time on her own. She was unemployed, lonely. Her first stop in town was the local health club. Then she needed a gooey dessert.

“Before, it seemed normal, but then it got frightening,” she says. “I began bingeing and actually considered purging.”

Meeting the man she eventually would marry gave her someone to talk to about her loneliness, worries, temptation to vomit. For Laura, talking was enough.

She opened her private counseling practice a year ago and decided to specialize in eating disorders. It’s a frustrating field with few victories.

But, “I know what the fear is like,” Laura says. “Whenever I catch myself looking in the mirror thinking I’m not thin enough, I stop myself and say, ‘I’m OK the way I am.”’

During Eating Disorders Week, Feb. 5-11, North Idaho College will offer free interviews with counselors, information on the signs and symptoms of eating disorders and referrals for help. Call Laura at 664-3178 for details.

Radio dribbles

If you’re one of those people who don’t want teenagers on the streets during the summer, here’s an idea: send a few dozen back East. Or better yet, help them go east because they’ll learn a little about geography and American history.

Coeur d’Alene’s Lakes Middle School eighth-graders will entertain you for your money, then use it to head to Washington, D.C., New York and Philadelphia next summer. They’ve scheduled a basketball game at Lake City High, 7 p.m., Feb. 9 between Lakes teachers and KZZU’s Zoo Crew, with the Red Hot Mamas as halftime performers. Tickets are $2 for adults and less for seniors and students.

S’no way

Once the snow flew, people packed, shaped and sculpted it into some outrageous creations. Where’s the best snow sculpture you’ve seen this year?

Shovel the details over to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; fax to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo