ED – Page 6 – I Quit: Giving up Bulimia

Family

My parents came to visit for the Thanksgiving holiday. This is different from most previous years, where we traveled with the kids and tried to see everyone on both sides of the family in four days. That was exhausting and stressful, but it was also fun to catch up and see everyone for the holiday.Continue reading “Family”

“Monitoring”

I feel like I’m back in a more solid, controlled space. I recently read the book Overcoming Binge Eating by Christopher Fairburn, and the second part of the book is a self-help guide centered around CBT. It contains a few charts and detailed instructions on how to complete the different steps in the program heContinue reading ““Monitoring””

Day 3.

Day 3 was sloppy. I’m at the end of the day, sitting in bed, having brushed my teeth and knowing that I did in fact “make it,” but it wasn’t pretty. I’ve been trying to figure out what sets me “off” for this feeling, and I honestly think it’s when I eat breakfast when IContinue reading “Day 3.”

Day 1.

I’m back to the beginning, Day 1. Today, I decided that I’m going to stop feeling disappointed and dejected that I relapsed after nearly 300 days of recovery. Instead, I’m going to treat this as a blank slate, a chance to start anew with hope and excitement, and as a learning experience to see howContinue reading “Day 1.”

Hard Reset

My day counter reads like elementary coding. 0 days, 1 day, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0. Today is Day 1. Actually, it hasn’t even been 24 hours since my last purge, but I’m going with it. Day 1. Back to the start. I’ve decided that I truly need to go back to the start andContinue reading “Hard Reset”

Self-Love

I am doing something this week that I never, ever would have thought I’d do. I am attending a “women’s retreat” in the home of a colleague, which she is leading for a group of 12 of us from my university. We span several age groups–mostly 30 through 40-year-olds, with two younger and one olderContinue reading “Self-Love”

Dates

Some dates just seem to leap off the page–happy dates and sad dates. We have collective dates like this–September 11, for example. Yesterday was one of those dates for me–my estranged brother’s birthday. I couldn’t stop my thoughts from flitting to him throughout the day. I didn’t necessarily have any associated feelings–I didn’t feel angerContinue reading “Dates”

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 vomitingContinue reading “Admissions”

Mom VIII

My therapist suggested something I hadn’t considered: my children are now my mother’s purpose in life, and as such, they will be the ones to change her, if it is ever to happen. Nothing that I have ever done has elicited change in her behavior or character; but, every time she leaves our house sheContinue reading “Mom VIII”

Mom VII

I’ve been trying to imagine what goes through my mom’s head regarding body image. I know that she has been wildly uncomfortable with her body and herself. I know that she was hospitalized in either high school or college for anorexia (though I mistrust my old memories so much now… who told me that? DidContinue reading “Mom VII”