out of control - Eating Disorder Recovery Message Board

pj27 · 02-28-2002, 09:20 PM

Hi everyone,

I am new to this message board. Actually, this is the first time I've admitted that I have a problem, and I could really use some support.

I have been struggling with anorexia for the past year. In January, I experienced somewhat of a wake-up call when I saw myself in a photo, and I vowed to try to eat more to gain some weight. I hit a low-point on Christmas day when I weighed 103 pounds (I am 5'8" tall). The problem is, now I am eating out of control and can't stop myself! I am gaining weight at an alarming (at least to me) pace, and I am scared to death of becoming fat. So I've turned to purging to control myself, which is even scarier.

I am spiralling out of control. Tonight I took both Ipecac and laxatives after a huge eating binge on pizza and ice cream. I am so afraid of what I am doing to my body. I have also developed an addiction to Equal packets. Isn't that the most messed up thing ever? Has anyone else ever heard of this problem?

Tomorrow is March 1st and I hope to turn things around with the start of a new month. Any advice that you could give me about how to stick with healthy eating would be really appreciated...I have always been in control of my life and am scared to death that I can no longer control my eating. I am afraid that my family, friends, and boyfriend will find out about my messed up eating habits. Please help!

Thanks, everybody. I really needed to vent somewhere and didn't know where else to turn.

eminemworshipper · 03-01-2002, 03:43 AM

<<<HUGZ>>> U have come to the right place if you are wanting let off steam.
I know how hard it is for you...recovery is always going to be the difficult part. I know u have said that you have had massive binges...but if you had months of that....you know u'd be just the right weight for your height! Don't worry if it's like that at the moment. When your body gets back into the swing of things and when the cravings for high-calorific foods wear off...then the bingeing will stop.

Ipecac is only dangerous for you xx I don't wish u to do any harm to yourself with that stuff.

Please please take care of yourself and keep us posted.

Caroline X

CloudyDaze · 03-01-2002, 10:41 AM

First of all welcome pj27! Admitting your problem is the first step toward changing your life and fixing the problem. If this is the first time that you have admitted that you have a real problem, I assume that you're not in therapy or counseling. That is the single best thing that you can do for yourself. Give at a chance and it will help SO much.

I know EXACTLY how you feel. I went from anorexia one day to majorly binging and then out of desperation to purging too. If you don't start to fix the problem now it will only get worse. First of all, I'm sure that you're not fat yet or even close, so you still have some room to experiment with eating right without dieting. It may not help you, but something that helped for me was to cling to the diet mentality without actually dieting. Keep only the foods that you don't binge on in your house, don't even let yourself think about or smell or see your binge foods, count your calories out to equal somewhere between 1700 and 2100 calories a day.

FORCE yourself to go through a few steps before you binge. I know that when you get that binge feeling you really don't want to stop it then, it's only later that you wish that you had stopped it. No matter how much it makes you mad or frustrates you FORCE yourself to go through a little prebinge ritual. Drink a full glass of water or low calorie juice, brush your teeth, and turn up the radio really loud and just listen to it for ten minutes. It sounds good now, but when you want to binge you won't want to do it, so MAKE yourself. If you still binge, okay. Recovery starts by binging less, not giving it up cold turkey.

At first it's extremely depressing to not binge because you have nothing to look forward in the day. Just get through a few weeks and things will be much easier as you get out of the habit of binging.

I'm so sorry that you felt that you deserved to be punished as badly as to take ipecac. I did it too a few times and it made me SOOO sick. I decided that I wouldn't do that to anyone else no matter how evil they were, so I wasn't going to do it to myself anymore. I'd rather go through a week of dieting to lose a couple of pounds than go through that again. It's actually a huge relief to know that I don't have to take ipecac no matter how badly I eat and I don't binge quite as badly.

Things will get better. You CAN do this, but it does take work. It takes more work to NOT do something than to do it. Respect yourself for what your trying to do and the fact that you're willing to admit your problem and work to change it. Treat yourself with kindness and love just like you would anyone who's in recovery from an addiction.

One slip up doesn't have to turn into a full day binge or a full week binge. If you overspend your credit card by 100 dollars you don't give up and go spend another 1000 do you? Of course not! If you slip up, even if you just did it, remind yourself that it's now in the past and you can't fix it, but from this moment on you have the control and the ability to start again.

And remember that we're here for you whenever you want to talk!

Sad Bird · 03-17-2003, 01:32 PM

This post is to say "thank you" to CloudyDaze for the post. There were two separate suggestions on how to get better that I think might help me (one was to drink a glass of water before throwing up and the other play some music to keep busy).
I am going to try to do them to try to over come this terrible addiction.

I have had bulimia for over 10 years now and have recovered once for a year and once for a few month, but each time it comes back worse than ever. Each day I wake up and swear this will be the last time I am doing this, but I can’t make if 24 hours with out throwing up.

If anyone else have any kind of suggestions on how to try to make it through this, just like the CloudyDaze’s two tips, please post them.
I don’t know what it is like to feel normal anymore, I think about eating and throwing up all day long and look so forward to doing so and than feel absolutely terrible after.

As some others have mentioned, I am so in control of everything else in my life and am perceived as an extremely successful, intelligent and educated person with a family and a career, but I can’t control this.

I am not in my teens or even in my 20 anymore, but still have this issue and have had it since I was a teen. I do realize that therapy would help, but I want some real life tips on how people do these things on day-to-day basis.

Please help me! I am trying to type this letter through tears in my eyes. I so much want to get better, but just can’t do it.

Sorry for the long post.
Someone please try to help me!

fedupmom2470 · 03-18-2003, 11:49 AM

Sad Bird,
I am new here too and this is a great place...if not to post but just to know that there are so many dealing with the same issues. I am in my 30's and although I was only bulemic for about a year...it was a pretty hardcore year. I binged and purged many times a day. It has been a couple of years since i have purged on a daily basis but i think about it after just about every meal, sometimes giving in thinking its just this once or twice a week. As i said in my other post, if i thought i could get away with it i would be doing it daily. My husband and daughter are very aware of the signs which makes it quite difficult for me to do it at home.At work one of my collegues had a buleminc g/f and we have talked about the signs and he knows i had problems with it myself so i guess really for me its the fear of confrentation that keeps me from doing it on a regular basis. I have read so much about this disorder and sadly enough i always feel as if I would never get as bad as some..that i could control it if it got to that point. I did get to the point of having random nosebleeds and still have chronic acid reflux, i think, as a result but even that doesnt seem to frighten me like the fear of my family and friends knowing and confronting me on it again. Hope this helps a little.
P.