Evil Soul-Destroying Habit

I learned that I was different before I learned how to write, do arithmetic, and make clay models in art class.

From my first memories, I saw myself as chubby and unlikable. I was terrifyingly lonely, and to this day, no matter what stage I am at in my lose or gain weight roller coaster ride, I still feel like that fat, ugly, kid that everyone keeps their distance from.

Until 6 months ago, I was eating as healthily as one does after nearly 15 years of excessive diet, anorexia, binges and purging. I had been exercising regularly and generally coping with my little weight fluctuations.

I truly believed that I had won a victory over this evil, soul destroying, habit years ago. I had been living purge free for so long that it seemed that I had complacently decided that I could never return to such a dark, humiliating, place again.

It has been devastating to see myself back here after 5 years of living almost like a real person. Back when I first stepped into the trap, at 13 years old, eating disorders were still an unknown territory for most doctors and therapists, let alone parents and family.

I was 5 feet, at most, and 155 lbs. I used to walk home for lunch each day from school so as to avoid the nasty jokes and incessant teasing that would accompany the fat kids that eat in the lunch hall.

It was a complete stranger that finally motivated me to do something about my weight. A workman I passed while walking home stopped what he was doing to tell me how pretty I would be if only I lost a little weight.

It sounds so vain and silly to be so easily influenced by the empty words of some man on the street, but I was so miserable and unhappy about the way I looked that this one comment circled around my mind repeatedly until I realized that he was absolutely right. All I needed to do to be happy was to "get thin" and my life would be perfect.

I started switching my thickly buttered sandwiches for cottage cheese and salad and cutting out my secret snacks of candy and chips. The weight began to drop off almost immediately.

My parents were very preoccupied with their own lives and problems and barely noticed my transition. So when I realized that the less I ate, the better I felt about myself, it was easy for me start skipping meals and throwing up the ones I did eat.

It was so liberating to be thin at last. Everybody treated me so much better and I received plenty of attention from boys. Finally, I felt proud of myself and when I looked in the mirror, I smiled a genuine smile because I was happy and confident. My sister even stopped calling me fat cow and had to put up with people complimenting me, rather than her, for once.

Of course, I was blissful because I had no idea that the next 15 years would contain the most excruciatingly painful and miserable times of my life. It didn't cross my mind that I would lose complete control over myself.

When my parents finally did notice, it was already far too late and I was hooked into a tight cycle of not eating and then, of course, purging it all out in a panic desperation.

I was sent to a thoroughly useless child psychologist who admitted to me that she had no knowledge of the disease. But I continued the sessions so that my parents would leave me alone.

At 16, I became so depressed that she admitted me to a psychiatric ward for a week. My time spent there was not only unconstructive, but also served to reinforce my belief that no one could possibly understand what I was going through.

After yet another failed therapist and a couple more years of hopelessness and public shame, as my so-called friends and community uncovered my habit, I was finally sent to an expert in the field. He was a psychiatrist who, over the next 2 years helped me develop the tools to fight my own battle.

Unfortunately, however, at the time I was not strong enough to do so and it would take another 7 or 8 years to finally stop. It was humiliating, and degrading, to be the mentally ill girl that couldn't control her eating and then throws it all up.

Recognizing how low I had fallen and then how far I had climbed to get out of that pit, made me so proud of myself. I know I can beat it again because I have done it before.

However, I am also aware of how easily I can slip, any day, any time, any moment in my life, and that terrifies me. I have nightmares about eating loads of cake and chocolate, then trying to make myself sick and not being able to find anywhere private to do so.

The truth is that, even when you break the cycle and manage to go for years controlling yourself, you can never sit down at a dinner table without an element of panic or walk into the kitchen without a pang of anguish in your gut, because deep down, you know what you are capable of doing, and all so easily and naturally.

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