Advice On Getting Better & Staying Better
Hi Shannon -

I just recently saw your presentation here at my university. It was a wonderful presentation and you have a great voice and musical ability. I am emailing you now because I was too shy to talk to you afterwards. I am 19 years old and have been a bulimic for almost 3 years now. I began in my senior year of High School. Almost since the time that I had begun I have been trying to quit. All the descriptions of the personality of someone who is bulimic were dead on to how I feel that I am. I have tried to do counseling but somehow I "forget" my appointment or find some excuse to not continue counseling. I really really really want to stop and I have confided my secret to my best friend in hopes that she could help me somehow. I hate feeling like a liar with my friends because I know that I am keeping some awful secret of myself from them. I know that you are a very busy woman, but is there something that you could tell me or give me some advice on how I could not only get on the right road but to stay on it as well? I appreciate your time - Thank you soooo much.

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Hi - thanks so much for writing! I am busy doing the most meaningful work of my life - corresponding with women like you who are tired of allowing an eating disorder to run their life and want to fight back and recover. Good for you to write to me! Good for you to confess to your best friend! Good for you that you have decided to take your life back!

You remember in the presentation that I made the analogy that an eating disorder is like an abusive significant other - it lies and tells you that if you try to leave, it will kill you, and if you manage to escape you will never find anyone or anything else that will love and care for you and shelter you like it will. This is where you are. You are finally opening both eyes and confronting its lies. You are finally saying 'I don't believe you anymore. I can do better.'

And you know what, you can. You can do SO much better than an eating disorder. Here are some things to think about as you pray and consider the work you have ahead of you to recover:

1. The disease is NOT smarter and stronger than you are. It is a part of your mind (remember eating disorders are mental illnesses) that has temporarily gone awry, become cancerous. But cancer responds to treatment. And your disease is at your mercy as soon as you wake up to its lies. It knows its days are numbered.

2. You need the help of qualified professionals to heal. You need a doctor/nutritionist for your body's healing. You need a counselor for your mind, and quite possibly a psychiatrist for some short-term medication to balance out your emotions and control your stress level.

3. You didn't break in an instant - it took time for the eating disorder to sink its teeth into your life. It will take time to heal. Recovery is not something else for your type AAA personality to be really 'good' at. It is a process of ever-increasing surrender to life, surrender to hope, surrender to an understanding that you alone do not have the power to get better, but that there are people into your life to support your self-effort of healing. You need patience and perserverance, not self-judgment and a timeline. The general rule is, for every year you've had an eating disorder count on between 1 and 5 years to heal (I know that sounds like a large variance - it depends on so many factors that I won't get into here, but I'm just giving you something to benchmark from in your own healing process.)

4. You cannot judge recovery by the relative absence of addictive tendencies and inclinations to indulge in harmful behavior like bulimia. You can judge recovery by small, daily steps towards your overall intention to replace bulimia with health in your life. Even an intention to get better is something worth congratulating yourself for. Even if you are thinking 'I don't want to do this' while you are throwing up, that is still progress from where you were before! Over time you will look back and see all the progress you have made - the general rule is, you didn't break in a day and you can't heal in a day. But you CAN recover over time.

5. Your mind is right now your very worst enemy. You must convince it that it is in its best interest to help you in your healing process. You must win it over. It is not in your court right now - it is the power behind what is sustaining your bulimia. You must learn to think with your heart, not your mind. You must learn to turn to wise counsel for guidance, especially when you are wanting to indulge in the bulimia, and then inform your mind of what you are going to do, and tell it why it wants to support you. I had to recondition my own mind to accept what is good and healthy for me as good and healthy for me. I had to watch my thoughts very carefully as powerful indicators of the choices I was allowing my mind to lead me towards. You are the master of your mind not the other way around!

1. I want you to start keeping a short daily journal, and every morning, first thing in the morning, write out three goals for yourself - things you want to accomplish that day - that have nothing to do with your appearance or the bulimia. They could be doing well in class, meeting a friend, working on a goal or hobby, volunteering, anything. Then ask yourself whether indulging (and it is an indulgence - I can tell you that now and you can see it as a choice because now you are awake and are starting to fight back) in the bulimia will do anything to help you achieve those three goals. Then write your answer to that question in your journal and keep the answer in your mind as you go throughout your day and face choices to engage in bulimia or resist.

2. Write out a short paragraph about what you would like to see when you are 80 years old and are looking back over your life. Write about what you hope you've accomplished, what you hope you have learned and what you have given back to this world. Think of yourself as Kate Winslett in Titanic - overcoming momentary pain and setback to live an amazing life that you are so glad you lived!

3. Finally, I want you to start keeping a log of when you do have bulimic episodes, or when you are tempted to have an episode. In this log, write down what you were doing, who you were with, and how you were feeling just before the urge arose. In this way you can start to determine for yourself why you do what you do.

If you binge at night, start scheduling volunteer activities for the night hours. Giving back to others is a powerful way to reconnect to what you have to offer this world and start building a life where you are literally too busy making a difference, experiencing life, giving and receiving love, and seeing your dreams come true to have time to give to the eating disorder anymore.

You can do this. You can beat this thing. You can recover. I believe in you. . I am here if you need to talk.

Blessings,

Shannon