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To Those Who Don't Understand

by: Leigh-Ann

I feel like I am a million miles away from the rest of the human population. Everyday I make myself binge and purge, and I hate myself for it. I live in my own personal hell and very few people understand that. I hate myself for not being strong enough to withstand food, to have the "willpower" to say no, but it's not about willpower. If it was, do you think I'd be doing this? I torture myself everyday, I ingest more calories than I care to remember and then I make myself throw up.

Please understand that I don't want to do that. It's horrible to self-induce purging. My stomach cramps, my eyes become bloodshot and I feel like I am going to die. Sometimes I bleed and I don't even care. No one would do that in order to control their weight.

I have no control over food- it controls me, with more force than you can imagine. Often I am absent from conversations because I am obsessing about food. I wake up every day trying to fight my inner demon, but food is all around us and I have to eat. My thoughts about food are completely irrational. I feel as if I am not worthy to be alive, let alone eat. For me, there is no grey as far as food is concerned, everything is just unnecessary sugar and fat. I have a "forbidden food" list which is endless ... I hate going to restaurants, I can't bear to let others watch me eat, and once I have eaten, all I can think about is how much I want to throw up, no matter what I have eaten.

Food is my poison, a drug, and if I need to binge and purge, I will regardless of the consequences. I am filled with an uncontrollable rage, which I take out on myself everyday. My mind is extremely sneaky - it tricks even me.

When I need to binge and purge I feel like I am possessed, nothing exists except for me and the food... sometimes I go to buy food and when I am done I am filled with self-hatred and disgust, and I have to cleanse myself, I have to purge, for it is the only way I don't feel like the horrible monster that I am.

Bulimia kills me, yet it comforts me, it's my friend, and now, when I have to undertake one of the hardest tasks in my like, to get better, you can't take it away from me, I need it in order to survive.

I didn't ask for this, and I am not making it up, but I have a disease and if willpower could cure it, I would have done it a long time ago. It surprises me how sneaky I can be, the excuses I concoct, the way I'll do anything to feed my compulsion. I know this can (and will) kill me, but I can't give it up. Some days are so awful I never want to do it again... some days I just want to die, but I can't stop myself.

I have destroyed one of lives pleasures, and perhaps I will always regret that, but for now bulimia is my saviour, and I can't part with it just yet.

©2000 Leigh-Ann. Reprinted with Permission.

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