Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Down the rabbit hole

My mind hurts. I ate too much for dinner.
Anorexia and its thoughts are starting up in my head louder and louder. Its driving me to less and less food in the day. I feel better with less food. Then I had to ruin it with getting too much pizza for dinner. I ate without truly enjoying the food, feeling as though it would be snatched away from me at any moment.

Then I went out to swim. I had to burn off the calories. I tried to justify the food intake to myself by thinking that swimming would burn off all the calories. I tried putting a pair of jeans on over my swim suit to walk over and could barely fit in them- old jeans which have been loose on me since I got them. Now I struggle to do them up. I ran to the pool- ignoring the pain that started down my spine as the impact hit it. When I got there, there were lots of people, in the Jacuzzi area. I managed to swim strongly for half an hour then I began to get cold. My muscles felt as if they were becoming stone. And then a large group of men came in and got into the pool.

I just couldn't stay in there, so I got into the now empty jacuzzi. It was so lovely and warm and i tried to enjoy the simple pleasure of the warm soft water and the ease it brought to my aching bones. but all I could think was "I need to swim another hour to burn this off". I wanted to exercise More but my body just hurt and those men were there. then they came to get into the Jacuzzi. I almost ran into the changing room! I skipped drying my hair, i pulled my clothes on in the bathroom and left. There were a group of women changing in there. one had the most wonderful figure. petite and perfect.

i look at every woman that goes past me. i savour their figures. I'm not sexually attracted to them or to any women but i just love to look at them and imagine that I have their bodies and am thin and beautiful.

My new books arrived today. Three books on Eating disorders. One is the accompanying book to the documentary film "Thin". So many pictures of thin, tiny, sick women. And I'm jealous because I want to be thin like them. I want to feel my bones. I want to be thin. I know these women are so sick, as sick as me but I don't care. They are thin. At least they are dainty and small not fat and clumsy and repulsive.

I hate fat people. I find them repulsive. Its disgusting how people get that way and don't feel desperate to change. At least I still have a figure and a waist and definition.

No more food. Cereal, a tiny lunch, small dinner. maybe not even lunch. food is disgusting and the thinner is the winner. I have to slim down. I cant cope being this big. I feel trapped in my fat, sick, painful body.

Sunday, 9 May 2010

Dark days and Dragonflies

A dark day. Feel utter food exhaustion. Want to eat and purge, want to purge full stop , I just want all food out of my body. I feel so huge. I feel so tired of the entire business. Just shattered.
Just feel weighted down, as if my soul has been trapped inside this heavy sick body that's wracked with pain and which cant exist without drugs to enable it to carry on. So so so tired.
I feel utterly fat. I am the heaviest I have ever been. I just want to cut off all the flesh that's trapping me. I feel so so so unattractive. The body dysmorphia- another disorder I have, and a common one with ED's- is raging through me like a fire. I see a fat ugly monster in every reflective surface. I never want to eat again. I feel as if I don't deserve to eat because I'm so fat and disgusting.
I haven't bothered to buy food for my lunches this week. I got some fruit and Muller rices and that's it. Cereal, Muller rice, dinner. Nothing more. Everything seems too much. Food seems too sad. Everything just seems too much.
Its as if, if I can forgo all food, I might be free of all the demons trapping me and stopping me from being like everyone else.
Thinking about my past, my childhood especially, is to think about a catalogue of abuse, neglect and misery. The bullying from other children at school, even at nursery, was the better bit.
Sexual abuse from a family member when I was a toddler- which the entire family suspected or knew about and took no steps to stop, a confusing and very troubled relationship with my mother who could be both physically and mentally abusive, a father who didn't assist me with this because he chose not to see this and a feeling that no matter what I did I could never please, never be loved or appreciated and never fit in.
Its still a box I cant fully open. I cant even try. I need a professional therapist to assist me. And I'm hoping I get a referral soon. Because I so badly want to not feel so terrible inside.

Thursday, 6 May 2010

How not to eat lunch, how to follow your convictions & how to find good luck.

Well, another day, another dollar. Started a new job this week, so have been training all week. Its nice to be working, gives structure to my day. Days when I'm not working are hard- more time to eat. Or think of eating. Or bake stuff that could easily feed a family of ten when its just me and Other Half around the flat.

Baked cakes last weekend, waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many. Although other half enjoyed the cakes he did make plenty of comments of amount of cakes. Which was fair, there were a lot of them.

One large problem? Where to eat lunch. I cannot eat in public. Ever. I can only eat in designated eating areas and then I still hate it because other people can see me eating. If I can eat in private I will. When I lived alone (or at least in a shared house, I have never had my own place due to rent prices) I always ate in my bedroom by myself. Public eating is painful to me, and eating in public, especially in crowded areas, is just impossible. I see people just eating while walking down the street and feel both repelled and amazed. Its as if they are committing a pornographic act rather than eating.

So, the fact that as yet I haven't discovered a quiet corner to eat lunch in- work is in city centre- is proving difficult. There is nowhere. So I resorted to my old trick. I ate lunch in the toilet.

Yes you heard right. I sat on the loo, locked nice and safe in my cubicle and ate my lunch in there.

And yes, I realise this is gross but preferable to eating lunch in front of people. But today I did something different. I felt exhausted and in need of real nourishment so I went to MacDonald's for lunch. I did well, I managed not to buy masses or binge. I didn't purge either. However I was really uncomfortable. I found a table where I was mostly concealed from the rest of the restaurant, I had my book to read so I was distracted- I love to read while eating. personal favorite. It enhances the food. Anyway despite all this, I still felt really uncomfortable. I was worried by the other diners, worried they were all looking at me and wondering why such a chubby person was eating junk food. So I ate quickly and then left.

I cant think of a good solution to this. I really cant. Anybody else got one?

I also voted today. Lib Dem if anyone cares. And if the Conservatives win I shall put together a team of people and blow up Parliament.

I also got crapped on by a pigeon. Other half of course, get away clean and dry. The old adage that its good luck had better be true.


Tuesday, 4 May 2010

My very first post



A quick note. I will never mention by name any specific person who comes into this blog. I will not reveal specific places, therapists or information about other sufferers. I WILL mention things which can be sad, sickening, or triggering. For that reason I would ask that if you feel that this blog is triggering issues of your own that you don't read it.



I'm a 25 year old woman living in the UK and for the past two months I have been attempting what will be a long and difficult journey to recover from severe Bulimia. Increasingly my head is becoming a very crowded place with alot of voices speaking at once. Imagine a dark cramped cell with me in the middle, Bulimia holding tight to my legs and crying, telling me not to leave her. In the other corner is Anorexia looking thin and lovely telling me it doesn't matter what I do, I will continue to be a fat failure since I could never achieve the continuous goal of starving myself.

Because of this, I feel like I need to get some of my thoughts about whats going on out onto paper or page. This blog isn't meant to be some warped bid for attention. I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, a select few might read this and gain some insight into the addictive and destructive illness that dominates my life and which will kill me unless I can recover ASAP. Equally I hope that maybe some other Bulimics might read this and feel some sort of rapport with whats going on, and maybe- if I can succeed- might be inspired to attempt recovery themselves. Some people might even get lucky and realise that going down the Eating Disorder route will only lead to chaos and a lifetime of crap.


A bit about me. I have been bulimic for 15 years- for quick recap, since I was 10. At 10, I was being sick a few times a week. By 14, it was every day, several times a day. At 18, it was after every meal, before meals, when I was sad, when I was bored, when I was worried, when I was happy, when I wanted to eat as much as I liked and when I felt fat.
It may sound stupid but until I was about 21, I didn't even consider that I had an eating disorder. I thought it was just a thing I did. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt. I lived at home until I was 18 and hid it completely from my parents and sister. My mother, a secondary school teacher, who was trained to recognise signs of ED's in her students, failed to see it in her own daughter. This was despite knowing that I regularly threw up. Yes really. Perhaps its harder to see when its close to home.

My eating disorder started early. I went to a private co-ed school in Wiltshire after being asked to leave my primary school- more about school later. I suffered from chronic panic attacks, shaking fits and desperate worry. I had terrible nightmares. I found it hard to sleep. I was bullied through school years from 5 to 16. Combined with that, my type A personality which adores to do well combined badly with dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalula (dyslexia with numbers basically.) Add all this together and the fact that my new school was target drived, academically demanding and students who didn't succeed were asked to leave.
My method to cope with the panic and stress and loneliness was to throw up. Somehow it made me feel better as if I were getting rid of the bad feelings inside me. In actual fact, forced vomiting releases endorphins, the bodies happy chemical, and gives a high equalled only by drugs!
So I had my little coping methods. Then when I was 12 a classmate showed me a book she had borrowed from our school library. Our school library btw, was one in a massive old church of a building and had various volumes which really shouldn't have been in a school library and which these days probably would have been taken out. The book was "The best little girl in the world" by Steven Levenkron (also made into a film starring Jennifer Jason Lee) , a book which plenty of sufferers either read at the beginning of their illness or find their way to shortly after. If you ever read it, and it is an interesting read, you will shortly find it contains plenty of lovely information for those who wish to learn Anorexic habits. The friend who showed this to me commented that it "was a great way to diet". Yes indeed.


In college my entire course knew that I threw up, that I had a problem but none of them ever called me to task on it, or commented or even asked if I had Bulimia. Boyfriends knew I threw up and yet again no one said a word. In uni, sharing a bathroom with several other people, it got even easier to binge- I have heard from so many other sufferers that university or College for those from the USA is where their disorder really got out of hand- no one to report to, actually being able to starve or binge and Purge as much as you like without any consequences is a pleasure and a danger all in one.

Despite the relative freedom and pressure of drinking, uni work and all that, it must have been obvious to so many that I had a problem. My most significant relationship was with a man who DID recognise the problems and helped me to overcome them. I told him I had quit purging, in fact I was lieing and buying food in secret, binging in the uni library and vomiting in the loos there- no evidence at home.

From then on, after graduation and the breakdown of my relationship with this man- not over Bulimia- I continued to binge and purge at least four times a day. Every day.
Last year I went into an Eating Disorder Unit for four months but was unable to progress as they wanted or to stop binging and purging.

The current situation: I haven't binged or purged for two months. Its a massive struggle and I'm starting to feel as if I am in an ad with a giant muffin following me.

15 years of Bulimia has taken its toll on my body. I have terrible back problems- suspected to be Osteoarthritis of the spine, caused by chronic vitamin D deficiency from my Bulimia. I get stress fractures in my fingers, feet, ankles and wrists. I get kidney stones. My nervous system is shot to hell and my digestive system is so sensitive that any extra bacteria can leave me bedridden for a week. I feel about 85.

I am one of the lucky ones. My teeth are all my own and still white, thanks to stringent dental care. I haven't got damaged liver or kidneys. I'm still fertile. My skeleton isn't totally unsalvagable. I'm hoping that I can, with time and care, reverse some of the damage.

Over the next however many months I shall write this blog about medical stuff, progress, thoughts and feelings, and answer any questions as they happen. As a very private person, this is an exercise in itself for me. But I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe I might be able to help someone else.