Pound For Pound
I came from the “look good” family which meant I had to look perfect on the outside; everything had to match from my headband to my socks. I was controlled by what I wore on my body, what I said and didn’t say, and especially what I ate. I was 5’2” and wore a size 6, although my mother and sister wore a size 2. I was not allowed to eat baked potatoes, just peas, and was not allowed to have Oreos after school, just apples. I can recall one time starving and asking my mother for an extra half a sandwich which she wouldn’t allow. Then the crazy diets began in high school – cottage cheese, fruit, hard-boiled eggs, and Matzah. I remember flying to Boston to visit my sister and taking my food with me on the plane. I became embarrassed about my body and was filled with shame. I became very self-conscious when I ate and felt that I was chubby although by most people’s standards I wasn’t.
After my first semester at college,five-year I came home 20 pounds heavier. My mother immediately called our family doctor and got me diet pills which worked like magic. Not only did they make me talk more, but they also took away my appetite. This was the beginning of a five-year addiction to diet pills and Black Beauties.
After my sophomore year, I transferred colleges and met a woman that would change the course of my life. One day she gathered all the girls she could on our dorm floor and we gorged ourselves with snacks from the vending machines. The trick was to drink a lot of water. We then followed her into the bathroom and all stood in separate stalls as she taught each one of us how to throw up - stick two fingers or more down your throat and push them back and forth until you vomit. It was the most exhilarating feeling I ever had! I could finally eat anything I wanted and be as thin and as perfect as my mother and sister were. This began a new addiction that would last the next twenty-five years.
I began binging and purging most days. I used to throw up in trash bags and place them in the incinerator. I had to be very sneaky and do it quickly so my roommate would not catch me. I began to lose weight and felt elated! Although I had an eating distorted head and a distorted body image I finally got down to a size 2. I thought, maybe now my mother would accept me and be proud of me.
My mother once wrote me a poem in college called, ‘Pounds.’ I clearly remember one part that said, “Fat day clothes and skinny day clothes are too much of a bother and more expense all the time for your lovable father.” I was so proud of the poem that I hung it up in my dorm room. What was I thinking!
As my disease progressed over the years I soon discovered laxatives. These were also magical because when I couldn’t vomit all the food that was in me, the laxatives would do the job. After a while when I couldn’t possibly chew one more piece of ex-lax, I soon discovered Correctol; those wonderful pink pills. I would drive from one pharmacy to another because I was too embarrassed to buy such large quantities all in one store. I was swallowing sixty a night and binging and purging 2-5 times a day. Things got so out of control that I would eat an entire pizza a steak sandwich and a huge tuna fish sandwich all in one sitting! I even called my car, “The Binge Mobile” as I drove to McDonald's and ordered three large hamburgers, nuggets, and fries and would be finished eating by the time I raced home. I just couldn’t get the food out of me fast enough only to scratch my stomach so hard while purging that my chest began to bleed.
In the end, I was eating food out of garbage cans inside my house; I stole food from kids’ lunch boxes and even from people’s refrigerators. The scale was my best friend and traveled everywhere I did. I was literally crawling from my bathroom to my kitchen to hydrate myself with Gatorade. My facial glands were swollen, I had sores on the side of my mouth, my hair was thinning, my skin was breaking out and I had terrible muscle spasms in my legs. I was emaciated!
Nearing death’s door, I finally met a woman who was also bulimic who encouraged me to go into treatment. While I was in rehab the staff watched me closely because they thought I was going to have a heart attack as a direct result of the laxatives I had been consuming for years. I had been starving myself for so long that the first night I was in rehab I cried when I felt full. I had to learn how to eat all over again at forty-two years of age. I stayed inpatient for three weeks, outpatient for twelve weeks, and in therapy two times a week for a year. This long and sometimes painful journey I have been on has been filled with torturing as well as joyful moments in the last eighteen years I have been bulimic-free. I no longer live in a self-constructed prison or feel all alone in this world. I’ve learned through this slow process that I no longer have to be perfect or in control. I no longer live with shame around food. I no longer run from my feelings. I feel safe in any restaurant and at any party, I attend because I am no longer a hostage to the monster within. The world I spent so many years feeling terrified of I am now a part of because I have learned to face life on life’s terms. I have redefined when I eat that I do so in order to survive. This acceptance has given new meaning to everything that you see when you meet the outside of me that makes up who I am on the inside only that much stronger of the woman I have become through recovery.
