Admissions

I don’t know what my lowest of low moments was. There were a lot of lows in my 25 years with bulimia, not surprisingly. As I’ve gained some distance from active purging, I can more objectively see how sad and desperate those moments were—the spiraling hysteria of bingeing and purging.

Was my lowest point vomiting into bowls in my college dorm room, so as not to risk throwing up in a communal bathroom down the hall? Or purging on the side of the road after a fast food binge while out of town for a professional conference I was presenting at? Or maybe the dozens, maybe hundreds of times I claimed to really, really want an after-dinner bath so I could easily cover the sounds of purging and give myself a steamy hour to rid my face of the red, raw puffiness? The times my just-walking toddler was crying on the other side of a bathroom door while I purged? The times I silently rid my stomach of very expensive anniversary/birthday/graduation/vacation meals in restaurant bathrooms? Or the times I snuck off to the bathroom to “slip into something more comfortable” and vomited right before making love with my husband?

I could go on. And on. And on.

I’m glad those lows are behind me. They seem so awful and so shameful on this side, but I’m grateful to be actually feeling the shame now, because I know I won’t want to go back.

Day 112.