05.23.2005 | 9:57 p.m.
shadows words
I just wanted to add something that Shadows wrote many moons ago that I don't want to forget:
Shadows Posted: Jun 23 2004, 09:29 AM
Group: *members*
Posts: 3151
Member No.: 14
Joined: 28-January 03
"QUOTE (Guest @ Jun 23 2004, 02:08 AM)
Why keep eating? Why? It's not like your hand is possessed and forces you to eat so much. Just don't buy so much food in the 1st place. Eat a normal meal and then stop. Go for a walk, read, talk to a friend. You can't still be hungry after eating so much food."
Wow.
As someone in recovery from bulimia - but someone who also ate and purged my bloody weight in food every day I feel I ought to say something.
Numero uno - bulimia = bingeing and purging. Of course they eat a lot of food, what do you think a binge is?
hmmm... trying to think of how to put this so it makes an ounce of sense.
Basically - imagine, right now, in the beginning eating to your capacity. [Why? Just assume it helps you feel better, assume that you like food or like purging because it helps make life easier - why is that? Well, thinngs just work that way. Just numbs everything out to a certain extent.]
Purge after eating to capacity.
Do it over and over and over again.
A stomach stretches.
A *LOT*
When I was bulimic my binges were like, 10 pounds of food. And I did that as much as I could everyday.
[yes, incredibly expensive. but so are drug addictions, alcohol - all sorts of 'coping mechanisms' - don't say "just stop" because by that point it's just impossible to do that that way. WAYYYYY more complicated than that. Why not get help? Well, why are they sick in the first place? Obviously it helps them in some way. And now imagine that THAT feels easier than "normal life", bulimia can sometimes feel like the better of ones options.]
At this point in time, because it's been near 2 years since I binged like that on any sort of regular basis my stomach has shrunk back down and it would be totally physically impossible for me to eat even close to as much as I used to. I could probably eat like a pound of food and I'd be as full as possible.
Compared to before when I think the most I ever ate was some 16 pounds of food. [In and then out.]
Sick?
Yes.
Duh.
Hence why it is an eating disorder. Problem. Addiction. Coping mechanism. A thousand things over.
Why not "just eat less" or whatever else??
I, for one, will tell you when I finally went to the hospital I became horribly ill from trying to STOP. Sicker than I was when I was doing it.
When you're THAT sick "stopping" can like, kill you, if you're not careful.
In the end bulimia will leave you with:
- No signal for "full" - so thus, how much is "normal"?? Nothing is. Nothing leads you to that. Normal? Nah. Non-existant. Months of hell and maybe you'll start to get some sense of satisfaction from normal amounts of food. Maybe you'll finally stop feeling "hungry" [always]. But before you get there, I'll tell you, this "normal" idea is way harder, way worse than bulimia was. Period. Not exactly something that everyone wants to jump on. Hopefully someday - yes - but you sort of have to be in the right frame of mind because it is seriously hell, and it's not something that any person, at any time, can just do like that.
- Hunger. recovery lead to this constant constant hunger as far as I knew. Always hungry. Always "needing" to eat. And I would! Had strong physical reactions to when I wasn't eating. Shaking, sweating - wicked dizzy - all sorts of things. They'd go away if you were eating. Bingeing. More. - It's hard to just sit through such physical reactions when you know you can do something about it. And you want to - but you know if you do it's just going to make bulimia go on and on....
It was all insane. My body forced itself to puke even when I tried to finally stop. My body would do all it could to keep eating because it depended on it for whatever reason.
I got horribly ill after just ONE WEEK of having "small binges" - really ill. Eat less? No way. Not when I was going to feel like that.
It's obviously unbelievably expensive. I personally ended up spending my entire college fund on bulimia. As in tens of thousands of dollars.
I spent I think, almost $100 each week - that adds up. And that was me trying to save money and buy cheaply.
But when you eat 70 pounds of food a day - it costs a lot.
So why do it?
All the reasons I said. Because anything but it had such consequences. Physical, emotional, mental - everything. It felt more or less like "do this or die".
You said "you can't still be hungry after eating so much food" - strikes me as strange. Funny. You binge, yes - this doesn't bring true fullness of any sort. Still hungry? In your own way, yes. You then throw up. This empties you. You're back to square one. Empty. Hungry. Facing real life - feels unbearable. Trying to not be eating is impossible.
"It's not like your hand is possessed and forces you to eat so much." - wrong. In its own way it is. If you've ever been in this position, you could perhaps understand why this is inaccurate.
Despite my very best efforts to stop sometimes I just couldn't. I don't know if I can explain this in a way that someone can understand...
basically something happens sometimes. Something like, totally beyond your control. Where it doesn't matter what 'you' want to do because plain and simply you're going to binge. And it's like you can just be out of your mind. A sort of dissociation sometimes. Where you can try to stop. You can leave the room. You can go for a walk, but no, you see, you can't because you're just like, totally out of control.
It's beyond just simple decisions. So far beyond it.
That's why it's a sickness. Not just, like, a simple eating issue.
It's not like eating all the contents of your cupboards was ever your original intention. It just spirals out of control. You get sick. Chemicals change and your mind just sort of switches and so on and forth.
Someday, hopefully, everyone will decide to get help - however, like I said, sometimes it just isn't very possible. And sometimes no matter how insane bulimia can feel it feels better than the alternatives.
Last Five:
empty, force, hope, too much - 07.31.2005
hello heartache, hello faith, hello confusion - 07.5.2005
LITANY AGAINST FEAR - 07.12.2005
healing, wonderful, the worse thing ever - 06.20.2005
translated weight - 06.02.2005