Eating Disorder First-Hand Stories - First-Hand Stories About Eating Disorder

Written by HealthyPlace.com Staff Writer

Michelle Age: 27 bulimia

I am a 27 year old female who has been bulimic since I was 11.

I first learned about bulimia during a school orientation. Several of my friends and I tried it and I was the only one who liked it. I liked the fullness and sudden emptiness, the complete high feeling afterwards and also the instant relaxation that comes after throwing up.

I really was not an overweight child. I was very athletic and also never really paid much attention to my body until I began binging and purging. I did it occasionally until the age of 13. That's when I was raped by a family friend.

I then began purging without binging and anorexia. I was anorexic until I was 21. I entered the hospital at age 21 with a ruptured esophagus at 5 feet 6 inches and 100 lbs. I had maintained this weight for several years. I was insistent that I did not have an eating disorder and that I had the flu for several months. They did not believe it and called my parents.

I was out-of-state, going to college, and my mom flew to see me. She gave me an ultimatum, move home or go for treatment. I moved home. It was a mistake. I can see that now, 6 years later. But at the time, I was not ready to admit that I even had an eating disorder much less get treatment for it.

After moving home, I entered counseling for depression. I began to see that I did have an eating disorder and that was the first time I talked about the rape.

Several years later, I left home again after taking a job in my field of study. I had decreased my bulimic behavior to several times a week and also began using prescription drugs and cocaine to substitute for the relief of the bulimic behavior. I had a suicide attempt about 6 months after moving away from home. At that time, I was binging and purging approximately 15-20 times a day and wasn't working and obviously not paying my bills. Actually I wasn't doing anything but being bulimic.

I was committed to a treatment facility for several months. I just could not let go and stop purging. Then the court system forced me into drug treatment. I was told at that time that I was chronic and that I would never get better. I really did not care. I was ready to let bulimia kill me. I went to drug treatment, entered a half way house and attempted suicide again, also binging and purging many times a day and was committed to a state institution.

It was at this time that I took a serious look at my life and decided that I did not want to be bulimic anymore. I just could not seem to stop the behavior. I felt as if I was addicted. I could not maintain a healthy weight and I was severely depressed. Medication did not do much good for me because I was purging so much that it never had an opportunity to get into my system. I spent several months in this state hospital and was released. I moved back near my family with the hopes of working things out and maybe that would "cure me".

I have found that the only cure for me is to be honest about my feelings and to not "throw them up". Bulimia is a way I punish myself. I punish myself for feeling sad, happy, succeeding, failing, not being perfect and for doing a good job. I am learning that life is just one moment at a time and that often I can only say: "okay, for the next 5 minutes I will not binge or purge."

After having serious health problems several months ago with my heart and my kidneys, I faced the ultimatum, was I going to listen to my body or my eating disorder. I have chosen to listen to my body. It is hard and not always what I do. I am finding that the more I do listen to my body, the less my head tells me to binge and purge.

I think the hardest part for me is letting go of what I thought my eating disorder represented in my life: "stability, love, nurturance and acceptance". Trusting myself, and others, to find those things outside of food, and also learning to accept my body, has been very freeing.

I am not at a place where I can honestly say I love my body, but I can accept it for what it does for me and stop punishing it for what it doesn't do. My expectations today of life are: "one day at a time"; and I am finding that at the end of the day, if I slip and purge, I can forgive myself, look at why it happened and know that tomorrow is another chance for me to choose to be healthy.

I hope that one day there will be a place where people with eating disorders can go to find support, help and love for where they are at at the moment and not for where everyone thinks they should be. That was the hardest part of recovery. Today I am grateful that I have the experiences I have and I look forward to finding out what life is like when I live on life's terms and choose to do that bulimia free.

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Mary Age: 17 Anorexia

I had anorexia for about two years. It started as a weight thing. I thought I needed to lose a little weight to look better. Everyone around me and in magazines seemed to be so thin and gorgeous.

I started eating less, maybe one meal a day. Sometimes I would have snacks in between, but soon, that ended, too.

In the beginning, I weighed about 100 lbs. In a few months, I was down to 90. This didn't seem to be enough. I had to lose it quicker. So I started exercising every night, like a maniac. I did about two hundred sit-ups, a hundred leg lifts, and several other small exercises.

I also started eating even less. One day, I would eat maybe half a sandwich, then I wouldn't eat the next. I finally thought I'd reached my goal! 80lbs. But I still thought I was big. To me, though, the problem had changed from wanting to be thin, to an obsession with depriving myself of everything, mainly food.

My parents sent me to a psychiatrist, but it didn't help. So after a few weeks, I was on medication. They changed my medication four times, trying desperately to get me to eat, but nothing worked. I had slowly gone downhill. I was depressed all the time, only thinking about my weight. I was so hungry, but the guilt seemed worse than the starvation, so I continued.