(May 5) -- Sarah Siskin was smart, beautiful, popular and athletic. And at 19, she died of bulimia.

The Washington Post has a wrenching account of Siskin's seven-year struggle with the eating disorder. It's an intensely personal account written by a family friend -- the best friend of Sarah's older sister, Leah.

The problem began in middle school, when Sarah, a perfectionist, began vomiting to control her weight. Eventually, she developed bulimia. Her parents sought help from a range of doctors and therapists.

Things took a dark turn in Sarah's junior year of high school, when she learned that she hadn't won an officer's position on her pom squad, a dance troupe that performed at sports events. Her bulimia worsened. When it came time to start college in 2002, she attended classes for just two months before going on medical leave.

Shortly before her death in 2003, Sarah wrote this in her journal: "I feel like a complete failure. I've let the bulimia take over again, and I'm slowly crumbling into nothing."

A couple months later, Sarah made a breakthrough. She told her parents that she realized she needed more treatment and that she wanted to make a plan for recovering her health and returning to college.

But hours later, she was dead of a heart attack brought on by her bulimia.

Just as Sarah's family struggled to come to grips with her disease, they also struggled to accept her death.

"You think, 'If I'd only done this, if I'd only done that, maybe things would have been different,' but that's all hindsight," her father, Alan Siskin, told the Post.

In addition to the story, the Post has a list of resources for help with eating disorders. You can also check out the photo gallery below for statistics on eating disorders.