"Mornings. I slide my hands under the covers and take my pulse to find out if it's a good day or a bad day. Fifties, a fine and bright morning. Forites. Crap. It's going to be a bad day. Sit up slowly and head spins. Man, this is better than acid. Head swim and nausea. Pain, lots and lots of stomach and general gastro pain.
Hand on the wall, stand up. Catch myself, then go over to the mirror. Look at my butt, damn, it's still there. Dismay. Into the bathroom I go, lean my head on the wall. Pee. Stand up slowly and get ready to work out."
This was my life a very long time ago. I was anorexic and bulimic, mostly bulimic.
What most people don't know about these disorders is that after a while they do become physical illnesses. Ana and mia (anorexia and bulimia) are incredibly complex. There is no one simple description to define how one becomes eating disorder-ed.
I went to a hospital one time as a result of mine. I was taken against my will. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. The people in my life at the time realized how sick I was and I was forced to get help. I was vomiting blood. Counseling helped me tremendously during this time. I was walking with the Lord through it all and it was during my recovery from this disorder that I fell deeply in love with Him.
Something reminded me of this time. I had forgotten because it was all so long ago. I am 31 now and I was 17 when it completely took over my life. I am completely healed these days and have been for a long time.
An eating disorder usually comes on subtly for years and then progresses very quickly all of the sudden. The disorder is usually triggered by a traumatic event, such as a death; or another major life change, such as moving or going away to college. My eating disorder became serious within a year of a close friend of mine dying. I was a textbook case.
Eating disorders usually effect girls from good homes. Anorexia seems to be more common with "good" girls and bulimia more common with the "bad" girls such as myself.
An eating disorder is sometimes physically painful. At first it is a choice to not eat or to vomit. After a while it is no longer a choice. When a girl becomes "sick" with anorexia and bulimia it completely takes over the mind and body. It is no longer a series of decisions, but a compulsion.
I went through counseling with an amazing woman in my journey to get better. I learned that the normal methods of helping someone through a crisis do not help someone struggling with anorexia or bulimia. In fact, it can prolong the recovery. The sick girl becomes the center of a suddenly disfuntional family.
I am going to leave you with this. It's another exerp from a journal that I wrote long ago, the same journal I shared a piece of in the beginning of this blog.
Hopefully this entry will help someone, somewhere with something. The Lord is mysterious like that.
"Not everyone at the Home was obsessed with food. Oddly enough, my closest friends were pretty healthy. As the dead of winter set in, my friends began to worry. I ate strangely. At meals they'de say too casually, 'Jack, don't you want some?' They'd push food at me. They were concerned and tried to get me to eat more. At the salad bar I had some lettuce and tomato on my plate. A friend jokingly asked if I was going to eat 'all that food'. I put the tomato back. 'My god, you are so sick'. When people say this it proves the thesis that nobody-loves-me-everybody-hates-me, I-guess-I'll-just-eat-worms".
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