The woman speaks softly, her gaze usually directed downward. Occasionally, she looks up and her lips form a shy smile. She is thin; but, like most people with eating disorders, she has a distorted body image and does not think she is thin enough.

The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, has bulimia. Last November, a friend made her realize she needed to get help. She called CAPS -- the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services -- but a secretary told her she could not get an appointment until about a month later. After that first appointment, she was advised to add her name to a waiting list for further counseling.

"It's hard enough to admit you want help," she said, "and then when you're told you have to wait, it feels like you really don't have a problem -- like you're just making a big deal out of nothing."

Dennis Heitzmann, director of CAPS, said students are usually able to get an intake appointment fairly quickly, but there seems to be an influx of people around Thanksgiving each year, making appointments limited.

After the initial visit, counselors sometimes ask students to put their names on a waiting list. Trained intake counselors try to determine the severity of the student's problem and prioritize who is in the most need.

"We deal with individuals every day, and must make judgments about who must be seen immediately," Heitzmann said.

The center has limited resources and at times, when there is a great demand for counseling, it must resort to the waiting list, he said.

"Things seem to be working," Heitzmann said.

She, however, was concerned for her health. She was binging, then throwing up afterwards, and she was aware of the health risks that go along with the disease, such as the damaging stomach acid she was vomiting.

"I didn't know what to do," she said. "My parents said 'If things get worse, and you can't get help from the school, you'll have to come home and get help.' That's the last thing I wanted to do, so I tried to convince them I could stop on my own. I guess I convinced them of that. I'd tell them I was fine, but I wasn't."

She said the problem, which started about a year ago, just got worse. She was having mood swings and feeling alone.

"There's a lot of secrecy. You don't want people to know. You want to be more by yourself," she said.

When she felt alone, she said she would binge, knowing beforehand she was going to make herself throw up. She said she felt disappointed in herself, both for eating and for vomiting.

At the beginning of this semester, she and her parents went to the health center. The doctor there called CAPS and scheduled her for counseling right away.

She said she is happy with the counseling she is receiving. She said she understands the center has limited resources and a huge student population to serve, but she was concerned because the counselor did not ask her how much she weighed or refer to her to any groups or private counselors.

"I guess they didn't think it was a serious problem for me. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I didn't make them see it was a problem for me," she said.

Heitzmann said the only way couselors can determine the severity of the problem is from what students tell them during intake sessions and from what students fill out on their intake forms.

The forms ask questions dealing with everything from family history to previous treatment to the student's mood, he said. There is a series of eating disorder questions on the form. During the intake session, counselors try to gather even more information from the student.

"If I could encourage students to do one thing, it would be to be as explicit as they can in the interview. Give the counselors all the information," he said.

Heitzmann said part of the counselors' job is to extract all the information they can from students -- but sometimes students do not divulge things that reveal the severity of the problem.

He said counselors need to decide who gets help first.

"Every case is important, but some cases are simply more urgent than others," he said. "I'm confident a responsible decision was made."

He explained about 8 to 10 percent of the people they see at the center have a diagnosable eating disorder and many people who suffer from them do not come to the center.

"Some people might manage to go through their entire collegiate experience battling this problem without ever seeking treatment," he said.

Heitzmann said he encourages students to come to the center if they have a problem.

"I would advise any student with an eating disorder to make contact with us. Even if we might not be able to treat the person immediately or regularly, we still treat the problem as important," he said.

She said she will continue to see her counselor at CAPS once a week. She is still binging and throwing up but is making progress.

"I know the problem is not going to go away right away," she said.