Bulimia is one of the many eating disorders that people face every day. It’s also something that I faced. Some people think that bulimia is just people choosing to throw up because they think that they are fat, but it is so much more than that. What people don’t understand is that you can’t just snap you fingers and stop. It’s a process.
In sixth grade, I felt like I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t pretty enough, and I wasn’t skinny enough, so I developed bulimia. All that I was feeling accumulated with the stress of a new school and fighting with my mom a lot, drove me to find a stress reliever. I found bulimia.
It started when I told myself that I was fat and worthless. I had eaten to soothe the pain, then ii forced the end of a toothbrush down my throat. That’s when I realized that I could control my weight without dieting and make myself feel good at the same time. In reality, I didn’t make me feel good. In fat it made me feel worse. I didn’t fully realize what I was doing to myself. My throat hurt more often, my breath was bad, my teeth were sensitive, I was dizzy and weak, and I felt like crap most of the time. Once I realized what was happening, I couldn’t stop. Bulimia had become and addiction.
I didn’t know what to do or how to stop, so I kept doing what I was doing. That was a mistake. It kept getting worse, until one day, I told myself I had to stop. I did stop, for a day, then I was right back to it. So I decided to take it slow. I treated it like a diet, or quitting cigarettes, taking it slow at first, and going forward. That worked for a little while but on bad days I couldn’t control myself. If I was fighting with my mom, or gotten a bad grade on a test, or felt completely fat, I would get the urge. I would try to fight it, but some days I couldn’t win.
In seventh grade, I told my mom about my bulimia. She cried, a lot. It was a hard thing to do, I was ashamed, and embarrassed, and I hated the fact that I had done something like that to myself. After all, eating disorders are slow suicide. My mom took me to a counselor, her name is Beth. She’s great to talk to and get all of my feelings out, but sometimes that’s not enough.
Sometimes I still get the urge to go into the bathroom and to it after fighting with my mom, or having a bad day, but I try to shake it off. Getting over an eating disorder is a lifelong process that I’m still going through. I think about doing it every day, but I don’t act on it. Fortunately, I admitted my problem two years ago, but unfortunately; I’m still not over it. On the bright side, it’s been over three months.