A determination to stop. Can you help me? Bulimia, laxatives, and diuretics.

Avellaneda

Why, hello!

I have registered barely minutes ago, but I've spent the past few days reading threads compulsively! There's a lot of knowledge, and people who understand each other here, so I thought I might intrude and maybe detain your attention for a few minutes, and some help .


I am currently 21 years old. My ED started back when I was 15. I started toying around with anorexia for about a year, during which I managed to lose a lot of weight. Even though anorexia was my drug of choice at the time, my true nature loves food, so this disease mutated into bulimia.

I went into a long tunnel of binging, fasting, and purging (vomiting), that lasted for almost three years, during which I gained <weight>. During my last year of highschool, I discovered laxatives. I started to abuse them, even though I knew they had no weight loss effect, just to feel empty. Fat, unhealthy, secluded, I survived merely on a routine. I didn't have friends because I refused to socialize since I was so embarrassed of how I looked. It was misery. I eventually became so jaded, that I quit school, and just went to work, to return to my house where I gave into yet another binge.

Somehow, about a year or so later, something inside me clicked. I started eating vegetables. I used to hate them, and avoid them at all costs, but I made myself learn to eat them. This caused me to start losing weight, and made me feel healthier! I was amazed, I couldn't believe my eating habits started changing even the slightest bit. I stopped purging. I began to eat healthy breakfasts, healthy lunches, healthy dinners. It wasn't all from one day to the other, I had several relapses, but I kept going. I took control of food, instead of letting it control me. I started exercising; long walks were my favorites.

I started losing weight. <edited> It was little, I still had plenty to go, but I felt so much better! I went back to school. Made a bunch of friends, scored top grades on the first semester.

I still had plenty of vices. Though they weren't full-fledged binges, I still had episodes of eating large amounts of unhealthy foods, sweets, and candies. I continued to use laxatives (senna tea) in large amounts. And I started using diuretics, because I thought they would purge whatever water bloating I was having.

I spent another year like this, slowly normalizing my eating habits, but some things are hard to kill. I lost even more weight just by moderating the amount of food I ate (less fasting and binging) and keeping a relative balance. Still, I often indulged into eating way too little food or eating a lot of unhealthy food, skipping breakfast, abusing diuretics and laxatives.

A few months ago I decide to even modify my diet some more. I decided to stop being such a freak about "diet" foods, and started eating what I thought was good for me (rich, whole-wheat bread with honey for breakfast, regular (non fat-free!) yogurt, more cereals, chicken, veggies, eggs, fruit) and stopped thinking so much about whether something has or doesn't have sugar, or whether it's fat-free or not. I also decided to refrain on one of my biggest enemies: sweets. I used to need to have chocolate, ice-cream, or cookies as a dessert everyday, but I decided to switch those for a cup of yogurt, and eliminate sugarless sodas altogether (you wouldn't believe, but barely a week after I stopped taking them I felt repulsed by the idea of one!) and replace them with natural fruit juice. I threw away my diuretics, and decided to let water take it's natural course.

It's been two months, and now I'm finally barely 2 pounds over my healthy weight (and I think I like them!) and two months diuretic-free. I feel so much better than when I started this horrible, horrible path, but I still have one last monster to beat.

Laxatives.

I managed to cut down the dosage during the years and I never did have to increase the dosage, but now I just hate them. I want to stop taking them forever. I have become sickened by the smell of senna, but I have been taking this tea for so long (about 3 years) that I am extremely worried about how my body will manage to function without it. I am afraid my bowels have shut down entirely, or that I won't be able to have a normal BM again.

However, I am decided. Today I decided. I want to quit laxatives.

This morning I had my last cup of senna tea. I won't have one tomorrow.

However, I do need your help. Can you give me any advice on how to do this? Should I quit cold turkey, or take less and less of it (take some every couple of days, as opposed to daily). If I don't have a normal BM in the next few days, should I take some tea to remedy that? I don't care about the weight anymore. I just want some help with what kinds of food to eat, exercise, extra tips to make this easier. This is the last monster I need to beat, and I will do it, if you can help me.