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Eating Disorders Association N.Ireland 28 Bedford Street
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Jill's Story
I remember the exact moment in my life when I decided to stop eating. I was 10 and sat in class at primary school when the idea suddenly occurred to me. I don't know why, but at that moment it seemed like the best idea in the world. I remember thinking to myself 'That's what I will do, I won't eat anymore'. So from that moment onwards I tried not to eat whenever possible. But this was difficult being so young, as parents, relatives and dinner ladies were always there telling you to finish your meal. I think this is where my obsession with food started and the need to have some kind of control for myself.
So whilst others were playing out having fun with their friends I was planning ways that I could sneak food up to my bedroom so that I could binge in secret. Most weekends for me consisted of getting up early and sneaking downstairs to gorge, until my stomach was bloated and I felt sick. I would then spend the rest of the day trying to avoid eating any food as I felt guilty and disgusting from binging earlier in the day. My parents just thought I liked the early morning cartoons and did not suspect that anything was wrong.
After leaving primary school I went on to an all girls secondary school. This did not help my eating problem as most of the girls there were obsessed with their weight and constantly dieting. Girls that were bigger, or different in any way, were bullied and because of this it was important to fit in. It was almost the 'norm' to have an eating disorder so I fitted in fine!
When I started University I suddenly had the freedom to do whatever I liked and this is when my eating problem got worse. I moved on from just binging in secret to a cycle of starvation, binging and then purging. I began to loose weight and gradually became more and more depressed withdrawing from those around me and throwing myself into my studies so that I wouldn't have to face reality. By this point I detested my body so much I could not bear to look at it. I thought I was fat and ugly and that the only way to make myself happy was to loose as much weight as possible. I tried to starve myself for longer and longer in an attempt to loose more weight, but this just lead to bigger and bigger binges. By the last year of University I was seriously depressed and contemplating suicide. I couldn't sleep, I suffered from painful headaches and my stomach was constantly sore and bloated from the overuse of laxatives.
At this point I was totally consumed by the Bulimia. I had spent so many years where every day consisted mainly of thoughts of food and of my dislike of my body that I had missed out on normal things. I had not developed a sense of myself, of the things I liked or disliked, of how to talk to people, how to express myself. I had no idea who I was and I was suddenly faced with the decision of what I was supposed to do now after finishing University. Truthfully, I don't think I really cared as long as I did not have to face up to what I was doing to myself.
This is when life got really difficult for me as I now had to manage my eating disorder around the normal 9-5 working day. Before, at university, I could binge whenever I had the urge. Now I was sat in an office full of people all day and there was nowhere I could go in private when I wanted to vomit or purge using laxatives. The pressures of been in the working world also proved difficult for me as I was expected to be an ambitious new graduate with lots of potential and drive. As my peers on the graduate training scheme began networking their way to the top I felt like I was being left behind. I just didn't have the energy to try to keep up and I began to think that I was a complete failure and that I was just incapable of doing well in a career. I felt completely alienated and worthless. My binging got worse as I tried to swallow down all these feelings of how useless I was and I withdrew from people all together into my own little world.
I was now 27 and my life was nothing. I had lost all my friends and my life had become a dreary routine of dragging myself out of bed to go to a job which I hated and spending all day thinking about food and what I would binge on when I got home.
Gradually it all spiralled out of control and early one morning after a particularly bad day, I broke down. I couldn't take it any longer. I knew I needed to go for help.
The following week I went to see a doctor and told them everything. The doctor was fantastic and all my fears of having to admit to someone what I was doing disappeared. He listened to everything I told him and was patient with me when I became upset. A week later I had my first appointment with a counsellor and we began working on my relationship with food.
The first few months were very difficult as I still had strong urges to binge, but gradually using a food diary, set meal times and developing other coping techniques things became easier. What really surprised me was how much better I felt from eating three meals a day. Before I was always tired and suffered from constant headaches, indigestion, itchy dry skin, spots and just generally felt poorly all the time. After starting eating properly I began to feel better and most of my symptoms disappeared.
I am now 31 and my life has been free from Bulimia for nearly 5 years. It has not always been easy and there have been times when I was ready to give up and go back to my old ways. But even though I see myself as a survivor of Bulimia, I think that the affects of it will always be with me. I lost 16 years of my life which included a large portion of my childhood and all of my teenage years. I ended up in a career which is not right for me and lost all my friends. I have also been left with some long term physical problems as a result of the laxative abuse which could be with me for the rest of my life. Despite all this, the future is brighter for me now and I am slowly rebuilding my life and having fun catching up on things that I missed out on when I was younger.
I hope my story can help show people what the reality of living with Bulimia is like and the devastating affect it can have. If you are a sufferer of Bulimia then please go for help.
Jill
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