The next entry has been quite tough to write. I think bulimia and anorexia are still taboo subjects in many respects, those who suffer from these disorders often do so in silence. My own experience with bulimia started in my late teens. It was relatively brief and, had I not faced up to what I was doing, it could have ended very differently to the way it did. Bear with me on this one, the entry is going to be a long one but I have been as candid as possible and laid myself bare.
Tough love
During my late teens I did the usual things that most teens do. I got into my fair share of trouble; getting drunk, being obstinent and getting in late. I must have weighed around 180 pounds at this time and, looking back on pictures now, I really did not look ‘fat!’. I was a late starter when it came to boyfriends and had always watched from the side lines as my attractive friend worked her way through a number of besotted suitors. I realise now that I had spent the whole time comparing myself to her. I wanted to be like her, I wanted to look like her and started to crave the attention that she seemed to achieve so effortlessly. Whether this had been my hormones talking I don’t know but for the first time I was interested in boys. Gone were the days of Barbie and Ken getting it on, my childhood naivety about love and boys was starting to prick an interest and curiousness within me. Eventually I started dating an older guy who was a friend of a friend and we were together for 2 years, this was my first proper relationship. He was much older than me and I am sad to say that he had an affair with my friend behind my back, oh the woes of young love! I was only 18 at the time but the pain cut like a knife, their indiscresion just confirmed what I already thought. I was just not attractive enough to be with. Of course this was wholly inaccurate and it truly is what is on the inside that counts, something I have learnt as I have got older. But he had wanted her more than me and had fallen for her. I assumed that this was because she was more attractive than me. Teenage naivety! Needless to say things came to an end and my first relationship was over.
Weight loss euphoria
Enough was enough so I decided that I needed to take action as I felt that I needed to be slimmer and more confident to bag myself a fella. Initially I was absolutely thrilled that my new gym workout and low calorie diet were working. Admittedly, this was the first time I had tried to diet seriously and it had worked out pretty well. During the early stages, I was sensible and stuck to a 1500 calories intake a day. As the weeks passed and my figure shrank, I got a kick out of seeing my body change so I began to start going to the gym fanatically and cutting back on what I was eating. Unfortunately I took a very ill advised approach to my diet and gradually my portion sizes reduced. Obsessiveness crept in like a silent assassin, hell bent on taking over my sensible, rational thought. I cut back to one meal a day, then that one meal turned into a smaller portion and that then got smaller and smaller until I was surviving on a handful of chips, some vegetables and a small portion of meat a day. I was thriving on my ever decreasing figure and got a kick out of seeing the numbers go down on the scale. I coined the term ‘weightloss junkie’ to describe my almost manic attitude towards the whole process. I was exercising continuously and went to the gym 7 days a week, although looking back I have no idea where I was getting the energy from to fuel my punishing work outs. I was running on empty. The weight dropped off me and my body changed, men were noticing me more than ever and my boyfriend had noticed the change in me. I got down to 140 pounds but soon realised I had lost control of my life in many ways and this had begun to increasingly manifest itself in my worrying deprivation of food. I now associate that behaviour with something intrinsic in my personality, I believe that people who suffer with eating disorders are simply built that way, it is pre determined in our make up. As I wanted to keep losing weight and pushing myself that little bit harder and maintain complete control when, in fact, my obsession was doing the complete opposite and spiralling out of control. I was policing and scrutinising every morsel that entered my mouth.
Dabbling with the dark side
I was not happy since the end of my relationship and so 1999 was to be the year that I had my first experience with bulimia. As I mentioned earlier, I think eating disorders are still taboo to this day, something we still don’t feel particularly comfortable talking about or acknowledging. An alarming number of young women are resorting to desperate measures to keep the weight off and recent statistics published by the government exemplify this. The pressures that women are put under to convey this distorted image of thin are enormous and this intense desire to look a certain way can lead to unwise choices. We are force fed images of beauty being slender, attractive women and the media is as culpable as anyone for our skewed views on weight.
I have always been aware of anorexia and bulimia, having read magazines and watched countless TV programmes but it had never touched my life before this point. It became evident to me that I needed some assistance to control my weight. Even now, I find it hard to understand why or how I thought laxatives would help me. I like to think I am a rational and intelligent person and I had seen enough press and exposure about the dangers of abusing such substances to know that I would end up falling foul of any attempt to use it as a weight loss aid. Hell I had (rather hypocritically it seems) tut tutted when reading an article in a magazine about a woman who had bitten the bullet and tried using them to drop the pounds. Truth is the only thing laxatives do for you cause dehydration, mineral deprivation, cramping and nausea not to mention a number of other side effects that are too unpleasant to consider. Eventually and with sustained abuse, they can cause a mineral imbalance that can lead to internal organ damage. It is a myth and a misconception that they actually ‘push’ food through the stomach and out the other side, not giving the body time to absorb the fat or calories. The laxative works on the large part of the intestine so any calories from food have already been absorbed through the small intestine. Immediately you are battling with an inconsistency in their use and your expectation of them. They can lead to all sorts of complications and heavy, prolonged abuse can even result in death.
Bingeing
I vividly recall the first day I turned to them back in the September of 1999. I had been to college and was returning home to study a bit more and maybe go to the gym later on. At this point I was well into my exercise regime and had been obsessing about my food for weeks. I was in the grips of a crisis, all I thought about was food. I don’t recall when I had last eaten a proper meal and I do remember feeling absolutely famished to the point I felt faint. I tried to ignore my hunger pangs but they were becoming increasingly persistent, nagging at me the whole way home. The journey turned into a monumental battle between my stomach and my mind. My stomach was yearning for something substantial to fill it. I was literally starving my body of food and it was starting to rebel. My mind was adamant that I was not to have food as food equated to weight gain. So we had stale mate.
During this confusion and debate that was screaming out in my mind, as loud and audible as a fog horn, the silence in the car was deafening. There were a few shops I drove past and I even indicated to stop by them but then changed my mind at the last minute. Eventually I made my way into town and spied the drive thru Burger King. My stomach’s persistence had paid off and I was pulling up to the drive thru entrance; the point of no return. I rolled down the window and, in one last act of defiance, I remember thinking ‘just order a bottle of water and a fruit bag’ but the temptation was just too much as the scented waft of fries and burgers tantalised my senses. Such was the poignancy of the day, I remember the order. It was a whopper with large fries and coke. I handed the cashier the money and drove over to a parking space. I turned the engine off and the feelings of guilt were already washing over me like an ill tide. I ate the food quickly, part of me just so thankful for something to eat to satisfy the insatiable hunger that had grown in my belly. The other part of me was crying out in protest, already berating the fact I had succumbed to such a ‘bad’ food. With each mouthful the guilt and paranoia worsened. The food was gone within minutes and with a happy stomach and a distressed mind, I started my journey home.
Once again the feelings of inadequacy and confusion returned, this time with full force. The irrational questions began, ‘what if I put on weight after all the hard work I had put in, would that one meal really mean weeks worth of work were done in vain?’ I had not felt full for an eternity and I do recall that I did not like the feeling, although on reflection I simply was not used to feeling satisfied I had eaten enough. It made me feel heavier and fatter! Completely irrational and illogical but that was the way I was thinking. I had demonised food to the point where I was depriving myself of a basic human need and fuel for my existence.
I guess desperation set in, god knows why I thought I would pile on the pounds through eating one meal but I was convinced I would balloon. Looking back now and with a more rational and experienced head on my shoulders, the me of 13 years ago was misguided and obsessed.
No going back
Back to 'that' day and I passed a supermarket shortly after leaving Burger King, that was when I realised I could make myself feel better about this ‘glitch’ in my quest to keep the weight off. I knew enough about laxative abuse, some skinny models would abuse them for years to try and control their weight. I thought laxatives could become my allie when, in truth, that afternoon was when I entered the darkest phase. I was immediately put at ease by the thought that I could undo my little faux pas earlier on. Sure, I convinced myself this would be the one and only time I would use the laxatives, believing this would put me back on the straight and narrow. It was an experiment to see if they would work. I never once thought (perhaps because I was in denial) that this was quite an event I was dabbling with, the dangerous beginnings of bulimia. So I went into the supermarket and I purchased more food to binge on (chocolate, a 10 pack of crisps and some fizzy drink). I came to the conclusion that the laxatives would afford me another slip up. I made my way tentatively over to the pharmacy counter and prayed that the laxatives would be available for me to just pick up off the shelf. That would negate the need for me to ask for them over the counter. The Ex Lax sat there looking back at me, sitting in it’s inane packaging; something completely disarming and quaint about the subtly of the design on the front. I was incredibly paranoid going through the checkout, would the cashier see through me and work out what I was doing? It felt almost as if I had an audience watching my every move, judging my every step.
I got home and I gorged on the crisps, chocolate and drank the fizzy drink. I felt sick to my stomach, partly due to the fact I knew what I was about to do. I snapped off 4 squares of the laxative and started to chew on it. It tasted fine initially but certainly had a twang to it. I gagged a few times before washing it down with a glass of water. I think the gagging reflex was partly a psychological response and I felt absolutely beside myself with guilt, stupidity and a general feeling of failure and distress.
But this would only be the start to my destructive attachment to laxatives.
Purging
So now the waiting began. I was not even certain that I had taken enough laxative to have an affect, I had stumbled blindly into this scenario but had no clue about what I was doing or what would happen as a result. As the evening wore on, I remember my stomach became increasingly disgruntled and I gained some distorted reassurance that they were working. I would not want to go into too much detail as we all know what laxatives do but I remember the cramps and feeling sick to my stomach, how could I have done this to myself? That seemed to be the overriding feeling I was getting. An incredible sympathy for my body took over, it was as if part of my mind had become detached from what I was doing and was looking in on the situation, casting judgements as if it were happening to someone else. After a disrupted nights sleep I felt terrible the next morning. As I would later discover, laxatives can leave you feeling incredibly empty and dehydrated. It is as if someone has come into the bedroom during the night, stuck a tube down your throat and sucked my insides out with a giant hoover. Strange euphemism I know but one that makes a lot of sense to me. I looked pale and washed out and still felt slightly nauseous. But part of me also felt strangely liberated and relieved. Looking back, perhaps I had fooled myself into thinking that the laxatives had rid me of that food ate so greedily the day before. Isn’t it amazing how the mind can play tricks on you. I believe I was so determined to see and believe what I wanted to, that someone could have told me the sky was blue and I would have begged to differ. A severe case of denial, someone call the doctor!
I weighed myself that morning and definitely looked lighter on the scales. Of course this was superficial as I had dehydrated myself but just seeing that figure was enough to convince me otherwise. At that point I was weighing myself several times a day, another huge sign that I was dealing with things badly. It is a shame that modern medicine has not advanced into the realms of attitude transplants as I needed one desperately, I am sure I would have been top of any waiting list had such a thing existed.
But it is easy for me to look back on things and say “well I was dealing with that badly and I shouldn’t have done that, what was I thinking?’ That is the whole point, I wasn’t thinking. If I had been thinking then I would not have even contemplated using the laxatives. I had become so desperate and messed up about eating that my mind was being overrun with these irrational and dangerous compulsions; snap decisions I was making that were not good for my mind or body. Snap decisions like walking that extra mile to burn off more fat after spending 3 hours exercising, not having that extra glass of water in case those digital numbers increased on the scale, pushing that last piece of potato to one side on my plate which provided me with a temporary feeling of pleasure and achievement as I was not finishing a meal. Weighing myself just once more, just in case I had been standing awkwardly on the platform and had somehow distorted the figure that was being fed back to me. It was a form of rebellion that would ensure that those pounds melt away. They say hindsight is a wonderful thing, just a shame we cannot all be clairvoyant.
A new found 'friend'
I had hidden the remaining laxatives in my draw upstairs, making a pathetic attempt to convince myself that I would never use them again, although keeping them was a huge gesture as I must have known that I would repeat my actions. Sure enough, a few days passed and I turned to my new found friends for support again. This time it seemed easier to do, almost as if the initiation was over and I was officially part of this new club, a club exclusively reserved for those of us privy to it. A club where everything was done in secret. Of course the real reason I wanted no one to find out about my new friend was that I felt incredibly ashamed and embarrassed. Beneath my bravado and ‘acting as if nothing was wrong’, I was falling to pieces; crumbling like a stale cookie. How I wanted to stand up and scream out ‘HELP!’ to my family as they sat and ate their dinner, blissfully unaware of the inner turmoil that was consuming me. No doubt their minds were either on the TV screen or thinking about work or what happened in their day whilst I was fighting this silent battle, that inner demon, the one that taunted me, whispering in my ear that another mouthful will make me balloon, another mouthful and I will wake up a stone heavier. Oh how I longed to be able to just sit down, as they appeared to do so easily, lift the fork into my mouth and think about something else. I had become so tired of dwelling on my weight.
The bingeing had spiralled out of control, I would borrow money from my mum (often making up some lame excuse that I needed it for college books) and I would go to the nearest supermarket and stock up on my favourite treats; chocolate bars, desserts, cakes, crisps. Sometimes I would buy 2 takeaways depending on what I fancied. The checkout experience still bothered me greatly, would the cashier guess what I was doing? I would often coyly study their expression and mannerisms, desperately searching for any sign that they knew my terrible secret. More often than not I figured that they would assume I had a young child and we were throwing a birthday party hence all the sugary treats that adorned my basket. I would even alternate the supermarkets I went to, each of them took their turn. Changing the time of day I went would mean that the same cashiers and staff would not be on so I would not get recognised. My bizarre ritual had almost turned into a covert operation except I was not out to save anyone. Truth was that I needing saving from myself.
Several days passed and I continued to ‘socialise’ with my new friend. OK so it was not a conventional friend in most senses of the word but that slab of seemingly harmless chocolate nestled inside that inocuous looking cardboard box and foil packaging offered me what I thought was the best of both worlds and it had become my confidante, something I turned to in my hour of need. I thought I could eat all the morish, ‘bad’ food I wanted AND keep the weight off, I could literally have my cake and eat it. Unfortunately I failed to acknowledge that my apparent weight loss was actually dehydration. This new pal also created some very negative physical effects; mood swings, terrible wind, hot sweats and irregular bowel movements became a regular set of symptoms that would inflict me at some point during the day but I just accepted these and added them to the increasingly large pile of baggage I was lugging around with me. My skin looked waxen and pale, the gym was becoming something I dreaded. I squeezed out every last bit of energy from my tired limbs and would often come out of there absolutely shattered. My social life had become a barren desert. Day to day living was overwhelmed by exercise, purging and a frail attempt to carry on with other daily activities in amongst the mayhem. My college work began to suffer, I would regularly skip classes; I either felt too tired, too unwell or just could not be bothered with it. If I could have sat an exam on how to lose weight the unhealthy way then I would have passed with flying colours, probably even been awarded a prize for excellence.
Emotional repercussions
The laxative abuse was starting to take its toll, not only on my state of mind but on my ability to interact with the people around me. I was becoming a virtual recluse, locking myself away at any opportunity. The reality was that I probably would have been safer if I had locked myself in a cage with a hungry lion; I was in much more danger being alone than I realised. My thoughts were overwhelmed by my obsession with my weight, I was transfixed on my body and what I thought I needed to do to improve it.
Amazingly, I still managed to keep my secret under wraps although people were starting to notice the mood swings as I lashed out at the slightest thing. I recall one incident that will stay with me for a long time. We went for a few drinks with friends and I had on one of my favourite coats. In the pocket was an empty pack of Ex Lax that I had forgotten to remove. As we sat down, the package fell onto the floor and one of my friends noticed. He did not say anything but looked at me in a way I will never forget, his eyes told me everything and I knew that he twigged. I quickly picked it up and shoved it back in its hiding place in my pocket, I avoided eye contact with him again that whole night.
The hunger I had felt for so many months had reduced to a dull pain, constantly there but not always tangible. Although I was eating a lot it was not food with any sort of substance to it. A feeling of fullness was something discernible, deep inside me. An average day would consist of a massive purge, usually either a few takeaways or massive amounts of snack foods followed by a healthy dose of ex lax. The thing with laxatives is that they lose their effectiveness the more you take them, this requires an increase in dosage to achieve the same effects you would have experienced at the start. They upset the balance of chemicals and minerals in the body; this in turn leads to liver and kidney problems and permanent constipation in some cases. Not quite the desired physical effect that you would want from something that you initially believed would help you.
I was sacrificing my health and sanity to be considered a healthy weight but for the first time since I was barely into my teens, I was a ‘normal’ size. I usually hate that term, not least because there really is no such thing as ‘normal’. I think an ‘accepted’ size is probably a more appropriate way of phrasing it. I was wearing clothes that I liked for once, rather than constantly trying to conceal my body in a cocoon of over sized jackets, shirts and trousers. Prior to losing the weight I really was not that big but I had this incredibly warped body image. Because I was not stick thin I felt inferior, almost as if I did not fit in. I did not deserve nice clothes or compliments about the way I looked. I now know i had been suffering some form of body dismorphia for years.
So there was one positive, I felt content that others accepted me more at this smaller size. I felt angry and resentful that no one knew what I had to do to look that way. The amount of hard work I was putting in just to keep my weight at a healthy level. They must have thought it was easy for me to lose weight and keep it off. I would look at other, slimmer girls and, ironically perhaps, I would think that very thing I accused others of. How can they go around eating what they want and staying slim when I have to work my butt off just to keep the weight from piling on? Did they work out as much as me? Did they purge on food and make themselves sick or take laxatives? What was their secret? I guess many people associate having an eating disorder like bulimia with skeletal, 6 stone girls. On the face of things, I was a healthy weight for my height and was by no means underweight. I was certainly undernourished and I am sure that anyone would not or could not have guessed what I was doing to myself.
With the laxatives came a new element to my weight loss, a new problem I had to keep under control; something else I had to fight against. It was as if I was deliberately making things hard for myself, pushing my luck and thriving off the fact I was losing the ability to take command of my eating and my life in general. Oh the tangled web we weave. Mine was becoming increasingly knotted and complex, with more and more strands being added and twisted. Nothing was clear anymore, the clarity I used to possess had morphed into this misty, vague state of mind.
Coming to a head
As they say, what goes up, must come down and my short lived friendship with bulimia came to an abrupt end within 5 weeks. The finale is a vivid memory I hold. I was at college and had taken 15 slabs of laxative the night before. I had just finished and lecture and had broken out into a cold sweat, I had excruciating pain in the base of my belly, a pain that was so acute that I had to stop walking and double up on myself just to alleviate the symptoms. I managed to stumble to a phone box and called my mum at work as I was so concerned. It felt like someone was stabbing me repeatedly in the stomach. I blurted everything out, the words just spilled out of mouth so easily. I could have been at a confessional had I been Catholic. A wave of relief washed over me as someone else knew, I had shared the burden. I also felt incredibly selfish, a feeling that grew more and more as I explained, in between sporadic periods of sobbing, what I had been doing. My mum sounded upset and concerned, ‘why did you do it? Why?’ If I could have answered that question then I would have done but I was at a loss for words. I was being involuntarily gagged by this habit I had been practicing that was now turning on me in such a dramatic and painful way.
Recovery
The following days seemed to blend into one long recovery process, we debated whether I should perhaps take a trip to the local A & E , just to make sure there was nothing more seriously wrong but I decided against it, probably through feeling utterly ashamed at my behaviour. The stomach pain gradually weakened and I was left feeling empty, exhausted and devoid of any nourishment. I felt stripped of any remaining traces of a functional body I had possessed before my downward slide.
My family would never admit it but they were watching me like hawks now they knew the extent of my problems. My older brother was especially concerned as he had suffered with anorexia nervosa and exercise bulimia for many years prior to my own downward spiral. I can recall that he used to go on 50 mile long bike rides which would take him hours to complete before returning home and eating a tiny dinner, so tiny in fact it would be barely adequate for a small child. I know he felt guilty for not noticing the signs of my developing eating disorder, although I put so much time and effort into trying to conceal my behaviour that it would have been nigh on impossible for him to twig any sooner. I had watched him damage his body for so long, yet I was doing the exact same thing to myself. In my head it made no sense at all yet I craved to find a way or controlling my weight.
Finally I had achieved the look that I thought I craved so much but the cost of that was too dear a price to pay. I did not have an epiphany as such but I did realise that the laxatives had to stop.
Post laxative abuse
I met the person who was to become my partner for 8 years during the December of 1999. I had stopped the laxatives by this time but my eating had spiralled out of control again. Our blossoming relationship was going well but I hid an awful secret life. I reverted straight back to my old ways and controlled my eating patterns with such regimented force that I reached a whole new low, often surviving on just soup and bread and a small bowl full of food in the evening. It was not just the weight control I threw myself back into but the obsessive exercise regime kicked in again with renewed vigour. My weight had plummeted and my energy levels were depleted. Perhaps inevitably, I contracted a particularly nasty virus that led to a severe bladder infection. Due to my extended periods of little food and punishing exercise, I had inadvertently beaten my suppressed immune system into submission.
The exercise regime came to a grinding halt and with it, so did my diet. As the festive period approached, the lure of food reared its ugly, unwelcome head. Snacks were all around me, tempting me with their fat laden, sugar filled delight. I was so hungry the whole time that I was teetering on the verge of bingeing at any second. I resisted weakening enough to get through
Christmas Eve relatively unscathed but Christmas Day proved to be the breaking point. There was so much temptation around, suffocating my senses; the wholesome, rich smell of the roast dinner cooking, the irresistible colours of the wrappers on the sweets, the piles of crisp bags that sat in the cupboard just waiting to be opened and their crunchy wonder to be tasted. My attitude shifted on this day, so much so that it took me by surprise. I went from analysing the calorie content of every single morsel I put in my mouth to eating as much as I could, literally stuffing it in with such dogged determination that I thought I may be sick. I mentally gave up and quietly made the decision to eat again, a conscious decision that took seconds to action and something I am certain my body was rejoicing about. By the end of the day, I had worked my way through a large Christmas dinner, 10 packs of crisps, a whole tub of coleslaw, a whole tub of potato salad, countless numbers of chocolates and sweets, half a litre of fizzy drink and Christmas cake. I certainly made up for lost time! The year had taken it’s toll on me, I was drained and tired. I think my Christmas Day binge was a result of the stress I had put myself under for all that time.
After dinner we had headed down to the coast, the weather had been particularly stormy that day and the huge, white crested waves crashed their way onto the beach with such force the shingle was being propelled through the air like miniature missiles, narrowly missing the hordes of Christmas Day dog walkers. We stood and watched, in awe of this impressive show that mother nature was puttingnon. Standing in the gale force winds, my coat shielding my face from the elements, I felt at peace for the first time in 18 months. I cannot say for certain why but my attitude shift had been so significant; I had resigned myself to the fact that I could not carry on as I was. This moment had been inevitable all along, ever since I became careless and irrational with my diet.
You can only put yourself through so much pressure before you boil over, before your resolve and discipline melts away; before you give up. Yep those two words. The two words I had been trying to avoid all along, the two words that any person losing weight does not want to use as part of their vocabulary. There was no going back now, I had given up and knew the consequences. I was forever fighting a losing battle in my mind. Giving up meant that I was subjected to weight gain once again, no questions asked. A few days after Christmas and the bladder infection continued, I was so ill that my new partner rushed me to A & E several times.
Whether this was my body rebelling against me I don’t know, teaching me a lesson for mistreating it...a revolt! I felt so tired and drained that I dropped the one thing that had kept me going, the one thing that I had originally loved doing; exercise. The gym sessions stopped completely. Those endorphins I had become so acclimatised to were draining out of my veins, being soaked up by my new found zest for food.
The weight leapt back on me as if it had never been away. I think this was due to the fact I had been starving myself for such a prolonged period. The problem was that the pounds did not stop piling on. This was when I really started to experience what having a serious weight problem would be like.
L x
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