Ok, this might take a while, I am going to get a glass of water…
Well I think a lot of my problems can be rooted back to when I was 4 years old (12 years ago now). My dad had just got a new job earning about £75,000 a year, and me, my mum, dad, older brother and sister moved away from our lovely old little house into this really big house that had just been built. We had a massive garden with swings and a slide, and I had my own bedroom, which despite being the smallest room in the house could still fit a king size bed (not that I had one, that space was filled with dolls).
I know now looking back how lucky I was, but then I absolutly hated it, the change scared me a lot, for months after moving in are road was still a massive construction site because it was brand new. I used to spend the days sitting outside our house, with a stick and play with this one puddle on the road for hours.
It was during this time that I developed epilepsy, my first memory is factually the night that I had that first seizure. I was sleeping and dreaming about an ostridge in a bow tie and dinner jaket playing a gand piano, and there was a hippo in a little pink toto dancing ballet. Then in the dream the floor started to shake and I thought it was just the hippo being to heavy footed. But then I woke up and I was sitting in this big dark bedroom with china dolls staring at me. I was shaking like mad, and it would not stop, I thought I was going to die. So I just remember thinking I have to get someone to help me, and I tried to call out for my mum but I could not, I couldn’t breath. It was lucky that my older brother had stayed up that night playing on his games, so he woke my parents.
The last thing I remember was my mum screaming, “Oh my god someone call an ambulance”, then I lost conciousness. Apparently I was not breathing for about 5 minutes while I had the seizure, my face had gone completely purple at one point. Then I remember sitting on my parents bed where the ambulence peopl had carried me with this oxygen mask over my face. It was horrifying, I thought I was dead and I still remember it as clear as as ever.
Over the following months there were various hospital visits having all sorts of tests and checks done, finally after they had spent hour examining me like some lab rat they concluded that I had a rare form of epilepsy, and proceeded to put me on medication. I remember walking down a really long hall way that just seemed to go on forever to collect these pills, then just waiting with a lot of older people, I don’t remember seeing another child there. Little did I know then how much trouble a tiny little bead of chemicals could cause.
The first medication was a nightmare, I basically went from being a healthy 4 year your old, to an obese 5 year old in the space of about a month. This pill had side effects of severe weight gain and insomnia. So my school performance really started to get bad, I went from being top of my class to needing special help. on top of all this I was getting beaten up for being fat. But the doctor refused to believe it was the pills that were causing, according to him my mum had just suddenly decided to start stuffing me full of junk food which was complete and utter rubbish, I was the kind of kid who loved fruit and veg, I hated meat and really sweet stuff.
Then finally after basically accusing my mum of neglect, when I was 6 he finally decided to change my medication. But this one was not much better, it still caused all the other problems, but I also started to halucinate, to this day I could sware there was a pink elephant with purple spots in my kitchen. So the doc took me off them quick.
Then medicine number three, now I cannot be sure if this was down to the pills or the bullying, but when I was on these I get extremely depressed, (I was only 6/7). My mum said I was a completely different child, not the one she knew, I could not laugh, I began to hate myself. I would look in the mirror and cry.
The I stated medicine number four when I was 7, it caused insomnia, but I decided just having that one side effect, I could live with. Untill I was 9, when I simply knew I could not take it any more, I begged my doctor to stop prescribing the pills but when he would not, I just started hiding them, I would pretend that I took them, then berry them in the garden. Until my mum finally found out and the doctor agreed to stop prescibing them.
By this point I was nearly 10, morbidly obese, in a special needs class, had no friends, was being beaten up at school and depressed, those little pills had seriously screwed up a healthy, happy little girl…
Plus during that six years of my life I had also been regularly sexually abused, but I still find it hard to think about that.
Also my brother had been diagnosed with aspergise syndrome, and he was very violent, so he used to beat me and my mum up. I remember siting up in my bedroom curled up on the floor quietly singing to myself, trying to block out the sound of my mum crying while my brother hurt her. Then he would hurt me, I was completely covered in bruises all the time. Once he locked me and my mum in the kitchen, threaterning us with a knife, he was only 10 and I was 5. My dad was always at work.
Then when I was 10, my parents went through quite a messy divorce and I was always the one stuck in the middle of the fights just begging them to stop but never being heard. I remember the first time I saw my dad, who always seemed so strong break down on the floor in a flood of tears while my mum stormed up stairs, and I just sat down next to him and held him, I never wanted to let go (Oh gosh now I am crying). I was always closest to my dad, he would take my over this massive feild at the back of our house to search for fossils, there were thousands of them over there. We would spend hours just running around, always finding new things.
But my dad got really depressed, lost his high paid job and had to move in with my grandparents while he was selling the big house. He and my brother moved to a small house about half an hours drive away, while me my mum and my sister moved in to a small house that I have never liked. I have always been quite frightened of it.
Plus my mum had to get a job, so she was working really long hours for not very good pay and I basically had to learn how to cook my own dinners, and tuck myself into bed at night.
This is when I started secondary school and I was 11. For the first three years of secondary school I had no friends, although I did nto get beaten up physically anymore, the verbal abuse never stopped, I hated school. I was the fat ugly stupid girl who needed a special helper in class who absolutly stank of a cats littebox. I was the weird lowner kid who sat on her own at lunch time eating her cheese and pickle sandwich (or more like pickly sandwich becuase I hate cheese). I put up with it for the first year, just accepting that I would not make friends just overnight.
Then in the second year I put up with it, but my depression was getting worse, I would walk home from school and just watch the cars pass by on the road, just wanting so desperatly to jump out in front of one. I started to turn to food for compfort, I would eat and eat and eat. So I piled on the pounds after losing quite a few from coming off the medication.
Then in year nine, I was 13, and I started to look in the mirror a lot more often I despised what I saw it was gotesque, completely vial. So I started to place a lot of restictions on when I could eat, I cut out lunch first, then breakfast, basically I would just cram in lots of food in one hour of the day when I was allowed to eat, the rest of the time I would just have water, I could not bare to even touch food. But just for this one hour I would eat, it started off not really being that much, but as time went past, and weeks turned to months I would eat more and more in this short space of time.
But the weirdest thing happened around this time, when I was in year nine at school doing my sats, despite being in special help classes I actually ended up getting some of the highest levels in my year for maths and english, in the english writing section, I was one of only 3 people in my year to get a level 7, and the other two were in top set.
Then when I was 14, I attempted sucicide by overdose, honestly I don’t know if I took enough to ever kill me, but when I had taken them all, I started to go online. The I just completely lost it I freaked out, I could not let my mum have to go through the pain of comign home and finding me dead. So for the very first time, I shoved my fingers down my throat and I thew up, every little bit I could, and I just got this warm feeling inside. Despite the crippling pain in my stomach, the pounding head and the vial tast of those pills in my mouth, I felt good, for the first time in years. So if I could do this with pills, why not other stuff? I started doing it, just once a day after my hour of stuffing my face with food.
This lasted till my 15th birthday by which time I had lost some weight but not much. Me and some friends went shopping, and all my friends are thin. I hated seeing them trying on all these beautiful dresses for my birthday, while I would just stand back and watch.
Then a few days later I went to the doctor because I had not had my period in a while, and without doing any tests she just said straight away that I have policistic ovary syndrome, and that I should lose weight by eating 1200 calories a day, and start jogging for 3 hours a day everyday. So for the first week I did what she said and I lost 6 pounds. But then the weather got really bad and I could not do the exercise anymore, so the weight loss just kind of stopped for then, I went back to purging. Untill a few weeks later when I was walking home from school and these boys who had always picked on me decided to throw their drinks over me while calling me a fat ugly pig and poking me with a stick. So I turned round and chased them with my school bag, I just wanted to bash them over the heads. The literally in just that moment something changed in my head, I literally froze, then I put my school bag back over my shoulder, put my head down and just walked home, ignoring everything on the way. All I could think about was food, and not eating it. So I went home that evening and forthe first time I just did not eat I could not even bare to go near the kitchen. Over the next few day I had to really try and ajust because I knew I had to eat or at least drink some water soon.
So I just started to manage a single low fat rice cake for breakfast in the morning, just taking sips of water every now and again.
I wanted to eat, I really did I simply couldnt do it anymore, when I looked at food all I saw was a massive file of fat, salt and sugar, it was vile. Finally after a couple of weeks I managed to get myself eating an apple after school. I had already lost a lot of weight, I was feeling really weak, tired and always freezing cold. It went on pretty much like this for the next 5 months, slowly trying to reintroduce myself to food again. By april 2009, I had learned the calorie content of practically everything, after spending hours walking eound supermarkets. Plus I had managed to get myself eating 70g of banana for breakfast, 50g of apple for after school, 10g of seeds as a snack and dinner would be no more than 150 calories. I had lost about 70lb’s and was in a healthy weight catagory for the first time since I was 4. The weight loss started out fast but after a few months my metabolism must have been completely messed up so it slowed down. But I was not really that depressed in this time, although I was very cold and weak, I must have seemed quite happy. But my face was pale, my hair was falling out, my periods had stopped again, my skin was dry, plus my hands and feet would turn blue.
At the Beginging of March I decided I was going to become Vegan, since animal products scared me more than anything, so I just completely cut them out. Plus it is usful to explain why I am not eating.
Then at the begining of April, me, my heavily pregnant 22 year old sister and her bofriend went on holiday to Paris. I had to share a hotel room with my mum, so she knew literally every single little thing I ate and of course by this time she was already starting to see through my lies. So under her prying eyes, I knew I had to eat more than I had been previously, I hated it. Being in a foreign country and eating in restaurant where I could not know how many calories, how many grams of fat, salt and sugar was in the food. Plus being france, barely anythgn was vegan, so i did end up having to eat a lot of carbs. I got really swollen, all in my feet, legs and abdomen esspecially. First my heart rate went really high, but by the end of the holiday it was down to about 45 beats per minute. I was delerious sometimes, and had absolutly no energy. I started to forget everything and get really clumsy. Plus I had horrible headached, pains in my stomach, constant diahorria, and I always felt nausious.
Since then I have tried to find out what happened, and I suspect I may have developed refeeding syndrome, though I do not like to self diagnose. I still have all of those problems now though after over a year. I am still quite swollen, I still have a really low heart rate, I still get the headaches, stomach pains, dioahrea, nausia and confusion. Plus I black out frequently now.
But going on, for about a month after I had that holiday, I would try really hard to restrict like I was, but I found it just physically impossible, and if I did manage to get below 800 calories a day, the next morning I would wake up in agony unable to move at all. It was so scary. Then I started having problems with my epilepsy again which I had not had in years. I sometimes go through these strange episodes where I must look like a zombie but I just cut every sense off from the outside world my only goal is to die.
So within a month after returning home I started binge purging again, only this time more than ever before, I mean I would vomit till I collapsed, 10 somtimes 15 times a day. The I was on the laxatives for a while. Then I tried several diffferent diet pills. But vomiting was my thing. Not long before I could do it without fingers.
I got extremely depressed, attempted suicide again, started having panic attacks more than once a day. Honestly I don’t know how I lived through that and still managed to get through my GCSE’s with some of the best grades in my year.
But since the beginning of 2010, I have felt on the verge of death at every single moment, my heart feels weak, I have lost a lot of muscle, and I have gained quite a bit of weight back becuase I phycially cannot do it anymore. Now i go to bed every night wondering if I will wake up the next morning. I have nightmares every night. I hear the sound of a person vomiting everywhere I go, it is stuck in my head.
So when I went to visit my doctor about another problem, I completely broke down. Now I will get help soon, I just hope it is not to late.
Oh wow… Ok I am really sorry, had no idea that would be so long, it was amazing just actually writing that all down. It is not 2:30am. Time for bed.
Thank you for actually reading this much without dying of boredom already .
I don’t know where to start. The beginning was so long ago. As a teen, I always had topsy turvey weight issues. The comments about “puppy fat” got to me a lot, but I was a messed up teen, I had abuse issues, and bulimia together with other forms of self harm was a way of taking back control. I went down quite dramatically in weight in a short space of time and had a few “skinny” years. When I got happier… I started to eat like a normal person, and I put on weight. For years I have not purged, nor starved myself. In the past month, old demons have returned to haunt me, and I have gotten worse than I ever was years ago.
I stopped eating and now… every time I eat, no matter how little, I feel guilty. I *have* to make myself sick, even after consuming the tiniest portion. Before, it was always a very private thing – locked in the bathroom, the water running, noone home. Now I live by myself and I don’t have to worry about people hearing. But I’ve even started to make myself sick at work, or in restaurants. Tonight for the first time in 2 weeks I was forced to eat solid food. I think tonight I ate more than I’ve eaten in two weeks. I was at a work meal, which I was terrified to go to, because I knew I’d have to eat, or answer awkward questions. I never had the opportunity to purge in the restaurant but all I could think of was coming home to be sick. It’s become an obsession. As soon as I got home, I was in the bathroom, forcing anything I could out of my stomach – it still doesn’t feel like enough, I feel so guilty for having food in my stomach, but no more will come up, and I’m in pieces. I broke down in tears because I know that this is not right. I don’t want to be like this but I can’t seem to stop anymore. I’m scared of all kinds of food. At first I thought – it’s ok, you can eat soup, drink milk, stick to liquids. But even those I feel the need to sick up.
I guess when I was in recovery, I had people in my life, who kept telling me, I was beautiful just as I am. I didn’t need to change. This last year my on/off relationship with a guy has made me feel so inadequate. He constantly made hurtful comments – not even intentionally. It just seemed like things would come out of his mouth without him thinking about it. Always about how I’d look better thinner, every time I saw him… something was said. And now my confidence which I spent so long trying to build up has crashed and burned. It’s amazing how fragile I really am and I hate myself for that. I want to be able to stand up and say “this is me, and has been since you met me – if you didn’t like it you shouldn’t have started this”. But I can’t, because i look in the mirror and now it’s become less about his perception of me, and more about my own self-perception. And it’s horrific. I hate what I see in the mirror and I can’t even walk down the street without comparing myself to other girls and feeling somehow less. I think… do they do this to themselves? Do they count every single calorie? Do they feel such huge guilt after consuming the tiniest amount of food? Or are they just one of the lucky “naturally skinny” girls. I guess maybe it started when I was a child – as an abuse victim, my self-esteem was shot to hell anyway. But I took after my father and my mother was the perfect bodied prom-queen type. I always felt less. She could eat the entire contents of the Nestle chocolate factory and never put on a single pound. I just needed to look at the stuff to gain weight. People keep telling me – I need food on a regular basis to live. And the sad thing is, I don’t even care anymore. I try to keep my fluid intake up. Water and juice is about the only thing I can consume without making myself sick at all. I try to eat a piece of fruit before I leave the house, or before bed, and force myself not to be sick, just so I have *something* inside of me to digest that my stomach will process before I find a bathroom.
It’s only been a few weeks since I started doing this again, after years. But it’s like I’ve slid right to the bottom of the slippery slope and I don’t even *want* to stop anymore.
I’m relieved that I’m not the only one out there who struggles with an ED. I had a friend come in from my hometown in CA and she expressed how common it is out there. Incredibly common– so much so that it’s not considered an eating disorder at all among peers. It’s merely a backup diet.
Here in the midwest it’s taboo, and something to be greatly ashamed of.
If any of you are like me, you see your binges/purges fluctuate in cycles. You can go a week or two eating properly and exercising, everything seems balanced. I just completed a triple crown of foot races during which I felt relatively normal. Back to reality. Back to the ED. It’s so difficult to shake. My medications stabilize my mood greatly, but it has no effect on my body image.
It seems as though being thin comes so easily to my peers! I don’t understand how I can put on weight so easily, under normal portion standards. There’s always someone who looks better than you, someone you want to look like, some look you’re going for. Vanity is inescapable in our culture.
I love that Spain is banning diet pill advertisements and putting strict limitations on unrealistic body images in television commercials. I think the States ought to adopt similar strategies to demonstrate a new standard of health. Look at the beauty standards of the 1900s. All this “waif” culture started in the 1920s, thin was a form of rebellion from traditional female stereotypes. The flappers drank during prohibition, danced promiscuously and flaunted the androgonous physique.
The suffrage movement defined the decade, recent generations have taken it to a new unrealistic expectation. Anorexia and bulimia are relatively new disorders. We are caught up in the rip tide of modern aesthetics and all we can do is hold out head up above water and swim parallel to the shore, whatever weight that might be.
Crystie – I was both sad and touched by the honesty and the fear I felt in your story. I definitely know exactly how it feels to be in the back seat while your eating disorder drives you closer and closer to the edge of something you’re not sure you’ll survive falling off of. It’s terrifying. Really, really terrifying. That’s the point of my eating disorder where I spoke to my doctor, and immediately started getting involved in treatment of various types. Nothing about it is easy – but telling medical, professional people who regularly deal with patients with serious eating disorders helps. Even though you have to do all the hard work yourself, having someone else acknowledge how out of whack your routine is, while at the same time letting you know it’s a real and not-uncommon medical condition is extremely helpful.
That being said, it’s still hard. I’ve been getting help for about a year now, and I still have times where I feel as entirely out-of-control as it sounds like you do. So you are not the only one. You are most definitely not at all the only one who feels any of the things that you are feeling right now. And I know that it sucks on a level beyond what words can convey – so I definitely feel for you. But I also believe that it’s beatable – so hang in there.
I’ve nurtured my ED for five years now. As a former fat (I mean 245 down to 155 fat) girl my self image, I fear, is irreparable. I’m told how good looking I am regularly–no effect.
I’m a runner but it’s hard to stick to it when my knees ache and my flesh (over my back, stomach, arms, shoulders) is tender. I have a 5K the day after tomorrow and I haven’t trained all week because of fear–both for the challenge of the run and the fear of harming my body. I’m terrified that I’ll drop like Terri Schiavo. The ED is driving the car on a narrow canyon road and I’m in the back seat looking over the edge.
My boyfriend knows about it, its nearly impossible to hide when you live together. When he comes home from work or class he asks “did you have a rough night?” Of course I did, I can rarely be trusted to be alone. My ED exacerbates his bad drinking habits. A vice for a vice.
When we eat out with his parents he knows we have to get home right away so I can “take care of it.” Sometimes I cry when they even ask because I know I won’t be able to resist a free meal.
Right now I’m weak and my glands are swollen from a binge/purge session.
I don’t know what normal is anymore. I’m totally out of touch and feel uncomfortable with “keeping” most everything save lean meat and vegetables.
Am I the only one who feels this unbalanced? Am I the only one who is socially anxious because of weight issues? Am I the only one who can’t keep female companions? There’s no way.
It’s really good to hear everybody’s stories. I am not really sure where my bulimia started. I am always analyzing what moment or moments triggered my bulimia. I know for sure I started throwing up at age 17 when I worked at Dairy Queen. It all started with ice cream. Really easy to throw up. I never and have never had to use fingers to help me throw up, I could just “heave” and I would throw up.
I am a farm girl, youngest of five kids and was teased when I was little up to teenage years for being on welfare because our family did not have a lot of money. I dressed quite eccientric and I was teased for it. In a small town it was very hard to be my real self I think and I was conformed into the regular norms of society. It was easier for me because I was very naturally athletic and that is what helped me fit it. ( I really wanted to fit in). Living on a farm and feeling ashamed of the way we lived was lonely. I never had any friends over until I was older.
My mum and dad knew we didn’t have a lot but always thought that experiences was more important than having things and as kids did alot. Whatever money there was, we were involved in violin, piano and dance lessons and school trips. Socially I was always torn between groups. Trying to fit in to the “cool crowd” or to be me. I have always floated between both…. As for my body image, it has always been poor, not sure if it has to do woth my mum who always had issues herself with weight or the social pressure that came up all the time.
My Bulimia really flourished when I was in my second year of University (which I got a full ride to play volleyball). I was throwing up 3 to four times a day, taking laxatives at night and ephedra/caffeine pills during the day to keep up with the practices and full course load. I kept that up for two years and one day realized what I was doing. I was on the internet and looked up my disease. The next day I did the hardest thing I’ve had to do. I went and asked my trainer for help. The worst and best day of my life. I saw a councillor 1 day a week for a year and my bulimia subsided for awhile. I thought I had it under control.
I moved back home after I graduated, dated, met a guy, got married, was going to take over the family farm. it was during my marriage that I started throwing up again. What I realized though is that since I was seventeen I have always used laxatives. I have never stopped and this is just another way of throwing up. Purging whatever deep feelings of self hate that I have going on. I call them my ” inner demons”. I hate that I am so self absorbed, I am really hard on myself, I am a procrastinater, I really don’t know why I am here…
I am now 28, almost 29, happily separated, finished another degree, not taking over the farm ( huge disappoinmet there for my parents) still don’t know what I want to do with my life. I ALWAYS have hope though. I struggle EVERYDAY day with this. It comes down to the minute for me. On the outside I come across as laid back and happy. What is really going? A lot of anxiety (which I didn’t know I had) and complusive tendencies that seem to come out in every aspect of my life. I cannot stick to one thing for very long. I am beginning to accept myself but I am very up and down. I am struggling to stay off of the laxatives because they are so detrimental to my system and am trying not to throw up anymore. SO HARD. I am torn all the time.
My body image is the same, I still do not love myself for me and It seems its my life goal to be happy with me. Stop trying to make everybody else happy. I feel lost a quite a bit of the time and lucky to be alive the next. This is my own Journey to figure out and I beleive that I will get better someday. I now for me it is really beneficial to talk about this disease and have the tools to deal with it everyday.
I am writing this on a good day today because I don’t know what it will be like tommorow. It goes day by day almost minute by minute. I am REALLY tired of this.
I’m currently exercise bulimic and abuse laxatives. I also have depression and will be screened for OCD next week. I’ve never really felt like I’m capable of connecting with people on a deeper level, especially people my own age. I’m not socially retarded, many have actually commented on how easily I can transition between groups and can talk to just about anyone. What these people don’t realize is that all of my relationships are very superficial and that I spend most of my time alone. I started off as an anorexic when I was 14. That quickly progressed to obsessive dieting and I became bulimic by 16. I’m almost 19 now and the bulimia persists. I agree with the intro of this website, there are many benefits to the “bulimic personality”. I graduated valedictorian, received a full ride to a private college and continue to be the top of my classes. This disorder has motivated me to greatly improve my appearance. I used to be overweight, tom-boyish and generally unkempt. Now I dress plainly but well, am at a healthy weight (though not by healthy means…) and have more female friends. I’m also a member of a peer physical training group and have already helped a student lose 10 pounds by teaching him about nutrition and introducing him to weight lifting and cardio. I started college two months ago and going into it I was very optimistic. Like a fresh start. I thought I had control of my bulimia. I was satisfied with my weight, appearance and wardrobe and knew I was going to kick some academic ass. In reality, my bulimia is actually worse now then when I started therapy two years ago, I quickly gained 12 pounds due to binging episodes despite my purging efforts, I feel lonely, depressed, cry most nights (and days), wasn’t asked by ANYBODY to homecoming and feel hopeless when faced with the idea of having to live through even one more day like this.
I am no longer open with my family about my problems. I feel like my pain is an insult to all the hard work and love and money they’ve invested in me. My mother gets frustrated. She says as intelligent as I am I should just get a grip and stop it. She won’t let me come home until I’m able to successfully function in college. My step mom tells me to stay away and not talk to my dad about it. My dad cries. I’ve learned it’s just easier to tell people I’m fine if anybody asks. That they’ll like me more.
I was in the process of attempting suicide 2 years ago. My phone fell out of my pocket with a picture of my dog as a screen saver. I started crying because I felt selfish for not considering what would happen to her if I died. My mother was not physically capable of caring for her at the time and didn’t want to. Mom would say how much she hated my dog and would put her up for adoption in a heart beat. Thinking of my dog, I climbed down from the bridge and walked a couple of blocks to a hospital where I was enrolled in an eating disorder and depression program.
I’m just short of 6 feet tall and my weight has gone between 135 to 170 pounds since I’ve had an eating disorder, I’m currently 160. Next week I’m going to have a psychiatric analysis done by a doctor that only deals with eating disorders, hopefully she’ll be able to put me on a more effective medication and help me recover quicker.
Many people don’t know I have a problem. I lie a lot and avoid getting close to people. I spend most of my free time working out anyway, though you can’t tell by looking at me. I’ve ran as much as 32 miles in one day and usually exercise between 3-6 hours after a binge and take 3-8 ducolax tablets. I’ve still gained weight recently though. My mood swings are fairly extreme. Many people on campus consider me “up beat” when I’m not in work mode. I guess that deception is just a part of the disorder. Mom has told me that it is terrifying how well and quickly I can come up with lies, that I’d be a great politician.
I would like to feel “normal”. I don’t think being 160 pounds would bother me as much as it does now if I felt like I was in control of my diet instead of the way I eat now. I know plenty of beautiful women larger than me. But I have a difficult time relaxing. I actually get nervous when given free time. I dwell on what I should be doing. My therapist says this is because of the way I’ve been raised. Everyone in my family has multiple jobs or one intensive career. My dad has 3 jobs and Mom has 2 and is a part time college student. I feel most at ease when I do work around the house with my dad or am getting something accomplished. I’ve come to base my self worth on what I can do instead of who I am. I feel like I need to justify my existence by doing all that I am capable of. That when I’m not living up to my potential I am wasting what life I have been given and thus don’t deserve it.
I sometimes think of suicide again, especially when I think about how there are days beyond the one I’m living now. When thinking that this is what my life could possibly be like for another 60 years. Dad says he’s not happy either, but he just gets up and tries to reset his mind everyday. I don’t want to live like that, especially at 18. It’s also hard to keep “getting up” when I know I’m probably going to get “knocked down” again. The hardest part for me though is knowing that it’s me that is causing myself to feel like this. It would be easier if my enemy was one that was external.
I’m sorry for the lengthy, choppy, and unorganized nature of this story, but I just sat down and typed whatever came to mind on the topic. I can’t say what it is I expect to gain from this forum and what it is I actually want from telling my story. Maybe talking to some other girls and women with bulimia would help me feel more connected to other people, I’m not sure. Thank you for reading this though.
Hi girls. I am suffering in the trap of bulimia for a second time in my life. Tho the nature of this disorder could be called many different ways..is it a punishment from the devil or a gift from the God…? 8 years ago I have realised that this is simply a lesson of life. It is difficult, no doubt, but after realising and solving it you become wiser and the most improtant happier. Going back 8 years ago, I could not think of such a bad experience in my life, but still would not prefer this thing to have skipped my life, coz Bulimia has changed me, has teach me so many things, has helped me create such qualoties in my personality that would help me send her away, coz once u have learned ur lessons u dont need the teacher anymore. And to tell you the truth… after what i have suffered during those 2 years of bulimia , I have never felt happier afterwards. Now 8 years after, I am seeing my teacher again…it is still difficuly to learn my lesson, but now I know it is a step for a change, a bad thing that will take you to a better place if you manage to take it and go on. Now I know it is worth it!But u have to believe it as well. We could learn this lesson together. Now im in recovery state, it is so damn difficult, but believe me LIFE is Worth living! I will paste u here something i have wrote, during my previouse recovery, just sharing my thoughts on a paper.
Ash to ash,
one more mood to crash…
Breaking the eternity,
loosing the mentality…
Crying for a strenght,
looking for the death…
Reaching the prefection,
missing the main correction..
Just donnot give up, and remember what is improstant in life! And we could be happier than any other person who did not have this lesson. Appreciate it n go over it! I hope I could do it again, coz It is worth it! I know!
Love you girls! Be strong!
I was very heavy as a child up through my junior year of high school, I guess the summer before my senior year I had final got the mind set to loose the weight (then 6′0″ 280lbs) and it came off fast I did the healthy approach eatting right exercising regularly, I cried when I got under 200. I had lost +80lb in about a year, compliments at school from family I loved it, but it was never enough. I started to get unhealthy in my habits, becoming obsessive with the scale and my daily calorie intakes which had dipped to about 500-800 cal a day, I was pale and weak but I was happy with my body. I didnt know what a fragile state I was in. at about 180lb I had met my first BF who for lack of better words had @#$%’ed my life up royally in 2 short months. at my 168lb mark he was carted off to jail and I found the rug pulled out from under me, I started over eatting, binging on everything not caring, making excuses, I QUICKLY put on about 20lb when I realized I could eat whatever I want and just purge it all away, what a great trick i thought (isnt that what we all thought) I went into a downward spiral into the oblivion of binging purging binging purging binging purging all day every day. My face was swollen, my eyes were blood shot, i cut so many relationship ties just so I could be alone with my symptoms, I make excuses, I faked smiles I looked so hard to find the processed happiness, the high or more of the numbness that came with binging and purging. I finally ended up leaving school early and entering a rehab program. I stayed for 14 days, I thought it was focused more on anorexics it helped, but temptation proved to much and I was thrown back into symptoms. its been almost year 1/2 since then, I weigh about 220 right now. I have good days, I have bad days, I have terrible days. But im learning to take it one day at a time, one hour at a time, one moment at a time. My family and supportive friends have helped but I draw from inner strength and not getting to down on myself when I slip. I eat healthy and im not afriad to give myself a taste of “bad food” now and then. I have started regain passion in the things I love, that make me truly happy. Things that I had turned away. I leave myself reminders every where to stay strong or as my bf says BE GOOD (I write that on my palm). I have learned to accept that not everyone understands or will be sensitive to my disorder. I have learned to keep myself busy and stay out of my head when I get down about something. I have learned to eat healthy and not let myself get hungry. I have learned that I will make mistakes, I have learned that it wont happen over night. But most of all I have learned that I am an amazing person, who deserves the chance to make this world a better place with my dreams and aspirations. I have learned that I AM NOT MY DISORDER
im not trying to make a joke out of this. but i could unfortunately tell my bulimia story in about 5-10 sentences. it all started with me wanting to go on a diet when i was 13, so that i did. i started restricting within weeks and became underweight (which i loved.) i discovered bulimia and have been known as that ever since. i eventually started cutting until others found out. I went to a “top doctor,” or so they call themselves, by coincidence (he was one of the only eating disorder specialists near me in philadelphia.) I was forced into inpatient treatment because my blood levels were so low. im now 19 years old and still struggle something fierce. bottom line, bulimia is your life. oh yeah.. did i mention.. I’m a nurse too! it can happen to anybody so please don’t stereotype.
The question of where to begin the story of developing an eating disorder seems nearly impossible to answer. It seems that a life time of chances and choices and events and occurrences somehow end up tipping a scale that blindly pushes you into a place in which nothing makes sense. In the midst of your secret eating-disordered world, it’s so easy to lose perspective on things in life. And in being isolated with your issues, it’s so easy to blame everything on yourself and just believe like you’re the worst person in the world. But it’s so very far from the truth.
There are so many things that factor into the development and the sustenance of an eating disorder, and left to your own devices, I think it is insanely difficult (if not impossible) to figure out without any help. What I’ve learned from this whole ordeal, and indeed am still learning, is that an eating disorder is a very human phenomenon – and we are all human. So many of us place so little value on ourselves, and yet expect and accept only perfect performance in return.
Recovering from an eating disorder requires a real openness to the nature of your true self, and a willingness to understand and accept whatever that may be. It is truly a journey into yourself, and once judgment has been set aside it is remarkable how much you will discover along this path.
Of course – easier said than done. But I would encourage people to try and listen to what their eating disorders are telling them once in a while. Nothing comes from nothing – and the sooner we start to listen to what our bodies are so dramatically trying to tell us, the sooner we will be able to start responding to these cries in healthier ways.
This all sounds very vague and obscure I’m sure.. but such is the place where I am in right now. In the time I’ve taken off school, I’ve started a blog – often about recovery, but also just all the emotional stuff that comes with it. I’ll post a link in case anyone who happens upon this is interested: http://trivialadversity.blogspot.com/
I went to see a phyciatrist the other day, I’ve been waiting a long time to see her, she comes from Vancouver and quite a process to get in to see her. Anyways, when I got in to see her, she asked me what she could do for me. Well, I’ve been though this process many times so I proceeded to be open and honest with her. She would ask me questions and I would answer them, some of them were very hard to answer but I was honest. I am not shy to speek about my eating disorder with people that I think may be able to help me, I’m tired of having this damn thing!!!. Well, at the end of it all, I had cried for about an hour, felt drained and all the Dr. could say was ” Do you always talk this much or are you just anxious today? ” I was taken aback, she didn’t even say it very nice. Then she asked me if I had ever been diagnosed with ADHD?. That was a slap in the face. Then offered to put me on medication. I said that I’d think about it and left, very upset and drained right out. I’ve had it with the doctors in this place, and there are no kind of groups in this town so I’ve realized that I have to do this on my own.
“I have let things slip [...] / Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address” – Sylvia Plath, “Tulips”
I am well aware that, by the time you finish reading this, you may not think that I am a good person. In fact, I am well aware that you may dislike me a little, and I want so desperately to be liked, to be perceived as someone who is together, as someone who is well, just about perfect. The truth is ugly. This truth is something like this: most nights, you will find me bent over the bathtub (no more cleaning up around the toilet rim should I miss my target), my head in a bucket. When I am done, I pour the contents of the bucket into the toilet, flush, rinse the bathtub. Actions framed within a stream of silent promises that this is he last time, that tomorrow things will be different. I’ve become adept at covering my tracks, I’ve become an adept liar.
“Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage” – “Tulips”
Who’s to blame? To what pivotal moment can I tie the beginning of this self immolation? Do I blame my ex-boyfriend, who approached his own diet and exercise with military-like self control (”I am going to eat two cookies”, “You’re eating ANOTHER nanimo bar?!”)? Or the ex before who, while 12 years my elder with the body of an old potato, dragged me to the gym each morning and criticized the sodium content of my soup while munching on his second smoky? Do I blame my emotionally venomous sister who, as it turned out was addicted to crystal meth by the time I was 14? Or my left-brain, scientific parents who failed to understand their right-brain empathetic, artistic daughter, and who could only push her to continue to get even higher GPAs and more academic awards?
“I am a nun now, I have never been so pure” – “Tulips”
No. The truth is, this is something that has lived inside of me, emerging in different forms throughout my life. When I was six, I began writing suicide notes out of desperation, by elementary school I had a reputation for being “sensitive” and cried myself to sleep at night, afraid that people would look into my soul and see what a horrible person I was (now, pulsating over the bathtub, I imagine that I am cleansing myself, that when I am finished, I will be cleaned “out”.)
“Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks” – “Tulips”
Don’t get me wrong. My family, while possessing a habit for saying the wrong thing at pivotal moments (and who’s family doesn’t?) is a great family, and I count myself extremely lucky. I am loved, but am also driven by my craving for their approval, my anxiety over failing to meet their expectations, of failing to meet my own.
“And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes / Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me” – “Tulips”
And yet I cannot blame my condition, without admitting its contributions to my life. My bulimia is a symptom of my underlying “dis-ease” and anxiety, qualities that have led me to be who I am. It is this constant dissatisfaction that drives me to do better, be better. In going to the gym, I experienced awe at what my body was capable of, going longer, growing harder, pushing my limits. I have found deep reserves of drive, focus and energy in order to “get the job done”. Without it, I would not be the artist that I am. In tangoing with this same creative discomfort, some dancers, musicians, singers and performers smoke, drink alcohol, or take drugs. In my university theatre program, we had a special name for this sensation. We called this “hunger”. This is very apt. When working creatively I AM (I would come home after a late rehearsal, too jazzed up to sleep and raid the cupboards, or stop by Safeway on my way home, convinced the cashier could read my secret across my face).
“I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions” – “Tulips”
Bulimia is a distraction, it robs me of energy, time and money that I could be putting into my relationships and creative endeavors. It is a violation of the contract between my body, my Self and my soul. I long for a sense of peace, of amnesty.
My story begings 25 years ago, I was 15 years old and trying to find my place in world. I will tell you that anorexia and bulimia got a grip on me and has haunted me ever since. It all started because my family moved from a small hick town in Alberta when I was 11 years old, to a fast paced, much more “in tune with the world” community.
I have very old fashioned and strict parents that I learned to be very scared of at an early age. Well, I did not fit into this new community very well, the girls were into fashion and their bodies, and I got teased very badly for being the “farm girl” that no one liked. I let food be my comfort and put on some weight, that has always been easy for me to do. Then my mother, who has always been tiny, height and weight, started to make comments about my weight, so now I was getting it from school and home. Over the next 4 years, things did not change much, at least I wasn’t the new girl any more, but I still was getting teased and still putting on weight.
The summer that I was 15, 2 of my older sisters and I took a trip to visit my oldest sister. while we were there, we all discussed how we wanted to loose some weight, so we made a bet between the 4 of us of $10 dollars each, to see who could loose the most weight by Christmas. Something triggered in me, I decided to loose weight and there was no stopping me, I wanted to win that bet. I cut down my food intake and I seen the weight come off, it was such a good feeling, I realised that the less I ate, the more I would loose, I never considered my health and what my body needed for nutrition, I was thrilled that I was loosing weight. I basically stopped eating and watched the pounds come off, I didn’t care that I had no energy, and that every time I stood up I would get a head rush. I was counting my calories very diligently, I got so obsessive of my calorie intake, that even that stick of Trident gum that only has 3-5 calories was counted into what I ate.
I basically stopped eating. My top weight before this started was really not that bad, 140 pounds. But for a young girl I felt very big compared to my peers. Well, I won that bet with my sisters, I had lost 40 pounds by Christmas and still loosing weight. My family was concerned but I didn’t care, I was so happy to win that $40. I continued to loose weight, I loved that I could fit my hands around my thighs, and that I had bones sticking out everywhere. I felt like I had some sort of supper power and self controll that no one else had. I didn’t care that I looked like crap and I had huge bags under my eyes, I just wanted to stay skinny.
That following summer I got a job at Dairy Queen and the boss didn’t give me much hope, but I guess someone told him to give me a chance, well, I was a farm girl, and new what hard work was, and surprised my boss, he ended up being very glad that he hired me, that felt very good. But unfortunatly, working closely around food became very tough. At first I loved the challenge of being able to say “no” to all that tempting food, but when I’d heard about bulimia, which wasn’t to well known at the time, I gave it a try, I remember well the very first time, It was horrible, but found that it got easier and easier. And in the end, this became my new way to keep the weight off, people would comment on how I could eat so much and still stay so skinny, I loved this part, but was very good at hiding it from my family, because they knew that this was not my case. But eventually, I could not keep it from them as well, my mom was the most worried, and I would have fights with her, I didn’t want to deal with my “problems”, I was so scared that if I changed things now, I would gain weight, and that was a huge problem for me. So as soon as I could, I moved away from home, to the big city, where I really just got lost in the big world, my problems just got worse, the money I made paid for my bills and the food that I consumed, I got very thrifty at buying lots of food for the least amount possible. I didn’t have many friends, I think I liked it that way because no one bugged me, my food was my friend.
I eventually got a room mate, financially I had to, and I guess she suspected things about me and actually spoke with my mom. I was 18 years old and my mom confronted me, I finally admitted to have lost my controll with food and agreed to go see a doctor. Well, my mom had already been in touch with a doctor and had made an apointment that day, I was so surprised, but I agreed to go. The doctor was actually in the phyc ward in Saint Pauls Hospital in Vancouver where they had a program for eating disorders. I remember that day very well, I went in to that apt. that day, broke down infront of the doctor, when he seen how thin I was, I had dropped below 100 pounds and I was 5′7″, they told me that my life was at stake and that I had 30 minuted to go home and get my stuff and I was going to be admitted into the hospital for 6 weeks. I was floored, my life changed instantly that day, my mom had to move all my stuff out of my apartment, and I went to figure my life out in the hospital for 6 weeks. I will say that the program was very help full, I learned how to eat again, and we did things to help us cope with our issues, we even wrote an auto biography, that actually helped us figure out where our problems stemmed from. They put me on some anti anxiety medicine in the hospital plus and anti depressant, for the six weeks that I was there, then they released me on my way, to figure things out on my own.
They did not suggest any kind of follow up, and didn’t advise me to see a doctor about the medication they had given me, I’m surprised they didn’t advise me to continue, I just left. Well I thought I was all better, but I was not.
I was still addicted to food, I stayed away from the bulimia for a while, but it eventually came back. Over the years, I became very good at hiding it from every one, including my family. I didn’t want any one to know. I met my husband in 1992, and managed to hide it from him for 13 years, when I finally decided that I really wanted to do something about the problem that had become so frustrating because it was this horrible thorn in my side that I just could not pull out. When I told him, I had already signed up for a support group, which was very hard to find in the small town I live in, he was very shocked and really could not understand any of it, but said he was there to support me. Well, the support group was good, but did not help my problem. 2 years ago, I came home from work one day, and for the first time ever in my life, had 2 grand mal seizures right in front of my daughter and husband, I ended up in the hospital for about a week, where I admitted that my bulimia had not gone away, my husband was a little mad, but agreed to help me. Then a month later, I was getting an EEG at the hospital to test the brain waves in my head, I had 2 more grand mal seizures right there on the hospital bed, they were doing the “strobe light” test when they happened. I was in the hospital again for another week. They concluded that I now have epilepsy due to the length of time that I have had bulimia. The bulimia caused my brain to have some short circuits that are now permenant.
The sad thing about all of this is that I still can’t seem to stop the bulimia, I feel so sad all the time and I have tried a couple of different anti depressants that really don’t seem to help. I’m sorry that my story is so long, but it is the only way to tell it. I have struggled with bulimia for a long time and would really like to find a solution.
April 9th, 2010 - 4:26 PM
I hope everyone has had more good days than bad lately. I know everyday is a struggle, but eat wise and “keep” the day.
I’ll try if you do.
April 1st, 2010 - 5:28 PM
Ok, this might take a while, I am going to get a glass of water…
Well I think a lot of my problems can be rooted back to when I was 4 years old (12 years ago now). My dad had just got a new job earning about £75,000 a year, and me, my mum, dad, older brother and sister moved away from our lovely old little house into this really big house that had just been built. We had a massive garden with swings and a slide, and I had my own bedroom, which despite being the smallest room in the house could still fit a king size bed (not that I had one, that space was filled with dolls).
I know now looking back how lucky I was, but then I absolutly hated it, the change scared me a lot, for months after moving in are road was still a massive construction site because it was brand new. I used to spend the days sitting outside our house, with a stick and play with this one puddle on the road for hours.
It was during this time that I developed epilepsy, my first memory is factually the night that I had that first seizure. I was sleeping and dreaming about an ostridge in a bow tie and dinner jaket playing a gand piano, and there was a hippo in a little pink toto dancing ballet. Then in the dream the floor started to shake and I thought it was just the hippo being to heavy footed. But then I woke up and I was sitting in this big dark bedroom with china dolls staring at me. I was shaking like mad, and it would not stop, I thought I was going to die. So I just remember thinking I have to get someone to help me, and I tried to call out for my mum but I could not, I couldn’t breath. It was lucky that my older brother had stayed up that night playing on his games, so he woke my parents.
The last thing I remember was my mum screaming, “Oh my god someone call an ambulance”, then I lost conciousness. Apparently I was not breathing for about 5 minutes while I had the seizure, my face had gone completely purple at one point. Then I remember sitting on my parents bed where the ambulence peopl had carried me with this oxygen mask over my face. It was horrifying, I thought I was dead and I still remember it as clear as as ever.
Over the following months there were various hospital visits having all sorts of tests and checks done, finally after they had spent hour examining me like some lab rat they concluded that I had a rare form of epilepsy, and proceeded to put me on medication. I remember walking down a really long hall way that just seemed to go on forever to collect these pills, then just waiting with a lot of older people, I don’t remember seeing another child there. Little did I know then how much trouble a tiny little bead of chemicals could cause.
The first medication was a nightmare, I basically went from being a healthy 4 year your old, to an obese 5 year old in the space of about a month. This pill had side effects of severe weight gain and insomnia. So my school performance really started to get bad, I went from being top of my class to needing special help. on top of all this I was getting beaten up for being fat. But the doctor refused to believe it was the pills that were causing, according to him my mum had just suddenly decided to start stuffing me full of junk food which was complete and utter rubbish, I was the kind of kid who loved fruit and veg, I hated meat and really sweet stuff.
Then finally after basically accusing my mum of neglect, when I was 6 he finally decided to change my medication. But this one was not much better, it still caused all the other problems, but I also started to halucinate, to this day I could sware there was a pink elephant with purple spots in my kitchen. So the doc took me off them quick.
Then medicine number three, now I cannot be sure if this was down to the pills or the bullying, but when I was on these I get extremely depressed, (I was only 6/7). My mum said I was a completely different child, not the one she knew, I could not laugh, I began to hate myself. I would look in the mirror and cry.
The I stated medicine number four when I was 7, it caused insomnia, but I decided just having that one side effect, I could live with. Untill I was 9, when I simply knew I could not take it any more, I begged my doctor to stop prescribing the pills but when he would not, I just started hiding them, I would pretend that I took them, then berry them in the garden. Until my mum finally found out and the doctor agreed to stop prescibing them.
By this point I was nearly 10, morbidly obese, in a special needs class, had no friends, was being beaten up at school and depressed, those little pills had seriously screwed up a healthy, happy little girl…
Plus during that six years of my life I had also been regularly sexually abused, but I still find it hard to think about that.
Also my brother had been diagnosed with aspergise syndrome, and he was very violent, so he used to beat me and my mum up. I remember siting up in my bedroom curled up on the floor quietly singing to myself, trying to block out the sound of my mum crying while my brother hurt her. Then he would hurt me, I was completely covered in bruises all the time. Once he locked me and my mum in the kitchen, threaterning us with a knife, he was only 10 and I was 5. My dad was always at work.
Then when I was 10, my parents went through quite a messy divorce and I was always the one stuck in the middle of the fights just begging them to stop but never being heard. I remember the first time I saw my dad, who always seemed so strong break down on the floor in a flood of tears while my mum stormed up stairs, and I just sat down next to him and held him, I never wanted to let go (Oh gosh now I am crying). I was always closest to my dad, he would take my over this massive feild at the back of our house to search for fossils, there were thousands of them over there. We would spend hours just running around, always finding new things.
But my dad got really depressed, lost his high paid job and had to move in with my grandparents while he was selling the big house. He and my brother moved to a small house about half an hours drive away, while me my mum and my sister moved in to a small house that I have never liked. I have always been quite frightened of it.
Plus my mum had to get a job, so she was working really long hours for not very good pay and I basically had to learn how to cook my own dinners, and tuck myself into bed at night.
This is when I started secondary school and I was 11. For the first three years of secondary school I had no friends, although I did nto get beaten up physically anymore, the verbal abuse never stopped, I hated school. I was the fat ugly stupid girl who needed a special helper in class who absolutly stank of a cats littebox. I was the weird lowner kid who sat on her own at lunch time eating her cheese and pickle sandwich (or more like pickly sandwich becuase I hate cheese). I put up with it for the first year, just accepting that I would not make friends just overnight.
Then in the second year I put up with it, but my depression was getting worse, I would walk home from school and just watch the cars pass by on the road, just wanting so desperatly to jump out in front of one. I started to turn to food for compfort, I would eat and eat and eat. So I piled on the pounds after losing quite a few from coming off the medication.
Then in year nine, I was 13, and I started to look in the mirror a lot more often I despised what I saw it was gotesque, completely vial. So I started to place a lot of restictions on when I could eat, I cut out lunch first, then breakfast, basically I would just cram in lots of food in one hour of the day when I was allowed to eat, the rest of the time I would just have water, I could not bare to even touch food. But just for this one hour I would eat, it started off not really being that much, but as time went past, and weeks turned to months I would eat more and more in this short space of time.
But the weirdest thing happened around this time, when I was in year nine at school doing my sats, despite being in special help classes I actually ended up getting some of the highest levels in my year for maths and english, in the english writing section, I was one of only 3 people in my year to get a level 7, and the other two were in top set.
Then when I was 14, I attempted sucicide by overdose, honestly I don’t know if I took enough to ever kill me, but when I had taken them all, I started to go online. The I just completely lost it I freaked out, I could not let my mum have to go through the pain of comign home and finding me dead. So for the very first time, I shoved my fingers down my throat and I thew up, every little bit I could, and I just got this warm feeling inside. Despite the crippling pain in my stomach, the pounding head and the vial tast of those pills in my mouth, I felt good, for the first time in years. So if I could do this with pills, why not other stuff? I started doing it, just once a day after my hour of stuffing my face with food.
This lasted till my 15th birthday by which time I had lost some weight but not much. Me and some friends went shopping, and all my friends are thin. I hated seeing them trying on all these beautiful dresses for my birthday, while I would just stand back and watch.
Then a few days later I went to the doctor because I had not had my period in a while, and without doing any tests she just said straight away that I have policistic ovary syndrome, and that I should lose weight by eating 1200 calories a day, and start jogging for 3 hours a day everyday. So for the first week I did what she said and I lost 6 pounds. But then the weather got really bad and I could not do the exercise anymore, so the weight loss just kind of stopped for then, I went back to purging. Untill a few weeks later when I was walking home from school and these boys who had always picked on me decided to throw their drinks over me while calling me a fat ugly pig and poking me with a stick. So I turned round and chased them with my school bag, I just wanted to bash them over the heads. The literally in just that moment something changed in my head, I literally froze, then I put my school bag back over my shoulder, put my head down and just walked home, ignoring everything on the way. All I could think about was food, and not eating it. So I went home that evening and forthe first time I just did not eat I could not even bare to go near the kitchen. Over the next few day I had to really try and ajust because I knew I had to eat or at least drink some water soon.
So I just started to manage a single low fat rice cake for breakfast in the morning, just taking sips of water every now and again.
I wanted to eat, I really did I simply couldnt do it anymore, when I looked at food all I saw was a massive file of fat, salt and sugar, it was vile. Finally after a couple of weeks I managed to get myself eating an apple after school. I had already lost a lot of weight, I was feeling really weak, tired and always freezing cold. It went on pretty much like this for the next 5 months, slowly trying to reintroduce myself to food again. By april 2009, I had learned the calorie content of practically everything, after spending hours walking eound supermarkets. Plus I had managed to get myself eating 70g of banana for breakfast, 50g of apple for after school, 10g of seeds as a snack and dinner would be no more than 150 calories. I had lost about 70lb’s and was in a healthy weight catagory for the first time since I was 4. The weight loss started out fast but after a few months my metabolism must have been completely messed up so it slowed down. But I was not really that depressed in this time, although I was very cold and weak, I must have seemed quite happy. But my face was pale, my hair was falling out, my periods had stopped again, my skin was dry, plus my hands and feet would turn blue.
At the Beginging of March I decided I was going to become Vegan, since animal products scared me more than anything, so I just completely cut them out. Plus it is usful to explain why I am not eating.
Then at the begining of April, me, my heavily pregnant 22 year old sister and her bofriend went on holiday to Paris. I had to share a hotel room with my mum, so she knew literally every single little thing I ate and of course by this time she was already starting to see through my lies. So under her prying eyes, I knew I had to eat more than I had been previously, I hated it. Being in a foreign country and eating in restaurant where I could not know how many calories, how many grams of fat, salt and sugar was in the food. Plus being france, barely anythgn was vegan, so i did end up having to eat a lot of carbs. I got really swollen, all in my feet, legs and abdomen esspecially. First my heart rate went really high, but by the end of the holiday it was down to about 45 beats per minute. I was delerious sometimes, and had absolutly no energy. I started to forget everything and get really clumsy. Plus I had horrible headached, pains in my stomach, constant diahorria, and I always felt nausious.
Since then I have tried to find out what happened, and I suspect I may have developed refeeding syndrome, though I do not like to self diagnose. I still have all of those problems now though after over a year. I am still quite swollen, I still have a really low heart rate, I still get the headaches, stomach pains, dioahrea, nausia and confusion. Plus I black out frequently now.
But going on, for about a month after I had that holiday, I would try really hard to restrict like I was, but I found it just physically impossible, and if I did manage to get below 800 calories a day, the next morning I would wake up in agony unable to move at all. It was so scary. Then I started having problems with my epilepsy again which I had not had in years. I sometimes go through these strange episodes where I must look like a zombie but I just cut every sense off from the outside world my only goal is to die.
So within a month after returning home I started binge purging again, only this time more than ever before, I mean I would vomit till I collapsed, 10 somtimes 15 times a day. The I was on the laxatives for a while. Then I tried several diffferent diet pills. But vomiting was my thing. Not long before I could do it without fingers.
I got extremely depressed, attempted suicide again, started having panic attacks more than once a day. Honestly I don’t know how I lived through that and still managed to get through my GCSE’s with some of the best grades in my year.
But since the beginning of 2010, I have felt on the verge of death at every single moment, my heart feels weak, I have lost a lot of muscle, and I have gained quite a bit of weight back becuase I phycially cannot do it anymore. Now i go to bed every night wondering if I will wake up the next morning. I have nightmares every night. I hear the sound of a person vomiting everywhere I go, it is stuck in my head.
So when I went to visit my doctor about another problem, I completely broke down. Now I will get help soon, I just hope it is not to late.
Oh wow… Ok I am really sorry, had no idea that would be so long, it was amazing just actually writing that all down. It is not 2:30am. Time for bed.
.
Thank you for actually reading this much without dying of boredom already
March 26th, 2010 - 4:50 PM
I don’t know where to start. The beginning was so long ago. As a teen, I always had topsy turvey weight issues. The comments about “puppy fat” got to me a lot, but I was a messed up teen, I had abuse issues, and bulimia together with other forms of self harm was a way of taking back control. I went down quite dramatically in weight in a short space of time and had a few “skinny” years. When I got happier… I started to eat like a normal person, and I put on weight. For years I have not purged, nor starved myself. In the past month, old demons have returned to haunt me, and I have gotten worse than I ever was years ago.
I stopped eating and now… every time I eat, no matter how little, I feel guilty. I *have* to make myself sick, even after consuming the tiniest portion. Before, it was always a very private thing – locked in the bathroom, the water running, noone home. Now I live by myself and I don’t have to worry about people hearing. But I’ve even started to make myself sick at work, or in restaurants. Tonight for the first time in 2 weeks I was forced to eat solid food. I think tonight I ate more than I’ve eaten in two weeks. I was at a work meal, which I was terrified to go to, because I knew I’d have to eat, or answer awkward questions. I never had the opportunity to purge in the restaurant but all I could think of was coming home to be sick. It’s become an obsession. As soon as I got home, I was in the bathroom, forcing anything I could out of my stomach – it still doesn’t feel like enough, I feel so guilty for having food in my stomach, but no more will come up, and I’m in pieces. I broke down in tears because I know that this is not right. I don’t want to be like this but I can’t seem to stop anymore. I’m scared of all kinds of food. At first I thought – it’s ok, you can eat soup, drink milk, stick to liquids. But even those I feel the need to sick up.
I guess when I was in recovery, I had people in my life, who kept telling me, I was beautiful just as I am. I didn’t need to change. This last year my on/off relationship with a guy has made me feel so inadequate. He constantly made hurtful comments – not even intentionally. It just seemed like things would come out of his mouth without him thinking about it. Always about how I’d look better thinner, every time I saw him… something was said. And now my confidence which I spent so long trying to build up has crashed and burned. It’s amazing how fragile I really am and I hate myself for that. I want to be able to stand up and say “this is me, and has been since you met me – if you didn’t like it you shouldn’t have started this”. But I can’t, because i look in the mirror and now it’s become less about his perception of me, and more about my own self-perception. And it’s horrific. I hate what I see in the mirror and I can’t even walk down the street without comparing myself to other girls and feeling somehow less. I think… do they do this to themselves? Do they count every single calorie? Do they feel such huge guilt after consuming the tiniest amount of food? Or are they just one of the lucky “naturally skinny” girls. I guess maybe it started when I was a child – as an abuse victim, my self-esteem was shot to hell anyway. But I took after my father and my mother was the perfect bodied prom-queen type. I always felt less. She could eat the entire contents of the Nestle chocolate factory and never put on a single pound. I just needed to look at the stuff to gain weight. People keep telling me – I need food on a regular basis to live. And the sad thing is, I don’t even care anymore. I try to keep my fluid intake up. Water and juice is about the only thing I can consume without making myself sick at all. I try to eat a piece of fruit before I leave the house, or before bed, and force myself not to be sick, just so I have *something* inside of me to digest that my stomach will process before I find a bathroom.
It’s only been a few weeks since I started doing this again, after years. But it’s like I’ve slid right to the bottom of the slippery slope and I don’t even *want* to stop anymore.
March 24th, 2010 - 4:13 PM
I’m relieved that I’m not the only one out there who struggles with an ED. I had a friend come in from my hometown in CA and she expressed how common it is out there. Incredibly common– so much so that it’s not considered an eating disorder at all among peers. It’s merely a backup diet.
Here in the midwest it’s taboo, and something to be greatly ashamed of.
If any of you are like me, you see your binges/purges fluctuate in cycles. You can go a week or two eating properly and exercising, everything seems balanced. I just completed a triple crown of foot races during which I felt relatively normal. Back to reality. Back to the ED. It’s so difficult to shake. My medications stabilize my mood greatly, but it has no effect on my body image.
It seems as though being thin comes so easily to my peers! I don’t understand how I can put on weight so easily, under normal portion standards. There’s always someone who looks better than you, someone you want to look like, some look you’re going for. Vanity is inescapable in our culture.
I love that Spain is banning diet pill advertisements and putting strict limitations on unrealistic body images in television commercials. I think the States ought to adopt similar strategies to demonstrate a new standard of health. Look at the beauty standards of the 1900s. All this “waif” culture started in the 1920s, thin was a form of rebellion from traditional female stereotypes. The flappers drank during prohibition, danced promiscuously and flaunted the androgonous physique.
The suffrage movement defined the decade, recent generations have taken it to a new unrealistic expectation. Anorexia and bulimia are relatively new disorders. We are caught up in the rip tide of modern aesthetics and all we can do is hold out head up above water and swim parallel to the shore, whatever weight that might be.
March 5th, 2010 - 12:41 PM
Crystie – I was both sad and touched by the honesty and the fear I felt in your story. I definitely know exactly how it feels to be in the back seat while your eating disorder drives you closer and closer to the edge of something you’re not sure you’ll survive falling off of. It’s terrifying. Really, really terrifying. That’s the point of my eating disorder where I spoke to my doctor, and immediately started getting involved in treatment of various types. Nothing about it is easy – but telling medical, professional people who regularly deal with patients with serious eating disorders helps. Even though you have to do all the hard work yourself, having someone else acknowledge how out of whack your routine is, while at the same time letting you know it’s a real and not-uncommon medical condition is extremely helpful.
That being said, it’s still hard. I’ve been getting help for about a year now, and I still have times where I feel as entirely out-of-control as it sounds like you do. So you are not the only one. You are most definitely not at all the only one who feels any of the things that you are feeling right now. And I know that it sucks on a level beyond what words can convey – so I definitely feel for you. But I also believe that it’s beatable – so hang in there.
March 4th, 2010 - 6:12 PM
I’ve nurtured my ED for five years now. As a former fat (I mean 245 down to 155 fat) girl my self image, I fear, is irreparable. I’m told how good looking I am regularly–no effect.
I’m a runner but it’s hard to stick to it when my knees ache and my flesh (over my back, stomach, arms, shoulders) is tender. I have a 5K the day after tomorrow and I haven’t trained all week because of fear–both for the challenge of the run and the fear of harming my body. I’m terrified that I’ll drop like Terri Schiavo. The ED is driving the car on a narrow canyon road and I’m in the back seat looking over the edge.
My boyfriend knows about it, its nearly impossible to hide when you live together. When he comes home from work or class he asks “did you have a rough night?” Of course I did, I can rarely be trusted to be alone. My ED exacerbates his bad drinking habits. A vice for a vice.
When we eat out with his parents he knows we have to get home right away so I can “take care of it.” Sometimes I cry when they even ask because I know I won’t be able to resist a free meal.
Right now I’m weak and my glands are swollen from a binge/purge session.
I don’t know what normal is anymore. I’m totally out of touch and feel uncomfortable with “keeping” most everything save lean meat and vegetables.
Am I the only one who feels this unbalanced? Am I the only one who is socially anxious because of weight issues? Am I the only one who can’t keep female companions? There’s no way.
Someone say something. Anything.
January 26th, 2010 - 11:24 AM
It’s really good to hear everybody’s stories. I am not really sure where my bulimia started. I am always analyzing what moment or moments triggered my bulimia. I know for sure I started throwing up at age 17 when I worked at Dairy Queen. It all started with ice cream. Really easy to throw up. I never and have never had to use fingers to help me throw up, I could just “heave” and I would throw up.
I am a farm girl, youngest of five kids and was teased when I was little up to teenage years for being on welfare because our family did not have a lot of money. I dressed quite eccientric and I was teased for it. In a small town it was very hard to be my real self I think and I was conformed into the regular norms of society. It was easier for me because I was very naturally athletic and that is what helped me fit it. ( I really wanted to fit in). Living on a farm and feeling ashamed of the way we lived was lonely. I never had any friends over until I was older.
My mum and dad knew we didn’t have a lot but always thought that experiences was more important than having things and as kids did alot. Whatever money there was, we were involved in violin, piano and dance lessons and school trips. Socially I was always torn between groups. Trying to fit in to the “cool crowd” or to be me. I have always floated between both…. As for my body image, it has always been poor, not sure if it has to do woth my mum who always had issues herself with weight or the social pressure that came up all the time.
My Bulimia really flourished when I was in my second year of University (which I got a full ride to play volleyball). I was throwing up 3 to four times a day, taking laxatives at night and ephedra/caffeine pills during the day to keep up with the practices and full course load. I kept that up for two years and one day realized what I was doing. I was on the internet and looked up my disease. The next day I did the hardest thing I’ve had to do. I went and asked my trainer for help. The worst and best day of my life. I saw a councillor 1 day a week for a year and my bulimia subsided for awhile. I thought I had it under control.
I moved back home after I graduated, dated, met a guy, got married, was going to take over the family farm. it was during my marriage that I started throwing up again. What I realized though is that since I was seventeen I have always used laxatives. I have never stopped and this is just another way of throwing up. Purging whatever deep feelings of self hate that I have going on. I call them my ” inner demons”. I hate that I am so self absorbed, I am really hard on myself, I am a procrastinater, I really don’t know why I am here…
I am now 28, almost 29, happily separated, finished another degree, not taking over the farm ( huge disappoinmet there for my parents) still don’t know what I want to do with my life. I ALWAYS have hope though. I struggle EVERYDAY day with this. It comes down to the minute for me. On the outside I come across as laid back and happy. What is really going? A lot of anxiety (which I didn’t know I had) and complusive tendencies that seem to come out in every aspect of my life. I cannot stick to one thing for very long. I am beginning to accept myself but I am very up and down. I am struggling to stay off of the laxatives because they are so detrimental to my system and am trying not to throw up anymore. SO HARD. I am torn all the time.
My body image is the same, I still do not love myself for me and It seems its my life goal to be happy with me. Stop trying to make everybody else happy. I feel lost a quite a bit of the time and lucky to be alive the next. This is my own Journey to figure out and I beleive that I will get better someday. I now for me it is really beneficial to talk about this disease and have the tools to deal with it everyday.
I am writing this on a good day today because I don’t know what it will be like tommorow. It goes day by day almost minute by minute. I am REALLY tired of this.
October 13th, 2009 - 7:35 PM
I’m currently exercise bulimic and abuse laxatives. I also have depression and will be screened for OCD next week. I’ve never really felt like I’m capable of connecting with people on a deeper level, especially people my own age. I’m not socially retarded, many have actually commented on how easily I can transition between groups and can talk to just about anyone. What these people don’t realize is that all of my relationships are very superficial and that I spend most of my time alone. I started off as an anorexic when I was 14. That quickly progressed to obsessive dieting and I became bulimic by 16. I’m almost 19 now and the bulimia persists. I agree with the intro of this website, there are many benefits to the “bulimic personality”. I graduated valedictorian, received a full ride to a private college and continue to be the top of my classes. This disorder has motivated me to greatly improve my appearance. I used to be overweight, tom-boyish and generally unkempt. Now I dress plainly but well, am at a healthy weight (though not by healthy means…) and have more female friends. I’m also a member of a peer physical training group and have already helped a student lose 10 pounds by teaching him about nutrition and introducing him to weight lifting and cardio. I started college two months ago and going into it I was very optimistic. Like a fresh start. I thought I had control of my bulimia. I was satisfied with my weight, appearance and wardrobe and knew I was going to kick some academic ass. In reality, my bulimia is actually worse now then when I started therapy two years ago, I quickly gained 12 pounds due to binging episodes despite my purging efforts, I feel lonely, depressed, cry most nights (and days), wasn’t asked by ANYBODY to homecoming and feel hopeless when faced with the idea of having to live through even one more day like this.
I am no longer open with my family about my problems. I feel like my pain is an insult to all the hard work and love and money they’ve invested in me. My mother gets frustrated. She says as intelligent as I am I should just get a grip and stop it. She won’t let me come home until I’m able to successfully function in college. My step mom tells me to stay away and not talk to my dad about it. My dad cries. I’ve learned it’s just easier to tell people I’m fine if anybody asks. That they’ll like me more.
I was in the process of attempting suicide 2 years ago. My phone fell out of my pocket with a picture of my dog as a screen saver. I started crying because I felt selfish for not considering what would happen to her if I died. My mother was not physically capable of caring for her at the time and didn’t want to. Mom would say how much she hated my dog and would put her up for adoption in a heart beat. Thinking of my dog, I climbed down from the bridge and walked a couple of blocks to a hospital where I was enrolled in an eating disorder and depression program.
I’m just short of 6 feet tall and my weight has gone between 135 to 170 pounds since I’ve had an eating disorder, I’m currently 160. Next week I’m going to have a psychiatric analysis done by a doctor that only deals with eating disorders, hopefully she’ll be able to put me on a more effective medication and help me recover quicker.
Many people don’t know I have a problem. I lie a lot and avoid getting close to people. I spend most of my free time working out anyway, though you can’t tell by looking at me. I’ve ran as much as 32 miles in one day and usually exercise between 3-6 hours after a binge and take 3-8 ducolax tablets. I’ve still gained weight recently though. My mood swings are fairly extreme. Many people on campus consider me “up beat” when I’m not in work mode. I guess that deception is just a part of the disorder. Mom has told me that it is terrifying how well and quickly I can come up with lies, that I’d be a great politician.
I would like to feel “normal”. I don’t think being 160 pounds would bother me as much as it does now if I felt like I was in control of my diet instead of the way I eat now. I know plenty of beautiful women larger than me. But I have a difficult time relaxing. I actually get nervous when given free time. I dwell on what I should be doing. My therapist says this is because of the way I’ve been raised. Everyone in my family has multiple jobs or one intensive career. My dad has 3 jobs and Mom has 2 and is a part time college student. I feel most at ease when I do work around the house with my dad or am getting something accomplished. I’ve come to base my self worth on what I can do instead of who I am. I feel like I need to justify my existence by doing all that I am capable of. That when I’m not living up to my potential I am wasting what life I have been given and thus don’t deserve it.
I sometimes think of suicide again, especially when I think about how there are days beyond the one I’m living now. When thinking that this is what my life could possibly be like for another 60 years. Dad says he’s not happy either, but he just gets up and tries to reset his mind everyday. I don’t want to live like that, especially at 18. It’s also hard to keep “getting up” when I know I’m probably going to get “knocked down” again. The hardest part for me though is knowing that it’s me that is causing myself to feel like this. It would be easier if my enemy was one that was external.
I’m sorry for the lengthy, choppy, and unorganized nature of this story, but I just sat down and typed whatever came to mind on the topic. I can’t say what it is I expect to gain from this forum and what it is I actually want from telling my story. Maybe talking to some other girls and women with bulimia would help me feel more connected to other people, I’m not sure. Thank you for reading this though.
October 11th, 2009 - 11:02 AM
Hi girls. I am suffering in the trap of bulimia for a second time in my life. Tho the nature of this disorder could be called many different ways..is it a punishment from the devil or a gift from the God…? 8 years ago I have realised that this is simply a lesson of life. It is difficult, no doubt, but after realising and solving it you become wiser and the most improtant happier. Going back 8 years ago, I could not think of such a bad experience in my life, but still would not prefer this thing to have skipped my life, coz Bulimia has changed me, has teach me so many things, has helped me create such qualoties in my personality that would help me send her away, coz once u have learned ur lessons u dont need the teacher anymore. And to tell you the truth… after what i have suffered during those 2 years of bulimia , I have never felt happier afterwards. Now 8 years after, I am seeing my teacher again…it is still difficuly to learn my lesson, but now I know it is a step for a change, a bad thing that will take you to a better place if you manage to take it and go on. Now I know it is worth it!But u have to believe it as well. We could learn this lesson together. Now im in recovery state, it is so damn difficult, but believe me LIFE is Worth living! I will paste u here something i have wrote, during my previouse recovery, just sharing my thoughts on a paper.
Ash to ash,
one more mood to crash…
Breaking the eternity,
loosing the mentality…
Crying for a strenght,
looking for the death…
Reaching the prefection,
missing the main correction..
Just donnot give up, and remember what is improstant in life! And we could be happier than any other person who did not have this lesson. Appreciate it n go over it! I hope I could do it again, coz It is worth it! I know!
Love you girls! Be strong!
September 23rd, 2009 - 7:17 PM
I was very heavy as a child up through my junior year of high school, I guess the summer before my senior year I had final got the mind set to loose the weight (then 6′0″ 280lbs) and it came off fast I did the healthy approach eatting right exercising regularly, I cried when I got under 200. I had lost +80lb in about a year, compliments at school from family I loved it, but it was never enough. I started to get unhealthy in my habits, becoming obsessive with the scale and my daily calorie intakes which had dipped to about 500-800 cal a day, I was pale and weak but I was happy with my body. I didnt know what a fragile state I was in. at about 180lb I had met my first BF who for lack of better words had @#$%’ed my life up royally in 2 short months. at my 168lb mark he was carted off to jail and I found the rug pulled out from under me, I started over eatting, binging on everything not caring, making excuses, I QUICKLY put on about 20lb when I realized I could eat whatever I want and just purge it all away, what a great trick i thought (isnt that what we all thought) I went into a downward spiral into the oblivion of binging purging binging purging binging purging all day every day. My face was swollen, my eyes were blood shot, i cut so many relationship ties just so I could be alone with my symptoms, I make excuses, I faked smiles I looked so hard to find the processed happiness, the high or more of the numbness that came with binging and purging. I finally ended up leaving school early and entering a rehab program. I stayed for 14 days, I thought it was focused more on anorexics it helped, but temptation proved to much and I was thrown back into symptoms. its been almost year 1/2 since then, I weigh about 220 right now. I have good days, I have bad days, I have terrible days. But im learning to take it one day at a time, one hour at a time, one moment at a time. My family and supportive friends have helped but I draw from inner strength and not getting to down on myself when I slip. I eat healthy and im not afriad to give myself a taste of “bad food” now and then. I have started regain passion in the things I love, that make me truly happy. Things that I had turned away. I leave myself reminders every where to stay strong or as my bf says BE GOOD (I write that on my palm). I have learned to accept that not everyone understands or will be sensitive to my disorder. I have learned to keep myself busy and stay out of my head when I get down about something. I have learned to eat healthy and not let myself get hungry. I have learned that I will make mistakes, I have learned that it wont happen over night. But most of all I have learned that I am an amazing person, who deserves the chance to make this world a better place with my dreams and aspirations. I have learned that I AM NOT MY DISORDER
August 30th, 2009 - 1:25 PM
im not trying to make a joke out of this. but i could unfortunately tell my bulimia story in about 5-10 sentences. it all started with me wanting to go on a diet when i was 13, so that i did. i started restricting within weeks and became underweight (which i loved.) i discovered bulimia and have been known as that ever since. i eventually started cutting until others found out. I went to a “top doctor,” or so they call themselves, by coincidence (he was one of the only eating disorder specialists near me in philadelphia.) I was forced into inpatient treatment because my blood levels were so low. im now 19 years old and still struggle something fierce. bottom line, bulimia is your life. oh yeah.. did i mention.. I’m a nurse too! it can happen to anybody so please don’t stereotype.
August 4th, 2009 - 8:50 PM
The question of where to begin the story of developing an eating disorder seems nearly impossible to answer. It seems that a life time of chances and choices and events and occurrences somehow end up tipping a scale that blindly pushes you into a place in which nothing makes sense. In the midst of your secret eating-disordered world, it’s so easy to lose perspective on things in life. And in being isolated with your issues, it’s so easy to blame everything on yourself and just believe like you’re the worst person in the world. But it’s so very far from the truth.
There are so many things that factor into the development and the sustenance of an eating disorder, and left to your own devices, I think it is insanely difficult (if not impossible) to figure out without any help. What I’ve learned from this whole ordeal, and indeed am still learning, is that an eating disorder is a very human phenomenon – and we are all human. So many of us place so little value on ourselves, and yet expect and accept only perfect performance in return.
Recovering from an eating disorder requires a real openness to the nature of your true self, and a willingness to understand and accept whatever that may be. It is truly a journey into yourself, and once judgment has been set aside it is remarkable how much you will discover along this path.
Of course – easier said than done. But I would encourage people to try and listen to what their eating disorders are telling them once in a while. Nothing comes from nothing – and the sooner we start to listen to what our bodies are so dramatically trying to tell us, the sooner we will be able to start responding to these cries in healthier ways.
This all sounds very vague and obscure I’m sure.. but such is the place where I am in right now. In the time I’ve taken off school, I’ve started a blog – often about recovery, but also just all the emotional stuff that comes with it. I’ll post a link in case anyone who happens upon this is interested:
http://trivialadversity.blogspot.com/
and that’s all I’ve got!
July 4th, 2009 - 1:42 AM
Hello,
I went to see a phyciatrist the other day, I’ve been waiting a long time to see her, she comes from Vancouver and quite a process to get in to see her. Anyways, when I got in to see her, she asked me what she could do for me. Well, I’ve been though this process many times so I proceeded to be open and honest with her. She would ask me questions and I would answer them, some of them were very hard to answer but I was honest. I am not shy to speek about my eating disorder with people that I think may be able to help me, I’m tired of having this damn thing!!!. Well, at the end of it all, I had cried for about an hour, felt drained and all the Dr. could say was ” Do you always talk this much or are you just anxious today? ” I was taken aback, she didn’t even say it very nice. Then she asked me if I had ever been diagnosed with ADHD?. That was a slap in the face. Then offered to put me on medication. I said that I’d think about it and left, very upset and drained right out. I’ve had it with the doctors in this place, and there are no kind of groups in this town so I’ve realized that I have to do this on my own.
June 28th, 2009 - 10:48 PM
“I have let things slip [...] / Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address” – Sylvia Plath, “Tulips”
I am well aware that, by the time you finish reading this, you may not think that I am a good person. In fact, I am well aware that you may dislike me a little, and I want so desperately to be liked, to be perceived as someone who is together, as someone who is well, just about perfect. The truth is ugly. This truth is something like this: most nights, you will find me bent over the bathtub (no more cleaning up around the toilet rim should I miss my target), my head in a bucket. When I am done, I pour the contents of the bucket into the toilet, flush, rinse the bathtub. Actions framed within a stream of silent promises that this is he last time, that tomorrow things will be different. I’ve become adept at covering my tracks, I’ve become an adept liar.
“Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage” – “Tulips”
Who’s to blame? To what pivotal moment can I tie the beginning of this self immolation? Do I blame my ex-boyfriend, who approached his own diet and exercise with military-like self control (”I am going to eat two cookies”, “You’re eating ANOTHER nanimo bar?!”)? Or the ex before who, while 12 years my elder with the body of an old potato, dragged me to the gym each morning and criticized the sodium content of my soup while munching on his second smoky? Do I blame my emotionally venomous sister who, as it turned out was addicted to crystal meth by the time I was 14? Or my left-brain, scientific parents who failed to understand their right-brain empathetic, artistic daughter, and who could only push her to continue to get even higher GPAs and more academic awards?
“I am a nun now, I have never been so pure” – “Tulips”
No. The truth is, this is something that has lived inside of me, emerging in different forms throughout my life. When I was six, I began writing suicide notes out of desperation, by elementary school I had a reputation for being “sensitive” and cried myself to sleep at night, afraid that people would look into my soul and see what a horrible person I was (now, pulsating over the bathtub, I imagine that I am cleansing myself, that when I am finished, I will be cleaned “out”.)
“Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks” – “Tulips”
Don’t get me wrong. My family, while possessing a habit for saying the wrong thing at pivotal moments (and who’s family doesn’t?) is a great family, and I count myself extremely lucky. I am loved, but am also driven by my craving for their approval, my anxiety over failing to meet their expectations, of failing to meet my own.
“And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes / Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me” – “Tulips”
And yet I cannot blame my condition, without admitting its contributions to my life. My bulimia is a symptom of my underlying “dis-ease” and anxiety, qualities that have led me to be who I am. It is this constant dissatisfaction that drives me to do better, be better. In going to the gym, I experienced awe at what my body was capable of, going longer, growing harder, pushing my limits. I have found deep reserves of drive, focus and energy in order to “get the job done”. Without it, I would not be the artist that I am. In tangoing with this same creative discomfort, some dancers, musicians, singers and performers smoke, drink alcohol, or take drugs. In my university theatre program, we had a special name for this sensation. We called this “hunger”. This is very apt. When working creatively I AM (I would come home after a late rehearsal, too jazzed up to sleep and raid the cupboards, or stop by Safeway on my way home, convinced the cashier could read my secret across my face).
“I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions” – “Tulips”
Bulimia is a distraction, it robs me of energy, time and money that I could be putting into my relationships and creative endeavors. It is a violation of the contract between my body, my Self and my soul. I long for a sense of peace, of amnesty.
June 26th, 2009 - 9:27 AM
Hello,
My story begings 25 years ago, I was 15 years old and trying to find my place in world. I will tell you that anorexia and bulimia got a grip on me and has haunted me ever since. It all started because my family moved from a small hick town in Alberta when I was 11 years old, to a fast paced, much more “in tune with the world” community.
I have very old fashioned and strict parents that I learned to be very scared of at an early age. Well, I did not fit into this new community very well, the girls were into fashion and their bodies, and I got teased very badly for being the “farm girl” that no one liked. I let food be my comfort and put on some weight, that has always been easy for me to do. Then my mother, who has always been tiny, height and weight, started to make comments about my weight, so now I was getting it from school and home. Over the next 4 years, things did not change much, at least I wasn’t the new girl any more, but I still was getting teased and still putting on weight.
The summer that I was 15, 2 of my older sisters and I took a trip to visit my oldest sister. while we were there, we all discussed how we wanted to loose some weight, so we made a bet between the 4 of us of $10 dollars each, to see who could loose the most weight by Christmas. Something triggered in me, I decided to loose weight and there was no stopping me, I wanted to win that bet. I cut down my food intake and I seen the weight come off, it was such a good feeling, I realised that the less I ate, the more I would loose, I never considered my health and what my body needed for nutrition, I was thrilled that I was loosing weight. I basically stopped eating and watched the pounds come off, I didn’t care that I had no energy, and that every time I stood up I would get a head rush. I was counting my calories very diligently, I got so obsessive of my calorie intake, that even that stick of Trident gum that only has 3-5 calories was counted into what I ate.
I basically stopped eating. My top weight before this started was really not that bad, 140 pounds. But for a young girl I felt very big compared to my peers. Well, I won that bet with my sisters, I had lost 40 pounds by Christmas and still loosing weight. My family was concerned but I didn’t care, I was so happy to win that $40. I continued to loose weight, I loved that I could fit my hands around my thighs, and that I had bones sticking out everywhere. I felt like I had some sort of supper power and self controll that no one else had. I didn’t care that I looked like crap and I had huge bags under my eyes, I just wanted to stay skinny.
That following summer I got a job at Dairy Queen and the boss didn’t give me much hope, but I guess someone told him to give me a chance, well, I was a farm girl, and new what hard work was, and surprised my boss, he ended up being very glad that he hired me, that felt very good. But unfortunatly, working closely around food became very tough. At first I loved the challenge of being able to say “no” to all that tempting food, but when I’d heard about bulimia, which wasn’t to well known at the time, I gave it a try, I remember well the very first time, It was horrible, but found that it got easier and easier. And in the end, this became my new way to keep the weight off, people would comment on how I could eat so much and still stay so skinny, I loved this part, but was very good at hiding it from my family, because they knew that this was not my case. But eventually, I could not keep it from them as well, my mom was the most worried, and I would have fights with her, I didn’t want to deal with my “problems”, I was so scared that if I changed things now, I would gain weight, and that was a huge problem for me. So as soon as I could, I moved away from home, to the big city, where I really just got lost in the big world, my problems just got worse, the money I made paid for my bills and the food that I consumed, I got very thrifty at buying lots of food for the least amount possible. I didn’t have many friends, I think I liked it that way because no one bugged me, my food was my friend.
I eventually got a room mate, financially I had to, and I guess she suspected things about me and actually spoke with my mom. I was 18 years old and my mom confronted me, I finally admitted to have lost my controll with food and agreed to go see a doctor. Well, my mom had already been in touch with a doctor and had made an apointment that day, I was so surprised, but I agreed to go. The doctor was actually in the phyc ward in Saint Pauls Hospital in Vancouver where they had a program for eating disorders. I remember that day very well, I went in to that apt. that day, broke down infront of the doctor, when he seen how thin I was, I had dropped below 100 pounds and I was 5′7″, they told me that my life was at stake and that I had 30 minuted to go home and get my stuff and I was going to be admitted into the hospital for 6 weeks. I was floored, my life changed instantly that day, my mom had to move all my stuff out of my apartment, and I went to figure my life out in the hospital for 6 weeks. I will say that the program was very help full, I learned how to eat again, and we did things to help us cope with our issues, we even wrote an auto biography, that actually helped us figure out where our problems stemmed from. They put me on some anti anxiety medicine in the hospital plus and anti depressant, for the six weeks that I was there, then they released me on my way, to figure things out on my own.
They did not suggest any kind of follow up, and didn’t advise me to see a doctor about the medication they had given me, I’m surprised they didn’t advise me to continue, I just left. Well I thought I was all better, but I was not.
I was still addicted to food, I stayed away from the bulimia for a while, but it eventually came back. Over the years, I became very good at hiding it from every one, including my family. I didn’t want any one to know. I met my husband in 1992, and managed to hide it from him for 13 years, when I finally decided that I really wanted to do something about the problem that had become so frustrating because it was this horrible thorn in my side that I just could not pull out. When I told him, I had already signed up for a support group, which was very hard to find in the small town I live in, he was very shocked and really could not understand any of it, but said he was there to support me. Well, the support group was good, but did not help my problem. 2 years ago, I came home from work one day, and for the first time ever in my life, had 2 grand mal seizures right in front of my daughter and husband, I ended up in the hospital for about a week, where I admitted that my bulimia had not gone away, my husband was a little mad, but agreed to help me. Then a month later, I was getting an EEG at the hospital to test the brain waves in my head, I had 2 more grand mal seizures right there on the hospital bed, they were doing the “strobe light” test when they happened. I was in the hospital again for another week. They concluded that I now have epilepsy due to the length of time that I have had bulimia. The bulimia caused my brain to have some short circuits that are now permenant.
The sad thing about all of this is that I still can’t seem to stop the bulimia, I feel so sad all the time and I have tried a couple of different anti depressants that really don’t seem to help. I’m sorry that my story is so long, but it is the only way to tell it. I have struggled with bulimia for a long time and would really like to find a solution.