The other night I was at dinner with a friend, a woman eleven years older than I am but who looks my age and is gorgeous. She’s got shiny dark hair, olive skin, a beautiful face, a nice rack, and a small waist. She’s also hella smart and funny, for all you men out there reading this and wondering, But what about her personality!? While I’ve been friends with her for a few years, and we’ve gone out to dinner and lunch numerous times, we don’t know everything about each other. I was very surprised when the two of us began reminiscing about our eating disorders like two veterans of a secret war. We were fondly recalling times when we would sneak off to the bathroom during a night out with friends to throw up on purpose. We both rolled our eyes at the thought; if we did such a thing today, our friends would instantly know what’s up so . . . we’d better not try it anymore.
It was nice talking to my friend about my eating disorder. I’d never really talked about it in this way before to anyone. I usually mention it, if I bring it up at all, as something terrible that I survived. That’s all most of my friends can accept. But my eating disorder was more like an abusive boyfriend. It was harmful, but it could be really sweet sometimes. It was hard to break up with because I loved it. I’ve never admitted to anyone how much I miss it. How much good it brought me even though it was constantly kicking my ass. Barrassing.
Yep! If you’re keeping score, add an eating disorder to the growing list of cute and quirky facts about me. Panic attacks, unhealthy eating habits, and bulimia. Soooo cute! The bulimia started in my second year at college and stuck around for about three years. It took a lot of therapy to figure out why I was doing it and then how to stop. Even though it’s been years since I was in the thick of that behavior, I still struggle with figuring out how to stop thinking about throwing up after I eat.
Even though—duh!—throwing up can cause so many problems. Stomach acid can give you sores in your mouth and burn the lining of your esophagus. Throwing up dehydrates you and can cause a host of cardiovascular problems. It’s dangerous. Also, HELLO! Vomit is nasty! It’s liquefied food that will soon be shit. LITERALLY! It makes your breath smell, your eyes bulge, and your throat burns like hell so you cough every few minutes. Also, your friends know. You think you’re fooling them, but you’re not.
Before I even knew I was having panic attacks, I’d start crying about whatever and be unable to stop. I mean really! I’d spend hours crying if some dude I liked was rude to me. Or if my best friend and I had plans but then she canceled to stay home and write her term paper. My emotions were out of control, and all I could do was cry about it for hours in my room. One day I cried so hard and long that I started vomiting. When I was done, I wasn’t crying anymore. I wasn’t even thinking about what had made me cry to begin with. I felt empty, which was a great thing—before this, I’d felt too full of emotions. It was like pushing a reset button. The next time I couldn’t stop crying, a lightbulb went off in my head, and I ran to the bathroom and jammed my finger down my throat. It made me feel high. It was a little like that happiness you get from the endorphins that are triggered when you work out. I felt a release around my head like a halo that made me feel lighter psychically and emotionally. I’d found a new way to deal with the emotions I was drowning in.
Because I was depressed, I had no appetite, so on days when I couldn’t stop crying and needed to throw up even though I had an empty stomach, I would eat a slice of bread, drink a bottle of water, and then immediately throw that up. I wasn’t even trying to lose weight—that’s not the way it works. I was trying to stop myself from crying, and throwing up made me feel like I had some magic trick to keep my negative emotions at bay.
After I got some therapy and figured out how to deal with most of my emotions while keeping my fingers away from my throat, I turned my attention to actually trying to lose weight. I figured that since I was becoming mentally healthy I should focus on becoming physically healthy as well. At the age of twenty-two, when I hadn’t purposely thrown up or starved myself for six months, I made an appointment with a bariatric surgeon to discuss having weight-loss surgery. Part of that process is a psychological evaluation. I had to see a therapist, not my own, who would determine if I was mentally capable of having the surgery. Surprise! I wasn’t. The therapist said that because I had just battled an eating disorder I needed much more time to heal from it before I got surgery. When people get weight-loss surgery, their stomachs are reduced to the size of an egg. Overweight people usually continue to overeat, and when that happens on a stomach the size of an egg, you throw up. For someone like me who enjoyed throwing up, the surgery was too risky. The therapist suggested that I give it a year or two before having another psychological evaluation. I had screwed myself out of the surgery. I started throwing up again later that night; quitting is for quitters. Luckily, I didn’t have to do it for three more years. I was able to break the habit.