Blue Ink on Paper
Bulimorexia
"Are you working on a new chapter, honey?" Sylvia asks me, half asleep.
I yawn. It is 2 am and I am on my laptop, trying to get through a chapter I wish I didn't have to write. "Yes, my angel."
"Work on it in the morning, baby," she murmurs. "Come cuddle with me."
I bury myself in her warm embrace and drift off.
***********
So I write this in the morning, after a good night's rest. The scent of the coffee brewing fills the room. Sylvia is making chocolate chip pancakes for us, and I can hear the sizzle of the frying pan. God knows I have no desire to eat breakfast, but we are going to, together. Because that is what recovery from an eating disorder requires.
I'm not your stereotypical eating disorder girl. I never was a size zero. I never exercised. But I was anorexic. I was bulimic.
You can skip this chapter if you would like. It is my least favorite thing to write about. There isn't much to tell about my eating disorder. To me, it's quite boring.
At nine years old I liked hiding my food. It was always an adventure, to see what I could get away with. How little I could eat. How little anyone noticed me, wasting away, until it was too late. Not one person ever asked me how my food disappeared so quickly.
For a while, I could keep it a secret because I was a curvy teenager. At age 15, however, my anorexia spiraled out of control. It happened so discreetly, and so unexpectedly, that it feels like it was only a twisted nightmare. I'd go days, weeks operating on 500 calories a day. That even seemed like too much for me, so some days I would skip eating altogether. I went from 130 pounds to 100 pounds in three months.
All I ever thought about was food and weight, it seemed. I checked my body every night to make sure I could feel bones.
At 18 years old I snapped and became bulimic. I began bingeing and purging every single day. I wouldn't eat until the evening, and then I would eat until I was physically sick. I would stick my fingers down my throat until I couldn't puke anymore. Then I would pass out in bed, relaxed and high off of the release.
This phase of my eating disorder only went on for two years. I hit rock bottom (which I will talk about later), and to get out, I started going to Eating Disorders Anonymous twice a week. I started to read the Twelve Steps every single day, and I made sure to speak in every meeting. Finally I had a place where I could be heard and understood.
Shortly after I started going to meetings, I met Sylvia. Together we went through a process of transformation. Our song became Yellow by Coldplay:
"Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones, turn into something beautiful."
We turned into something beautiful, little by little. It was a painful process. We both gained weight we needed to gain, we both forced ourselves to eat three meals a day, and we both had days where we reverted to old behaviors. Our unconditional love for each other helped us love ourselves, and instead of spending all of our time engulfed in self-destruction, we dedicated our time to each other, to EDA, and to our passions.
I will never say I am recovered. The way I see it, I am always in a process of recovery, always growing, always changing, always learning more about myself. The eating disorder still lingers and rears its ugly head at times, but I am at a point where I am strong enough to fight it, every day, every moment, every second.
So maybe at heart, I will always be a bulimorexic. But it is not my identity. I am so much more.
I yawn. It is 2 am and I am on my laptop, trying to get through a chapter I wish I didn't have to write. "Yes, my angel."
"Work on it in the morning, baby," she murmurs. "Come cuddle with me."
I bury myself in her warm embrace and drift off.
***********
So I write this in the morning, after a good night's rest. The scent of the coffee brewing fills the room. Sylvia is making chocolate chip pancakes for us, and I can hear the sizzle of the frying pan. God knows I have no desire to eat breakfast, but we are going to, together. Because that is what recovery from an eating disorder requires.
I'm not your stereotypical eating disorder girl. I never was a size zero. I never exercised. But I was anorexic. I was bulimic.
You can skip this chapter if you would like. It is my least favorite thing to write about. There isn't much to tell about my eating disorder. To me, it's quite boring.
At nine years old I liked hiding my food. It was always an adventure, to see what I could get away with. How little I could eat. How little anyone noticed me, wasting away, until it was too late. Not one person ever asked me how my food disappeared so quickly.
For a while, I could keep it a secret because I was a curvy teenager. At age 15, however, my anorexia spiraled out of control. It happened so discreetly, and so unexpectedly, that it feels like it was only a twisted nightmare. I'd go days, weeks operating on 500 calories a day. That even seemed like too much for me, so some days I would skip eating altogether. I went from 130 pounds to 100 pounds in three months.
All I ever thought about was food and weight, it seemed. I checked my body every night to make sure I could feel bones.
At 18 years old I snapped and became bulimic. I began bingeing and purging every single day. I wouldn't eat until the evening, and then I would eat until I was physically sick. I would stick my fingers down my throat until I couldn't puke anymore. Then I would pass out in bed, relaxed and high off of the release.
This phase of my eating disorder only went on for two years. I hit rock bottom (which I will talk about later), and to get out, I started going to Eating Disorders Anonymous twice a week. I started to read the Twelve Steps every single day, and I made sure to speak in every meeting. Finally I had a place where I could be heard and understood.
Shortly after I started going to meetings, I met Sylvia. Together we went through a process of transformation. Our song became Yellow by Coldplay:
"Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones, turn into something beautiful."
We turned into something beautiful, little by little. It was a painful process. We both gained weight we needed to gain, we both forced ourselves to eat three meals a day, and we both had days where we reverted to old behaviors. Our unconditional love for each other helped us love ourselves, and instead of spending all of our time engulfed in self-destruction, we dedicated our time to each other, to EDA, and to our passions.
I will never say I am recovered. The way I see it, I am always in a process of recovery, always growing, always changing, always learning more about myself. The eating disorder still lingers and rears its ugly head at times, but I am at a point where I am strong enough to fight it, every day, every moment, every second.
So maybe at heart, I will always be a bulimorexic. But it is not my identity. I am so much more.