Bulimia Recovery

Looking back on the true story of my bulimia, I can see separate aspects of my recovery. The most important of all was "coming out". Some bulimics are already in a situation where family and friends know, but I was not. For some of the time I lived alone, and when I was living with a boyfriend I limited my bingeing to times when I could be alone. It was desperately important to me that nobody should find out.

So, first I started to accept the bulimia (instead of hating it). Then, I started to tell strangers who would never know me, in online forums. This helped me see that I needed to ask for medical help, so I told my doctor. Then I told one or two close friends.

Then I saw that I had to tell my parents. This was hardest because for several months afterwards my mother would cry every time she saw me or talked to me on the phone, and I felt very guilty about that. I don't know if she felt that she had failed as a mother or if she was just unhappy to know that her child had been so unhappy, but either way, I realised that I have to let her deal with her own feelings.

Then I told other important friends, and finally I got to the point where I could talk about it with anyone if it came up in conversation.

I haven't told every friend and family member, by any means. But it is not because I am afraid to. It is just because there has been no need.

A person who adopts eating disorders as a child or young adolescent has never learnt to feed herself well. Even if she has become a gourmet cook, she has not learnt to give her own body what it needs when it needs it, and she no longer receives the signals of hunger or fullness that she started ignoring when she was small. So all of this needs to be learned in the recovery process.

I did this step by step.

At the same time, I worked out why I continued to practise bulimia - what was in it for me.

I do not know which of these two lessons was the more important.

(Part III below - please keep reading)

The first version of this instant downloadable ebook was written for parents of young anorexics but it was so successful it has been expanded to include bulimia and includes a whole new ebook now for sufferers over 18 (as opposed to being directed at parents). So I recommend you give this a try. It will cost you about what you would spend on 1 or 2 binges. Your health is worth that, right?

The most important thing is to get started with a program RIGHT NOW while you are reading this. You are highly motivated now. Go with the flow. Make the most of the moment.

Click here for the bulimia and anorexia self-help guide

When I went to my doctor I was already sure that I was recovering. I live in the UK and the doctor told me that the National Health referral process would take at least 6 months. I was OK with that but I guessed that by the time my therapy happened, I would not want it to be all about bulimia. So I asked not to be referred to an eating disorders group, but to have something that would help me see the underlying causes.

The psychodrama group started up about a month after my last bulimic episode, and I was very glad not to be with other eating disordered people at that late stage. There are times when you need not to be around other practising bulimics. The time to help them will come later.

I was a member of this group for a year, and the main thing that I learned was that the stories I had been telling myself about my childhood were not necessarily true. They were just my stories. I learned to question some of my assumptions about our family that I was not even aware I had. I also realised that there were some very simple reasons why I started binge eating in the beginning, as a child of 10 or 11.

I think I said this before but it is so important that I will say it again. It is something that those of us who have had eating disorders since childhood often do not know:

Normal people eat more at some times than others.

In the UK people may eat almost twice as much on Christmas Day than on an ordinary day. THIS IS NORMAL. The body adjusts over the next week or so and the normal person will not put on any weight.

It is NOT normal to eat exactly 2000 calories every single day.