Advice to someone who suffers from Bulimia
Shannon,

I heard your story on the Wb39 last night and it really hit home. I just told my parents a week ago that I am bulimic. I as wondering if there is any advice you can give me. I really want to recover from this. I am not terribly underweight but I am afraid that if I would have let this go on longer I would have been. We are going to see a doctor this weekend and I just wanted to talk to someone who has been there. Thank you.

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Hi - Thanks for writing. You have the right approach and the right motivations for starting your healing process - you are open and honest, able to state the problem clearly, and have a sincere desire to heal. These are the main ingredients for a successful return to full health, so be encouraged! I want to support you in that as well in any way I can because I too have been where you are.

What happens in the development of an eating disorder is that one or several early messages we receive about food's uses and purposes get skewed over time - ie, food is no longer simply a source of fuel and nutrients for the efficient and effective functioning of our bodies, but becomes also an emotional crutch, a psychological escape, a mechanism for control when other areas of our life feel beyond our control. A return to physical health (in recovery from an eating disorder like bulimia) entails a total shift in our relationship to food to where it is put back in its proper role in our lives - to feed and sustain our body's physical health and proper functioning. That is ALL food is for! It is an activity separate and apart from any other - we eat because our body needs it, just like we stop for gas when our car gas gage light is on 'empty.' It is not related to anything else. Our emotions don't play into our decision to 'fuel up.' When our gas gage says 'full' we stop and move on to the next activity without a backwards glance or a second thought - it's just another daily activity among many activities in our day. And just like we have food to keep our body alive and healthy, we have other useful tools to sustain our mental, emotional and spiritual health. Food cannot do that - it is only designed to serve one specific purpose in our lives. But the media and the society we live in tell us that it can serve other purposes too and achieve other goals - this is Lie #1 and the first lie to break in the healing process. All we have to do to break that lie is to look around us - there are people we know right now in our lives who do not fit the super-skinny supermodel mold who have deep love, career success, fulfilling friendships and vibrant lives. Food does not now and never has determined our quality of life - in fact, the more we deny ourselves the food we need, the less likely we are to be able to achieve fulfillment in any other area of life. But unfortunately the mass marketing mentality of corporate america doesn't make money by proving to us that we can be happy just as we are - they want to sell us something and make money from it, and that requires convincing us that there is something in life we lack, something without which we can never be happy. Like I said - Lie #1 but it is easily broken.

I had a similar experience as you - I was what is called a 'functional' anorexic and bulimic - meaning that I kept the disease at manageable bay so that I wouldn't be forced to give it up completely. You are right in that your weight would have continued to drop over time, until such time as you would have decided to go 'all the way' and would have had to be hospitalized, at which time you would choose to live (and give up the bulimia) or die in the interests on not letting go of the disease you mistakenly believe is helping you live a manageable life - this is Lie #2 and the second lie that must break in order to heal. An eating disorder is like an abusive boyfriend or spouse - it tells us that if we need it and if we try to leave it behind, it will kill us, and if we escape, we will never find anyone better who loves us more. Lies. The Key To Life Program I share in schools and churches and treatment centers focuses on that lie and how to break it - by finding something WE LOVE more than the disease - something that forces us to make the choice to truly live. That is a hard lie to overcome, but it is the most important one to break. For me it was music, and that's what the WB 39 feature was about - how my love for music made me fight back against the disease that was stealing what I loved away from me. And now I have a wonderful life that makes me very happy and I know what my priorities are and what I was created to do, and how food in its proper use can help me stay healthy enough in my body to achieve my dreams. You will need to walk through the same process of thinking about how you will spend the physical and emotional time you now spend on the bulimia when you are healed. What do you love? What makes you happy? What do you want to do with your life? When you are 80 and look back what do you hope you will see? How can you share what you have to offer with this world and help others and make this world a better place? For me it is through music. Only you can answer that question - what is your Key To Life/your motivation to heal - for yourself.

I can tell you that, in terms of recovery advice, the most important thing to look at are the circumstances in which you throw up. Here is an example from my own recovery process which may help you: after several other failed attempts to break myself of the bulimia - my life-threatening habit of throwing up my life-sustaining food - I realized that I had to look not just at why I was throwing up, but when. I began to see that I was most prone to a bulimic episode after I had been in an emotionally intense interaction with myself or someone else - ie when I could not 'digest' the emotions I was feeling. So I would physically throw up in an overt manifestation of what I could not express and deal with emotionally. Bulimia to me was also my way of sending a message to the universe that 'hey, I am not ok. things are not ok.' Since eating for me meant I wanted to live, and my chaotic emotions often made me wonder if I could handle life, I would find that I was unable to eat, or if I was forced to eat I would be unable psychologically to keep it down - I literally felt like I was 'lying' to myself and the universe (whom I now relate to personally as God and the ultimate Healer) if I ate and allowed the food to nourish me, which is Lie #3 -because in truth, we are never thrown anything designed to take away our desire and will to live, or our belief in our right to do so. Witness the Holocaust. The human spirit is inordinately strong - but we are built to last and emotionally designed to survive almost anything. An eating disorder, stripped down to its core, is in essence the indecisive process of slow suicide. But here's Lie #4 - because if I had really wanted to die, I would have found a way. I just wasn't sure why I should really buy in to living. I would suspect you have a similar question in your own heart - the question that prompted you to confide in your parents and write to me. So you may find out that you have a bulimic episode for many reasons - but start to look at why and at when they happen and keep a journal and try to uncover patterns. That way you will have a better chance to keep the promise you make to yourself to get better by avoiding situations where bulimia is most likely to occur. I actually continue to this day to try to limit my potential for stress at mealtimes - right down to eating alone and reading something uplifting while I eat if that's what it takes. It works.

Please keep in touch with me and let me know how you are doing. If you have other questions I will be happy to answer them. That is what I am here for.

blessings,
shannon