Thankfully I am recovered now, but I spent my teens, twenties and a goodly chunk of my thirties struggling with bulimia. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, during my formative years others missed the warning signs and I was able to slip through the net into full-blown bulimia. That is why I would like to share some of those signs with you in the hope that it will help you identify them in a loved one and take action before the disease can take grip.

Like any eating disorder, bulimia doesn't just happen over night. In fact years before I began my bulimic behaviors I had already become very insecure about my appearance. By the 4th grade I was weighing myself constantly. I would suck in my stomach whenever I felt self-conscious. I'd compare myself to the other girls in my class and assume they were much happier and more "worthy" than me because they were thinner. 

By the age of 13 I no longer just fantasized about being thin, I had taken drastic action by binging and purging anywhere from 3-5 times a day. Yes, it took hold that quickly and I have talked to many other sufferers who fell into their full-blown disease just as dramatically. While it is not always the case that things spiral this quickly, my point is a simple one, you need to catch it as early as possible because dealing with a full-blow eating disorder after the fact is obviously that much harder.

So here are some things that I did as a pre-teen and young teen that you can look out for if you suspect someone is starting to struggle with bulimia:

• Dieting - this can be a gateway to an eating disorder and the statistics are a 95% failure rate in most diets - so a vulnerable pre-teen or teen going on diets is particularly dangerous and damaging to their self-esteem. So if you notice dieting behavior with your child talk to them - not so much about the diet but rather about how they are feeling about themselves and what is going on in their life.
  
• Frequent trips to the bathroom - if you notice that your child spends a lot of time in the bathroom before school, after school, after meals, even during the night, you can ask them in a non-confrontational way whether everything is ok or whether they are having any stomach or other health issues - important is to open up a dialog. 
• Stomach problems - if they seem to be constantly having stomach problems and particularly if they start using over-the-counter stomach medicine, especially laxatives 
• Constipation - if they complain of constipation or start using laxatives etc. 
• Constantly sick - if they are getting sick a lot, seem rundown, sore throats, coughs, fevers etc. this can be a sign that their body's immune system is being degraded.
• Depression - if they stay in their room for hours at a time, seem to have little interest in social activities and generally seem to prefer their own company.

A word of caution, if you do suspect that your child is displaying some of the warning signs of an eating disorder please, please, please take time first to educate yourself on the best way of approaching and talking to them. Don't charge straight in as this will likely result in the child withdrawing. I recommend you go to the National Eating Disorder Association site and access their parent toolkit first.

"To clear your heart is simple. Just change the question from "Why is this happening to me?" to "Why is this happening? And what's the relationship between cause and effect, choice and outcome?" Or even better, "What can I learn from this?" - Sonia Choquette

"Why is this happening to me?" I cannot tell you how often I asked that question. It always came up when things in my life weren't flowing as smoothly as they might have. I asked that after my first husband abandoned our marriage. I asked that after a so-called friend took advantage of me. I asked that after one of my bosses took advantage of my willingness to work my fingers to the bone.

I was always the victim. It was always, "Why is this happening to me?"

Instead I should have been asking, "What can I learn from this?".  Easier said than done, isn't it? The victim mentality is so common with people suffering from bulimia. We seem to believe that we deserve the hardships that come our way. We seem to believe that everyone is harboring terrible thoughts about us.

In my case, it was simple. My ego was driving my thoughts and actions rather than my soul.

The more I thought of myself as a victim, the easier it became to justify my ever-increasing reliance on my disease. It was both reward and punishment. During recovery I came to understand that if I ever wanted to break out of this cycle, I had to banish this victim mentality once and for all. I also had to be realistic about a number of irrefutable points:

1. I have no control over anyone but myself
2. Since no one else can choose for me, it is solely my decision whether I am going to be a victim or not.
3. I cannot know what other people are really thinking, so I certainly cannot control what they are thinking.
4. The only person I will ever really know in mind, body and spirit is myself.

The bottom line was this: playing the role of the victim was one of the most harmful things I could do to myself.

As soon as I admitted this, I had to surrender another convenient justification for indulging my disease. Since I could no longer play the helpless role, I had to empower myself. No one else could do that hard work of recovery for me.

As my focus shifted, I started listening to my heart instead of my mind and ego. Suddenly, I was on a path to building a major foundation of personal growth..

Below is a list of questions I often asked myself in the course of taking ownership of my thoughts and behaviors. Try asking them of yourself next time you are trying to overcome feelings of being a victim:

1. What is the actual emotion I am feeling at this very moment?
2. Why am I focusing on what I perceive others are thinking about me?
3. What choices can I make now that I am in charge of myself?
4. What is the most important things I can do right now to step away from being a victim?
5. What have I learned about my disease now that I am actually accepting responsibility for overcoming it?
6. What steps can I take to start treating myself with love, respect, and kindness?

Blessings,

Jocelyn

To those who do not suffer from an eating disorder this seems like an obvious statement. To sufferers like you and me, not so much.

Bulimia does not provide any solutions to the twists and turns of the human experience and it never has. As sufferers we know that bulimia creates more pain and more wounds than anyone could ever imagine.

 It will not erase negative feelings. It will not alleviate fear. It is not a panacea to anything.

Yet for years, I used bulimia as if it were some sort of magical answer. Isn't it amazing to look back and realize this? In a perverse, very perverse way, I believed that bulimia was an answer. I saw it as a solution. It was my one and only coping mechanism, no matter what the situation, good, bad or indifferent.

If this sounds familiar, then maybe this will too. A huge step forward in my recovery was to admit to myself that bulimia was not the answer to anything. The next step was to admit it to the people who were in my life: my loved ones, my friends, my therapists.

The moment I did so, it felt like a weight being lifted from my shoulders. I felt free. Oh yes, I knew it would take time and patience to fully embrace this revelation. After all I'd been a prisoner of my eating disorder for a quarter of a century. But all of a sudden I had a new mantra, a new affirmation:

"Bulimia is a problem, never a solution. And it never has been."


To support this affirmation and to embrace its words, I now had to apply logic to my thought patterns. And if you are a fellow sufferer you will know how alien logic is to us. I had to admit the damage bulimic behaviors were inflicting on my body and indeed my psyche. I had to battle that voice in my head that tried to convince me otherwise. Above all else I had to trust and embrace the intelligent, logical me. The real me.

Admitting that your eating disorder is a problem and never a solution is a huge step on the road to recovery. To this day, even in recovery, I continue to repeat this affirmation to myself. I cannot afford to allow the twisted, illogical thoughts that once convinced me otherwise to reassert themselves.

If you are a sufferer reading this, I implore you from the bottom of my heart to speak these words out loud to yourself first, then to your therapist and to your family:

"Bulimia (or whatever your disease) is a problem, never a solution."

Blessings,

Jocelyn