I had my dinner. I had a second bowl. I had an apple. I had a 6th apple. I had some porridge, and a second bowl. I had some all bran. And 6 more bowls. And my stomach swells. And the liquid rises. And I am so frustrated.
Why do I have a lodger in my house? Where else can I possibly go? I can’t go in the street, these streets are too busy. I know of no public toilets nearby. Why don’t I have a car? I so should have a car. How am I supposed to get rid of this? It has to go. Why did I agree to this? Why did I eat all this? Maybe I can vomit quietly. Maybe she didn’t hear the cereal bag crunch from my room. No, no, she will put two and two together. Or maybe she will just think you’re unwell. Oh now I am tempted. But she knows I wasn’t unwell a few hours ago. Maybe I can starve for two days. But that’s a lot harder and takes a lot longer. This could all be over so quickly. Can’t she just leave!!!!! Go out!!! Argh I can’t stand it I want to tear my stomach out. I want to tear it out. I want to just start again. I want to be small and petite but I’ve become large and bloated and my days have become tarnished in failures and binges and memories of what was, times where I had self control. But right now I just long to live alone. To have her out. Why the fuck is she indoors all weekend? It’s not fair. Argh it’s not fair. I’m so sad. I want the food out so badly, it doesn’t belong there and it doesn’t belong on my thighs and my stomach, please they have enough. And it’s not just today and tomorrow, this weight gain will ruin the trips, my birthday. Another fucking birthday shrouded in thoughts about food and weight and diet. Another fucking waste of energy. Another internal misery and disappointment. With only myself to blame.
If you can’t already tell, I’ve started my story from within the heart of storm ‘Sunday night’ binge, eventually succumbing to the idea that I’ll have to sleep through this one, and starve it off tomorrow.
This wasn’t always my tactic. In childhood, tactic one was wishes and prayers before bed to wake up slim and beautiful. At age 8 I tried wearing my 4 year old sister’s tiny shorts and strapping my thighs and stomach up overnight, in the hope of shrinking them, which not surprisingly failed. I knew something had to be done, I just didn’t know how yet. Around this time I was used a letter from school that said something about me needing my weight checked. How embarrassing. To me this was confirmation of my fatness. Even after a nurse said “goodness you’re a little girl why have they sent you here”, the seed was planted. The times I heard Mum stress about her weight, my brother scolded for eating too much, a comment on me gaining weight after a family holiday; all these things around me confirmed that being fat was something to steer well clear of. In combination with that, I can’t quite explain it but I was a sulky subdued child. I was never a confident kid. I was the wallflower, afraid to shine. I was the kid who was smart and capable, but didn’t put her hand up and tell everyone the answer they were all desperately trying to solve. I was the kid who wouldn’t dance or sing, without her hand being held. I was the kid who could play the star role in the school play, but who lost the part because she wouldn’t speak up. I was afraid to shine, and each time I was afraid to, I believed that my shine was a little dimmer than all the others, and faded into the background. I longed for the move in school, the new term, the new friends I would hang out with; all these events I hoped would one day bring me happiness. I don’t know why I didn’t already feel I had happiness. I had a lovely family, who always did their best to look after me and support me, but ultimately I did not like me, and I longed for something external to fix my internal sadness. It wasn’t long before I worked out being slim could get me at least part the way there, or so I thought.
As time passed I learnt and evolved my techniques realising that the shorts and the prayers were not going to cut it. I began to skip my lunchbox sandwiches, throwing them in the bin at school, and eating less at other meals, trying to do fasts as and when I could. Soon I realised that there was a massive obstacle in my way – people. I could see that they would not be ok with me not eating – ‘silly them’ I thought, ‘I have this great plan to be thin and happy, I will just have to lie to them until I get to my goal and then they’ll see how clever I am’. So the lies began, along with the fasts. I am both amazed at my creative ability and concerned by my deceit at such a young age. I lied that I ate at my friends house, and lied to them that I ate at home. I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t very slick at these ages, and I hadn’t realised that parents do speak to each other, and “did they eat ok?” was probably a go to small talk topic. As for weight loss it was nothing dramatic, and wasn’t quite what I was longing for, but I kept trying. I came home and jumped around on my bed to exercise. I shook and tensed my legs 100s of times at night and did odd up and down arm and leg raises, reflecting my childlike cluelessness in regards to how to lose weight. I guess if I was 8-10 years old in this time, I would have googled how to lose weight long ago, and dread to think what the new found knowledge would have done for me with the eagerness I held for success in this arena.
I soon upped my lying game, and by age 10 I had a long term lie set up, which was coming back to bite me. I hadn’t expected my loving parents to pursue my complaints of constant tummy aches. I had thought they would merely accept it for an explanation of why I wouldn’t eat much, and then my weight would drop, I would look wonderful, and skip off into happy blissful life, all ready for secondary school. But I soon found my 10 year old self, sat in a doctors surgery, being asked by the GP if I was stressed. He diagnosed ‘abdominal migraine’, and I was given some sort of tablets, which I never took. I felt very guilty as I knew Mum and Dad worried for my sister Serena a lot, and here was me, making up things wrong with me – and I was actually being given tablets for it? The tummy aches legitimised my reduction in eating but I would still eat enough to keep my parents and others happy, so weight loss was limited. On a year 6 trip, I told my friend about the tablets and fake tummy aches and how I made it all up as I didn’t want to eat. She smiled, but looked at me as though I was strange, so I decided that this really should remain a secret quest. Besides, I knew the secret to weight loss and happiness, and had no intentions of giving up on it nor of sharing it with the world.
With the arrival or secondary school I was learning more dieting information. I learnt about calories by sneakily looking at mums dieting magazines, and a little book I found which was full of what seemed like every single food and the number of calories listed along side it. ‘Genius!’, I thought as I leapt to the back of the book where it told me the weight I should be. This is when I met the scales, and not just one set, but the numerous sets around the house that had a few pounds between them. I knew them all. I set my goal weight as the lowest healthy weight for my height as to me even higher end of normal must have been a kind way of registering as fat. I was already well within the healthy weight range, so this only confirmed my views of the charts generosity. I managed some longer fasts. Eating during the day was easier to avoid. Eating at home, not so much, though I sometimes managed to hide the food away. I did a sponsored 24 hour fast at this time, for charity, but really I think it was a test for myself. I was internally gleeful when I had done it. And what’s more, I had done it with no one around me knowing. I noticed people around me spoke about weight more at this age, and I arrogantly thought to myself how pathetic talking about wanting to lose weight was, ‘don’t they know what to do? Why talk about how weak you are? Why not just do it?’, I thought. I knew that one day I would be finally able to fast for longer. But the next few years were constant failed attempts for any seriously long term fasts. It wasn’t enough.
At 14 I started a new school, and having not achieved my longed for weight loss, I felt disgusted. I was so quiet at school that teachers thought I had some sort of social problem. I was just so deeply insecure and alone. I had no idea how to talk to people in my new school, when I hated what I was. I eventually found some friends who hung out with older girls, and I sat silently with them each lunch time, never eating, and rarely speaking as I was far too shy and they seemed far too cool. I don’t think this helped my self esteem. I still maintained contact with some old friends who I at least could speak to, and around this time I discovered alcohol. I saw that it could make me speak and make me fun, but also make me unable to walk and in serious trouble with my parents. So I had to say goodbye to those friends. But on the upside I was understanding more about calories, and armed myself with information on what was and wasn’t conducive to weight loss. But with my attempts at dieting, came what I now know to be binges. I think early on my older brother got a lot of the blame for times where it was in fact me who had stolen things like a whole pack of chocolate bars or a packet of hob nobs. All of the forbidden fruits… the things the dieting mags warned you off of. The things I felt I was weak and fat if I went near. And after the binge came the deep shame. For someone with an already low self esteem the power of the shame cannot be underestimated. Remember just days before you were on the top of the world, in control of what you ate, with your eyes set on a sparkly happy future of the slim happy version of you basking in the sunlight. And now that you messed up you only had only yourself to blame for the misery in which you sit.
Year 11 came along and I had been dieting quite well in that year. My brother was in 6th form so dinner was often made just for me, and I had likened to a new technique of wearing a long sleeved top and wrapping a large part of my dinner in kitchen roll and putting it into my sleeve. I would then store the food under my bed and throw it away at school the next day. Then came the last day of exams, and a few friends were going to town. I remember I had broken my diet the night before and binged. I just could not be happy and could not stop thinking of food. And so I told my friend I was too tired to come out, and knowing the house was empty, I binged again. And felt awful. And so this cycle of dieting and bingeing went on. Until my brother started university, the opening I longed for.
This was it; I was eating dinner totally alone and I was no longer a child as I was in 6th form. Food became so easy to avoid. Sixth form was a time of semi independence, unstructured meal times, and it was totally acceptable for me to have “already eaten”, or to “make something myself”. Starting the gym and a diet with a friend provided extra steam. She soon stopped her diet, but mine lived on, and her stopping, much like the arrogance I felt toward those who complained about their weight and didn’t act, only added to my elitist feeling. This was something I could be great at. This was finally it! How exciting! At my 17th birthday, proud of my iron will I avoided all the special breakfast foods my parents had laid out lovingly for me, “ha ha you can’t trip me up that easily!” I thought. For my parents they must have noticed my obsession pretty quickly, but everyone praised the first stone that came off. It took just a month. I was so proud. I went to pizza hut with friends, and I felt superior as I wore the smallest jeans I owned and sipped my diet coke knowing I no longer needed to give into eating that food. I had done it! I had won! I was thin! But as much as I heard these words from people, I heard only condemnation from myself ‘you’re still so fat’.
I soon felt too tired to exercise, so I quit the gym. I ate mostly plain vegetable stir fry or low calorie weight watchers tins of spaghetti for dinner, with porridge and water for breakfast. If I was lucky I would throw in an apple. Naturally, my weight continued to plummet, but as the numbers on the scales went down, my happiness and vitality went with it. I felt like I was in a daze, not fully present in my day to day encounters, and too weak and low in energy to even speak loudly, let alone get fully involved in all the social conversations around me. I had a few friends with whom I maintained some sort of social life with, but the idea of going out drinking or eating terrified me, so I avoided most outings. I found it incredibly confusing when people praised my weight loss but then said things like “don’t get carried away”, “you look better now that’s enough”. Only I knew when it was enough, and I was nowhere near, but gosh I was so cold and tired.
My memories of the year that followed were memories of how I hid, dodged or lied about food. My interest in people flailed. They all came second to weight loss, plus I didn’t have the energy for speaking. By 18 my guest of honour at my birthday was a deep fear of the food surrounding me. With my family on my special day I hoped they might try and understand how terrifying a slice of pizza may be to me, but felt only deeper pain and misery knowing that me and my eating disorder were alone. I met alcohol once more, and drunk off one or two drinks I told a guy who liked me of my fear and the sadness, and he tried to comfort me saying I looked great, but he was shy and so was I and we never spoke again about it. And I never really spoke to anyone about it. So I presumed it all went unnoticed. And that all the thoughts in my head were correct. And I added layers, both in terms of clothing to fight off the creeping cold, and in reaching me. The further away I kept people, the less they could interfere in my plans. The whole of 6th form for me was studying, getting through my days on as low calories as possible, and finding enough energy to smile speak and laugh when appropriate. I am extremely lucky that during these years I got closer with some friends I connected with, and this brought some happy times.
During the Summer break I continued with my project, dodging the food in a family holiday, and feeling furious with my family when they challenged my eating or lack of. The return to upper 6th came and I kept things ticking over, and felt smart in my ability to appear I was eating enough and that everything was ok. A level season approached and how I loved revision for it gave me a wonderful excuse to avoid dinner, and say I had already eaten, at times that had fit with my busy revision schedule. I would leave a trail of crumbed plates and dirty cutlery as evidence of having eaten. I even ‘shared’ a pizza with sweet Serena once and got her to eat so much of it just so it looked like I had eaten, so I was by no means short on creative ways of making it look as though I had eaten. Again at dinner I would often use the wrapping food in kitchen roll to dispose of later trick. Anything to avoid the weight gain or deal with the immensely distressing feelings after eating ‘’too much’’.
I wasn’t looking my best. My hair was falling out in clumps. My scalp was covered in psoriasis scales that craved for some tender love and care, or at least a little food. I offered them olive oil, hoping applying this to my scalp would reduce the drought. 1 minute after I applied it, the terror of the calories was so intense that I scrubbed and scrubbed until my head was even more raw and bled. I knew logically olive oil calories would not be absorbed through my head, but there was a chance that they could have been, and for my anorexic head, that was motive enough.
Soon the exams came, and one day in particular was memorable for me: the day my dad had a heart scare. Thankfully all was well with his heart in the end, but that evening as I waited to hear from my parents in the hospital I sat and thought ‘my goodness Laila, how selfish of you. Your wonderful Dad could be unwell and you are making yourself ill you silly girl,’ and so I began to eat the food my Mum had left in the oven. Vegetables with cheese on top. “Cheese. How scary!”. But I ate it, and it was delicious, and I ate another bowl- absolutely amazing. But my stomach distended and I was disgusted by it and by giving in. I just could not stand it being in me. And so I stole my sisters laxatives, and this was not the first time I had done this. In the past I had tried all types she had, which she needed for her bowel problems. Often I opened the lid and just drank – now I know what a big dose this was. I would often fill them up with water, which I now realise was so selfish and horrible of me and could have even potentially harmed my sisters health. But… I had the laxatives, far too much of them, and I went to sleep. The next day it was my English literature exam. I drank my double coffee before my exam as usual but this time it did not give me the same magical calorie free click it had done to get me through previous exams. This time I felt nauseous, confused, dizzy and had serious stomach pains. I left during the exam twice. The first time I sat on the toilet floor, hands on my temples, elbows on the toilet seat lid, trying to calm the dizziness and talk myself back up and into the exam ‘you’re gonna mess up everything if you don’t do this exam’ I thought. But the second time I left the exam hall, I knew I could not re enter. My head spun, and my body felt an out of balance feeling I cannot express in words, but that I now know was an electrolyte imbalance. I turned on myself as I cried to the teacher overseeing the exam, in between tears saying ‘this is all my fault’. I somehow, through amazing luck, kindness of examiners and excellent course work, still achieved an A grade despite only making about 5 bullet points in what should have been a two hour exam essay. This was not a turning point for me where I changed.
I continued to withdraw, and the summer holidays made that easier. I was terrified of gaining weight and every day consisted of me waking up and thinking of ways in which I could avoid eating. I no longer cared much about anyone. This was the most important task in the world in my mind, and seeing other people only interfered with my plans as I might have to eat, or even socialise – which had now become its own kind of hell to me. Turns out sitting at home counting calories and watching diet shows each night left me with very little in the way of conversation. And the lack of energy is not to be underestimated – the brain is literally on empty and can’t even muster the energy to engage with other people. I honestly think I would have learnt to drive in 20 lessons rather than the 40 it took at this time, if I had not been anorexic – I was probably akin to a drink driver or someone sleep deprived with my level of abilities to learn whilst behind the wheel. But I did learn to drive, and I did pass. And up until this point I did still have friends, and a great family, and I somehow got a job in a video shop.
Soon after this time I hit my lowest weight, but it came at a cost. The subtle friendships I had built were all but gone. Socialising got in the way of calorie counting and risked me going off plan. The cold was so intense, despite the 28 degree summer outside. But the most painful and unexpected thing was the misery. I had imagined that these new slimmer times would be joyful, but when I looked within myself all there was were strings of calorie calculations, weight projections and countdowns until the next dieting show was on. I must have been a misery to be around too, and I knew it, so I further avoided people. Mum tried her best to take me away for a nice break in Malta, but while she tried to make conversation over dinner, my mind was filled with ” this waiter is a liar. I am sure this salad has oil on it. I can’t eat it.” It must have been hard to watch for mum. As summer came to an end and the exam results came in I picked up my results and saw that I had straight As. That day, I climbed the hill home and entered my home, and I cried, with not an ounce of relief, but merely with emptiness. This goal I strived for meant nothing to me now, all that meant anything to me was the numbers; the calories and weight. I felt like a slave to my diet. I eventually attended some counselling sessions through the GP – I was coaxed into to an extent via the school. I feel like she did try. She did tell me to eat three meals a day, and she did tell me to try and add forbidden foods. One time in particular I recall adding a slice of cheese to my usual Ryvita and tomato meal. My god it was terrifying. But I would constantly tell her I was afraid of losing control and going crazy. She suggested this was unlikely. What I now fully understand is how absolutely wrong that was – actually starvation makes anyone turn into a binge eater – even if it is short term. I feel like had I been prepared for my mammoth hunger to come back – I may have turned on myself less in the after math.
When I began my first true binges (these were so much larger and faster than my previous binges), they terrified me to my core. One of my first major lapses in my eating regime was bread-gate. I still remember how amazing it smelt, how fresh, how soft, how tasty I knew it would be. My starved body craved it so much, and mum and dad were on the way out. Plus I needed to start eating more right? So I gave myself the green light. But I could not stop, it felt like something possessed me and before I know it half of the bread was gone and my stomach looked ready to burst. I felt such a deep pain and sadness. I felt like I wanted to tear my stomach apart and take the food out – I was terrified of what digesting it would mean for my future – and so that was the first time I made myself sick. And at first I thought, my god I have done it! I have had the best of both worlds – I have had my cake (bread) and eaten and un-eaten it too!!! I felt far from physically energised but mentally I felt I had taken it back, and things could return to normal. But this was a slippery slope. The binges never again stopped for the next 10 years, it is only the compensatory methods that I flicked through over time.
By uni, I again blamed internal misery on external settings and left my first uni after just a month and a half. The second uni didn’t bring me happiness either. And my binges grew more terrifying, as I wolfed down loafs of bread and boxes of cereal following my drives to supermarkets out of town for fear of seeing fellow students. I was extremely alone and detached. And so ashamed. I was visually bigger. I almost doubled in weight in just 6 months. Sounds impossible? Its possible. My worst fears were a reality. Everything I thought to be true in my anorexic mind was confirmed – eating will make me lose control, food will make me fat and more miserable and disgusting, and no one will like you. At 19 I was so deeply full and frustrated. I hid from people a lot. It felt like I lost my identity. I had become so close to anorexic laila, I was so good at it. Who on earth was this laila? People were noticing. I could see their disgust. I was meant to gain weight but not that much weight it seems. The hypocrisy bothered me. But I hated myself more than even. I went to watch a show ‘Chicago’ with a few friends for my 19th birthday but I barely paid any attention to the stage and was instead weary of my chubby stomach and thighs I felt press against the theatre chairs as I stared at the beautiful performers and scolded myself for not being in shape like them, I wanted none of the socialising. I only wanted to go home and formulate the fastest route back to anorexia. On my actual birthday that year I spent in my uni, utterly disgusted with every ounce of my body, in a lardy ball of tears, hidden in my room.
The binges grew and my new uniform became Asda jeans, a £4 t shirt and a black cardigan. I refused to buy new clothes. I had officially let myself go. I never socialised at uni. I lost some of my old friends through a moody outburst and insensitive friend. I was so depressed and my GP handed me a pack of pills. I considered suicide in these dark days, but always knew I couldn’t do that to my family. I knew they still loved me, even if it made no sense to me that they should.
I eventually found my way back into the gym and was soon praised for the losses again. 1000 calorie a day limit and 800 calories burnt in the gym 5 days a week. I didn’t see this as the starvation that it was. It worked. I felt better. By my 21st I was desperately swinging from starvation to binges, not eating yet exercising loads in the run up to my party, and terrified to have a slice of my birthday cake. I lived with friends which was beneficial in some ways, but the years were still ones of extremes; strict diets, up to 4 hour gym sessions, eating out of bins, hiding in my room, stealing and replacing friends foods. I found a new relationship, which gave me some sort of boost and fuelled my ability to starve for days. But the binges still found their place too, when the moments made themselves available. But being close to a guy he can tell a lot. He can smell sick on you. He can see your face flushed or eyes red. I had to adapt, and I became better at putting one face on with him, and saving my reckless binges for my time away from him, though there were still times I would sneak off to make us a 5th cup of tea, when really I would be using it as a few minutes to binge and purge.
That cycle went on throughout my 20s, and underpinned my happiness. Food dominated everything, although I tried my best to mask it. My obsessions had me leaving nights out early, when unhappy with my weight loss performance that week, once taking the birthday girls cake home to polish it off alone and spend the night with the toilet bowl. I began running, but soon took it to an unhealthy level and gained myself a bad overuse injury. I found new legitimised ways to starve myself using a diet that had a name, and there were people online who did it with me, and a company who sold me the stuff. Sure, it was less than 500 calories a day – but I had a scientific explanation to accompany it. So the eating disorder never left me. Not for a single day. It merely changed Forms. And I never could get over the inability to return to my days of iron will.
As the years went on, my friendships grew closer, and non attendance was never an option. But my body often fought the stresses I put on it, marked by numerous nights out ending in me asleep in a club. I often said this was not related to what I put my body through, but I’m aware it is also a logical conclusion. The list of things I have done, and times I have lied – whether it be directly or through the smiles and laughs I bore on my face after torturing my body again and again, went on for the years to come. I let my secret slip on a drunken night out, which I suppose I must have on some level wanted to.
At 27 my binges were mostly compensated for by marathon training runs. Yep this made it all justifiable in my head. And my birthday was no exception as I spent the day running for 5 hours burning off a binge from the night before. Only at 4.5 hours in could I relax in the knowledge that the binge was finally made up for. The day could go on. My 28th birthday was marked with stress about what to wear and utter misery in the changing rooms in the day in the run up to the party, staring at my body unsure if it was disgusting or acceptable; it’s constant fluctuations became hard even for me to keep track of, and I feel this further confused the discourse between me, my body and the deadly mirrors. But of course I always went out, they all never knew the smell of vomit I desperately hid, the execrise I disguised as all part or marathon training, the endless reams of notes on my iPhone mathematically calculating when the last binge was made up for, how many pounds I should be losing this week, and a variety of other exciting food related plans. 29 was another memorable one where I sat playing with the seafood at a birthday dinner. I was angry. And I worked out why. When someone restricts them self with food fasts and then when they finally are allowed to eat, and they have only gone and chosen a cuisine they dislike- oh gosh it’s so disappointing. And you’re still eating the calories and not enjoying it? It felt akin to having stretch marks and saggy boobs from a pregnancy but without a baby to show for it. A bit much for a comparison I know, but my mind was dramatic. The following day was a lovely lunch with friends, and a little cake. A few hours later was a nice evening dinner with two more friends. What to do in between these nice plans? Relax? Call a friend? Browse the shops? Oh no why do that when you can stuff your body with food for 2 hours, until you can’t move or breathe, and call yourself all the nasty names in the world as you shove your knuckles into you mouth, wishing it all to be gone. Guess what you don’t want to do after a binge? Go out to dinner. And then turn up to the meal all smiles.
This is the lies I refer to. The lies for me were mostly in the smiles. The ‘yes I am fine’, the ‘oh I don’t care about my weight’, the pretence that I was healthy. Another memorable moment, I found myself googling whether it is possible for a stomach to explode, devouring what I think some people might eat in a month, yet at the time being around a size 8 frame. The joy you get while eating that food is so short lived, and the horrible pain and stress that comes after far outweighs the pleasure. That night in particular I was terrified. The food would not come back out. I tried all my usual ways, and began to be convinced my stomach would explode. I feared having to be in hospital and everyone knowing my secret. I was exhausted and my throat began to bleed from where my nails had scratched from trying to induce vomiting so many times. Until I tried one last time. And I kid you not, it was like a damn burst and vomit erupted everywhere. Every part of the bathroom had a piece of my stomach contents inside it. And so I continued until most of it was out. And as my eyes began to close from exhaustion I got up and I cleaned until there was not a spec left – for fear my housemate would come home and see the true devastation of my daily life. The relief when I crawled into bed and slept for 12 hours was immense. Again, this experience did not make me stop, I went on to repeat this daily that week. The physical urge is such that it is strengthened by the process.
At the risk of repeating myself, this continued for the years that ensued. Sometimes I would not be sick for 4 or 5 months, but bingeing was always at least once every 10 days. For the gaps in being sick I turned to exercise or starvation to compensate. There were also many other rock bottom moments, such as slamming my head down onto a bench on a night out following a fainting episode, which I kidded myself was nothing to do with a 15 mile run and no food. Or the time after weeks of spinning classses, crazy runs, infrequent binges but lots of vomits, I finally understood what electrolyte Imbalance meant. I had 999 on standby as I frantically googled how to overcome the scary symptoms I was feeling. How about the time it came up through my throat and nose at such a volume that for a few moments, I looked into the mirror at my face change shade, and cringed at the possible thought that I could have been discovered suffocated to death by my own gluttonous vomit.
One thing that fuelled me in my early 20s was the thought that I failed. That anorexics maintain their strict diet. But that bulimics are a sign of failure. I used to long for the small frame I once had. But as I progressed to my later 20s I began to let go of the desire to be slim, and only wished for the binges to stop, so that I would not wake up feeling ill, so I would not have to cancel plans or do them with half energy, and also so I would not have to go through the horrible process of getting rid of my calories in whichever way I planned at that current phase. Even the marathon training I so hoped would make me healthy, turned into a tool for bingeing and purging, and really disrupted my training. There were so many times I thought there was some other unknown physical disease I had where I had an insatiable hunger. I swore to myself each blood test might show just something. When I stopped running for the cool down phase in the run up to the marathon I fully realised just how much I had been using my long runs to purge the binge calories. I had stopped the running, but the bingeing in those few weeks was more out of control than ever. I could not control it, and I tried so hard to, and with each binge came guilt that I was wasting everyone’s time and money supporting me. In my marathon finishing line photo when I look at it now I can see a bulimic. It seems obvious now. It was a real lesson to me when I did cross that finish line. I proved myself wrong, I wasn’t a complete failure, despite the bingeing having made me at least half a stone heavier in those last two weeks.
I find myself on repeat, the key point being – the cycle went on and on and on. But all the pain, the misery, the selfishness, the energy; all of it hasn’t got me the body or weight I want. I am disgusted when I look in the mirror. I have not let myself go. I don’t even know which part is me and which part is the unhealthy eating disorder obsessed part of my brain. So how can I let myself go? How can I let the ED go in light of that same information.
In May 2016 I was quite out of control with food and was possibly my biggest ever even though I had a punishing regime of bingeing, exercising and dieting. At this time I went to the ED consultation and they diagnosed me with Bulimia, which shocked me. 6 months on the treatment began. Entering that appointment was one of the hardest things I have ever done. The biggest secret of your life… and you are going to a department for it. Akin to wearing a badge saying “I EAT LIKE A HOG THEN SPEND HOURS WITH MY HEAD IN A TOILET SEAT”. hmm not sure that would fit on a badge.
My sessions made me realise that the ravenous binge urges were an inevitable result of starvation. I realised that anyone would experience these who put their body through what I had. In a book I read I learnt that this was at first a survival mechanism, but then became a habit. My body grew to expect the binge, the sickness, the over exercise, the starve – whatever it was. The habit grew stronger and stronger. And this realisation was massive for me- I was not crazy, flawed, and no there was not some rare disease I had that was not yet discovered – my body was just doing an awesome job at trying to get me to be healthy by signalling to eat, but this culminated in binges and eventually I learnt a bad habit and these paths of my brain were strengthened. This meant that all I had to effectively do is try to eat regular meals and stop giving into binge urges that would occur all the time. Each time I did not give in I reminded myself that this would make it easier next time. And I had faith that it would get easier. And when I felt low, or hated how I looked or felt, I tried to just say ‘ok fine that’s how you feel’. I did not battle and say I should not feel that way. I also noticed an inner voice that encouraged the binge and purge cycle that would say things like ‘you can get out of your plans tomorrow so you won’t have to eat’, ‘you could have all of that and just have one last binge and throw it up it will be so easy and just this one time’ etc. Again I tried to just hear these thoughts and not take them too seriously. I mean I knew deep down they were not logical, and that I did not logically want to stuff myself with food and then harm my body through its removal.bAnd I also knew that it would not make me happy if I was sad, or amused when I was bored. It is what it is when I feel those things.
Having a poor body image from a young age contributed to my eating disorders. Not in the stereotypical stare in the mirror “I must be skinny way” often depicted, but in the deep seated beliefs I formed which told me “this body you have will not give you a happy life as it is”. Growing up I never imagined the body I had could get me a partner, a job, or friends. I felt that it wasn’t good enough, but that if I changed it, I’d feel better, become less shy, more bubbly, & all of the other parts of life would become available to me. I would have given all my money to someone who could change my body. I would have & did take dangerous pills to quell my appetite. I would have slept through months of my life & lost them forever if it meant I could have woken up having not eaten in this time, and therefore shrunk myself.
A year on from writing the 
Laila Bloggs 