My Experience with Bulimia

This post comes with a trigger warning due to the sensitive nature of the content described below. Please read with caution.

- Written By Felicity Harrison

How it started

My experience of bulimia has been one of denial, embarrassment and secrecy. I convinced myself that it was normal to be utterly obsessed with numbers and calories. To feel that heaviness of guilt after eating something that my head convinced me was unsafe. My relationship between food and myself has never been healthy; growing up in a society that brainwashes you to think that there is always something “wrong” with you, or that “needs to be fixed” causes many young adults to suffer from warped body image.

Suddenly weight loss became my only goal and the only thing that bought me a distorted sense of euphoria. my happiness felt depended on the number on the scale and if the number on the scale fluctuated, I would feel like a failure and I would feel grotesque. From the outside, it looked like everything was coming together. When really, on the inside, it was all starting to fall apart.

Diet products felt like a friend but also assisted a naïve young woman to demonise food and become a cult member in popular diet culture. Having people around me talking about food so negatively and seeing people in tears because they had either not lost weight, or because they’d gain weight became the norm. I then took this to the next level; my attitude towards food spiralled whilst convincing myself that this was what a healthy lifestyle persisted of and what would make me happy.

The worst part

The binging and purging started. I won’t go into too much detail, because I don’t want to give readers ideas. Also, because I am still too ashamed to come to terms with the lengths of my purging. As well as the damage that I caused to my body for the sake of weight loss, let alone admit them to others. Although weight loss was an addiction, so was junk food. The binges would feel impulsive and involve large amounts of food. Or, if it was late at night and I could not get a hold of any of those (my binges mostly occurred early hours in the morning), it would just be plain food. No sugary taste, no appetising flavours… just something that I had convinced myself was the enemy and that could not be eaten. After the binges, the panic would set in and the guilt would follow. That was where the purging would start.

My eating disorder was something that I suffered alone. It was at its height during lockdown as I was deprived of my distractions. Living at home alone with my Dad, I didn’t know how to tell anyone about what was going on. I felt embarrassed and I was so scared that I wouldn’t be taken seriously because I was considered a “healthy weight” and had an “hourglass” figure”. Every morning, I would write “call the doctors” on my to-do list, and every day I would convince myself that there was nothing wrong with me, and even if I did call, that the doctor would laugh at me. Even whilst writing this, I am admittedly embarrassed that those who know me will not take this seriously because I am not underweight. However, being a “healthy weight” and suffering with disordered eating is just as common as suffering whilst underweight. It is okay to seek help.

It became unbearable. Bulimia had ruined so many things for me: relationships, so many memories, even my performance at university. I was suffering. My body could not take it anymore. When I did finally call the doctors, I was so relieved to be listened to and taken seriously. The scenarios that I had anxiously fabricated in my head became untrue. A referral to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) at an eating disorder clinic was made and I was switched from Sertraline to Fluoxetine (an anti-depressant which is more commonly used to treat those with eating disorders). But I was shoved to the back of a 10-month waiting list. Because of my desperation to end the dark turn that my obsession with dieting and body dysmorphia had caused, I made the decision to have private CBT with a therapist who specialised in eating disorder recovery. I would just like to acknowledge here that I am privileged to be able to afford the expenses of this, and that if you are in a position where NHS therapy is your only option: it is worth the wait. In the meantime, there are accessible services out there to help you, such as BEAT.

Where I am now… recovery

Recovery isn’t linear. I’m not going to lie to you and pretend that I came out of CBT with an instantly healthy relationship with food. There are still days when my body dysmorphia lies to me, when the guilt creeps up and I want to restrict, when I feel the urge to slip back into old habits. But in those instances, it is important to remember that I am so much better than what was destroying me. That my well-being is more important than the size of my waist. Our bodies deserve to be nourished, and they deserve to be loved. There is no such thing as “bad” foods and “good” foods, there is just simply more nutritious foods and less nutritious foods. My body deserves to enjoy a balance of both.

The good days are so worth it, it really is the little things. The warmth inside of me as I buy seedy bread and crunchy peanut butter from Aldi and know that enjoying this food won’t trigger me into a spiral of guilt and panic. That feeling of pride is like no other. I don’t own a pair of scales anymore, and I am no longer concerned with the number that would be on that scale. It does not define me, and I don’t exist to lose weight. I exist to live my life.

I have now learnt that it is the external that is important, and not the external. I’m writing this post whilst two weeks into lockdown 2, and I can confidently say that I have a much healthier relationship with food, exercise and my body. My relationship with food has been reshaped, I love to cook and bake, and I love to try new foods. I am just about to jump on the banana bread trend, albeit rather late.

For anyone suffering, I would just like to remind you that you are important, you are valid, and you are loved. Most importantly, it gets better. I never thought that I would recover, and I never thought that the exhausting cycle of binging and purging would end. But here I am.