When i was in my 20's i found myself fighting my way back from bulimarexia...an ugly cycle of binging, purging, restricting, obsessing, smoking like a chimney, living on chewing gum - sugarless of course and black coffee, exercising constantly well into the night, sometimes all night...
At the height of this i wouldn't eat in front of anyone; was addicted to laxatives (Correctol being my fav since it was pink) taking as many as the entire card of 15 tablets any time i put food in my mouth so food would pass very quickly; was also so addicted to ipecac that my fav pharmacies finally refused to sell it to me but i found it at a grocery store and bought every bottle they had as often as possible...
i wore designer clothes and looked wonderful (according to my Mom)...but i couldn't sit in a hard chair because my tailbone was poking out and it hurt, my hair thinned, my nails became brittle - they have never really recovered and 25 years later are still thin and misshapen, the enamel on my teeth was destroyed, sleep had become a foreign concept...i was so controlled by this i could go for 2 weeks or more without food and for a while wouldn't even swallow my own saliva...
Then Karen Carpenter died...
That got my attention because until then i didn't realize this could kill you and we shared a fondness for ipecac. i was scared and sought help and stayed in therapy until the behaviours stopped but never dealt with the underlying causes until going back into counseling last year.
i've had to accept that this will never leave me...
i've had to learn to love me just the way i am...
i've had to learn to accept that i will always be wary of every bite of food that goes into my mouth...
And i've had to learn that when my whole world seems to be spinning out of control i will always find myself wanting to fall back into some of those comfortable, familiar patterns, that there will be times when i will slip back into them...and when that happens i need to forgive and nurture myself...
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