Tag Archives: Bulimia

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Marie Duffy

For the week that’s in it.

Marie Duffy, who lived with Bulimia for seven years, writes:

I was 17 the first time I made myself sick. It was Christmas time and I was on a diet. I was planning on going Debs dress shopping in the January sales and I was dreading it. I’ve never been a skinny girl and the idea of going shopping filled me with dread.

I was convinced that the only way to ensure I got a dress to fit was to starve myself in the few months beforehand. It was going well and I had dropped over a stone through a combination of eating more healthily and exercise.

However, I found the temptation of food at Christmas to be difficult. I ate some Roses. Even when I was eating them I knew that I shouldn’t be. I had made a list of foods that were ok to eat and stuff that I couldn’t have and chocolate was definitely on the ‘not eat’ list.

I felt so guilty. I immediately ran to the bathroom, locked the door and forced my fingers down my throat. I had to be rid of the evil calories that were in my body. Very naively, I felt like I had found the secret to losing weight fast. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Little was I to know that making myself sick was to become a huge part of my life and would become an addiction that I would struggle with for seven years of my life. Seven years that I couldn’t get back, and seven years of absolute torture.

Often when we hear or think about eating disorders we see the more extreme cases of anorexia were people are literally dying at 3 or 4 stone weight.

But, the fact is, that people all around you are coping with eating disorders and are a much more normal weight, and you might never even know that they are struggling.

That was the case for me, I was a normal weight but my behaviours around food became far from normal. I was obsessed with everything that I ate. I would be so strict with myself during the day allowing myself to live on very little.

Sometimes, if I was feeling generous, I would allow myself an apple and that would do me for breakfast and lunch until I went home from school. I would be filled with absolute dread at the thought of going home to eat a dinner and would start obsessing about it each day, from the minute I woke up.

My parents and siblings had no idea that I was struggling with bulimia, they had noticed that I had become very picky about what I was eating but that was as much as they knew.

I only ate vegetables or small amounts of chicken and avoided carbohydrates if I could. If I did eat carbohydrates, I felt so guilty that I would rush to the toilet immediately and make myself sick. It was my secret and no-one else knew. But it began to become a secret that I just couldn’t keep to myself.

I began to lose a lot of weight and people began to comment telling me how well I looked. People at school would make comments and I would shrug them off saying that I was exercising more and that the weight was coming off healthily.

But, before long, my friends started to become suspicious they knew I wasn’t eating lunch and was suspicious that I wasn’t eating dinner either. They also knew that I was tired all the time, and was becoming more obsessive about calories and what I ate.

Teachers at school also began to notice that I wasn’t doing aswell as I had been and I started to not hand in my homework and fall asleep in class.

In reality I had a full-blown eating disorder and it was taking over my life. But it wasn’t until one of the teachers at school made an appointment for me to visit my GP that I realised what was going on.

My GP asked me lots of questions about what I was eating and asked about my attitude to food and weight. I told him that I had been making myself sick and had started to use laxatives to help me lose weight.

He mentioned the word Bulimia and I was taken aback. I knew that I had become a little obsessed with food and how I felt about my body but I felt that an eating disorder was something very skinny people got, and I wasn’t very skinny.

However, the doctor explained to me that people off all weights and sizes developed eating disorders and that he felt that my behaviours indicated that I had bulimia.

My teacher at the time was concerned about me and invited my parents in for a meeting to discuss what was going on. I was absolutely terrified because my parents had no idea as to the extent of my dieting behaviour. As far as they were concerned I was on a diet but what teenager wasn’t.

My mum was really upset when she found out what had been going on and life at home became difficult for me as my family monitored everything I ate and when I used the bathroom. I became more secretive about what I ate and when and my family became more confused as to how to help me.

Fast forward a year and I did well in my Leaving Certificate and got into college. When I went to college my eating disorder got much worse as I had no one monitoring what I was eating or when I used the bathroom.

My weight fluctuated. While I was still at school I was referred to a psychologist but it wasn’t until almost two years later that my appointment came up. I often wonder if my life would have been different if I had received the appointment two years earlier when I really needed it. Instead my eating disorder became a huge part of my life and stayed with me all throughout college.

Fast forward to today and I still struggle with my weight. I wouldn’t say I have an eating disorder anymore but when I’m stressed I still revert back to old habits which can be difficult to deal with. Bulimia was a huge part of my life for 7 years.

If I could say one thing to anyone who is going through a similar thing I would say – take a risk and reach out for help. You may not get it straight away but you deserve to be happy and you cannot be truly happy when you struggle with an eating disorder.

I would really recommend Bodywhys as a support service and they have email, telephone and online support which can really help when you are struggling.

If I could say one thing to that 17-year-old who first made themselves sick I would say – you are more than your weight and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Also, I would remind myself that you don’t have to be skinny to have an eating disorder as it can affect anyone of any age.

Bodywhys

You don’t have to be skinny to have an eating disorder (Marie Duffy, Fake Tan And Foundation)

mothermayiranaeRanae Von Meding

 

Ranae Von Meding is a 27 year-old old Dublin-based Chicago-born actress who has written a one woman show running until April 4 in Theatre Upstairs, Eden Quay, Dublin.

‘Mother May I’  is based on Ranae’s life experiences including an 11-year struggle with Bulimia.

Ranae writes:

This is a subject which is rarely touched upon in theatre, media or social networking. It is even more ‘taboo’ than depression or other mental meath issues.

It’s something that people don’t like to talk about. Don’t like to hear about. It’s not a nice subject and because of its shroud of mystery, many sufferers of this eating disorders spend years and years bottling it all up. This is something that many people like to pretend is not happening. It’s easier for everyone if we just don’t think about it.

But that is the very attitude which perpetuates the problem. You see, eating disorders are dangerous. They are insidious. They are like a cancer, that slowly take hold of every fibre of the person you used to be until you are unrecognizable. It can start as a very small seed of self doubt, or as a means to controlling a situation where you feel out of control.

Whatever the trigger for such an illness, what all ED’s have in common is that they are psychological illnesses defined by an abnormal relationship with food and body image to the detriment of the sufferers physical and mental health.

They are ugly and lonely. And suffering in silence can be the most isolating place in the world.
Eating Disorders are the number one cause of death of all Mental Illnesses.

You don’t plan for is this. You never p​lan​to become Bulimic. You would never wish this on yourself. You wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.

I began controlling my eating patterns as a 16 year old. And for the next 10 years I struggled on and off with Bulimia. It would ping pong back and forth in severity, always coordinating with different events in my life.

When life took a turn for the worse or things were out of my control, I would turn to Bulimia as a source of control. I became an expert at deception.

I learned how to deceive those who loved me the most. And I ended up deceiving myself. I actually believed that this was just how I coped and that I wouldn’t be able to live life any other way.

But that was a lie. A terrible lie that my Eating Disorder told me. The hardest thing for me was actually admitting that I have an ED. It took me 8 years to actually admit it to myself and that I was not able to beat it on my own. Everyone has a different experience but in my case, I needed professional help.

Asking for it was the hardest part. And it can be a minefield but there are services available. A great place to start is BodyWhys.ie. Their website is a wealth of information regarding all forms of ED’s and they also run support groups for those affected by ED’s whether the sufferer or friends and family members.

This is a mental illness. Just like any other. And it needs to be regarded as such. Let’s do away with the social stigma attached and move forward with how we educate our children and teenagers about their bodies and their self worth.

Only through education and support systems will this debilitating illness become less stigmatized. Let’s open up the discussion and make it a little bit easier for sufferers to come forward and ask for the help they need. I am so grateful for how wonderful my family and friends have been.

In particular my Fianceé, Audrey, who stuck by me through it all. When everyone else had had enough of my illness, she was the one person who knew I had the strength to get better. She always knew that I would get to this point. Even when I didn’t believe in myself, she did, and that made all the difference.

My hope is that I can make it even a little bit easier for someone to admit to themselves and others that they are suffering from an Eating Disorder. Often to just say those words out loud are the scariest part. It becomes a reality at that point. But only by acknowledging a problem do you have the power to do something about it.

The first step is always going to be the hardest. And it is hard. Getting better is hard. I won’t lie to you. But I’m telling you. It is 100% achievable. I will never be fully ‘recovered’ in the tradition sense of the word. Recovery is a choice that you make. A choice you make every single day. I am an addict. But I choose to live.

Mother May I , Theatre Upstairs (Facebook)