My opinions and experience with bulimia - don't ever start, this is how it may turn out

by Val
(Canada)

So, someone who is considering purging once in a while to lose weight and is thinking - what harm could it do? I am thinking to myself - NO, you don't want to go there. And the times came flooding to me about how I felt in the past in the midst of it all.

In the beginning, I thought this was a great trick to eat what I want and not gain weight, or if I overate I would just throw it up. I thought I was cheating the system and winning. But sometimes the purge wasn't that easy because of what I ate, I tried and tried to bring it up, tears streaming down my face, my throat raw, my eyes bloodshot, my heat pounding and my chest aching - thinking will this food ever come up? And if it did, did I get it all up? And then the emptiness afterward, the hollow pit and hungry feeling in my stomach - so I ate a little and felt guilty about it, and then ate more to make the purge easier and here we go all over again...

And then the binges would be cookies, cake, fries, ice cream, sandwiches, burgers, pizza, or whatever was in the house at the time. My mouth would be sore from all the chewing and purging. The high from the binge and the low afterwards. When would it stop? Did I get it all up? Did I lose any weight? Did I gain? If I gained I would binge and purge again. If I lost I would binge and purge again. It didn't really matter what the scale said in the end.

The unbelivable weak feeling, tiredness, sore eyes and mouth and head and chest, the shakes and dizziness, the sores on the back of my hand and cracks at the sides of my mouth. The lack of sleep, lack of social life, lack of happiness, lack of self-worth.

And now, after a month of being binge/purge free that little voice saying "eat, eat, eat - you can just throw up after" still comes into my head once in a while and I just want to take that voice and choke it until it's silent forever. I HATE that voice. Never again do I want to binge, I wouldn't touch a binge with a 10ft pole right now. It's horrible. That voice is like an evil being waiting for you to say "yes" and then it takes you in it's clutches and won't let you go.

The person who wants to try purging says "I understand" after the description of my experiences with bulimia, but does she really understand? I hope she doesn't have to live through it to understand.

So, those memories are real to me - but they are in the past and I am keeping them there and will never re-live them. Why would I want to go back to that? Why would I want to give up the wonderful feeling I have now for that?

Shaye, I hope that my story doesn't bother some by reading it - but this was reality for me many times over. When I was bulimic I really tried to block out the bad and just turn my emotions and mind off to the reality of it all, and now I see bulimia for what it really is.

Your site is so therapeutic for those who cannot just call someone up and blurt things out when they have to. I kinda wish at times I had someone to talk to. Maybe someday when I am ready I will open up to someone, but having this right now is a Godsend, for me and so many others - Thank You.

Val.