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‘Bulimia acknowledges the body explicitly, violently. It attacks the body but it

does not deny....The bulimic finds herself in excess, too emotional, too

passionate....the bulimic impulse is more realistic than the anorexic

because, for all its horrible nihilism, it understands that the body is

inescapable.’

Marya Hornbacher

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Bulimia was awful, it is something I loathe. It is the reverse of the saintly anorexia:

where was the self-control I prided myself on gone? I guess anorexia had been an addiction,

trying and trying to reach the buzz but it never being as powerful as the first time. As I

realised that I wasn’t getting the same rewards, that starving for four days wouldn’t lose me

as much weight as before, that I could no longer find the euphoria in quite the same way, I

no longer had the resolve to stop my body doing what it could to eat.

I guess I’ve probably always been bulimic, inside. Even when I was ‘anorexic’ I could

only eat on Thursdays and Sundays rather than the more sensible plan of a little each day

because I knew. I knew that once I started eating I wouldn’t stop. So I made sure never to

start if I could help it.

For ages I was desperate to be able to make myself sick- a last resort. I would try

everything: fingers, nail file, spoon, toothbrush, pencils, salt water...nothing worked. But one

day I finally managed it. I was so relieved, I had a safety net in case anything went wrong.

Bit more than a safety net unfortunately: with the advent of another ‘solution’ the

barrier was broken and I ate. My weight crept up- I’ve never been very good at

throwing up- my body took months to learn. I hated myself for failing and was so tempted to

just end it all. But I couldn’t die fat, and be remembered as fat. I supplemented vomiting with

the futile laxative and diuretic abuse and exercised frantically to try and remove the calories

which I never deserved to start with.

Everything in bulimia involved panic and rush, as opposed to anorexia where I was

much calmer and where I was safe in the knowledge that no food had passed my lips and, as

such, I was clean and pure. In bulimia was much more guilt, I couldn’t concentrate as I

waited for the bathroom- for when my parents left the house or had a meeting so that I could

throw up in peace. This ended when I decided to throw up in plastic bags in my bedroom- people

 would be less likely to notice that (apart from the smell coming from under my bed!).

At the lowest points of bulimia I would be sat on the cold kitchen floor at 2am every

morning, stuffing food into my mouth. I would eat anything- whatever condition the food was

in and whether I liked the taste of it or not. Besides, I never really tasted the food anyway.

I always started with good intentions, putting pasta and cheese sauce on to cook,

beating the ingredients for pancakes together. On a good day I could be patient, safe and

calm in the knowledge that food was on its way, no need to panic now rachel. On other days

I wouldn’t be able to wait and I’d run frantically around the kitchen, literally pulling my hair

out in anger as I emptied the cupboards. After eating the stale cake and soft biscuits I’d turn

back to the pasta. I’d normally just eat the pasta there and then, no time to add the cheese

sauce, eat that later, after the crisps I wouldn’t notice until the next day the fact that I had

burnt my mouth on the boiling water straight from the pan. Then I’d raid the fridge and

freezer, eating raw sausages and frozen raspberries.

And afterwards, to get rid of it all, to be comfortable and able to breathe easily without

my swollen stomach getting in the way. I’d throw up until stomach acid burnt my throat and

my eyes became dehydrated. And then to crawl into bed, my eyes staring out of the window

where I hadn’t bothered to shut the curtains.

I didn’t like vomiting very much, took too much time and besides, anything involving

more effort than staring into space was generally quite upsetting to me. But, having said that,

it was a lovely feeling to be relieved of all the food, and all the tension at the same time.

Even some of the guilt. Not a bad feeling at all. I could feel good again when I’d stand up

from leaning over the toilet and I would feel like my legs were going to collapse beneath me.

Who cares about the feeling that my throat was collapsing and I was about to suffocate, it

made me feel less bad about myself for being such a useless failure.

I began to take time off from school, just so that I could eat. I’d get scared at school,

where I was unable to binge. (I hate that word: binge; it sounds as greedy as it is.) I’d feel a

bit better writing shopping lists of all the food I would eat once I got home, but even that

wouldn’t work for long. A big problem was that by this time I didn’t know what was a

reasonable amount to eat and what wasn’t. Whereas a sandwich would have previously been

too much, too greedy, 238 calories too much, now I would rarely see anything wrong in

eating twenty slices of toast in a row, followed by seven bars of chocolate, followed by a few

packs of crisps, followed by.........

Maybe my mouth was particularly vulnerable, weakened by my stomach acid; but the

pain in my mouth would remind me that there was something wrong with eating 6 packets of

crisps in the space of 4 minutes. But then sometimes drinking a glass of juice would burn my

mouth and throat. Before long the top of my mouth and sometimes even my lips would sting

as if they were cut, I don’t know for certain if vomiting was to blame but it would get worse

after a bad day of throwing up.

I think that a lot of anorexics are scared to let go and try to get better in case they fall

into the dreaded bulimia. I certainly hated knowing that I was weak and a failure, that I could

no longer belong to the smug and elite anorexia. While anorexia was something I could feel

strangely proud of, bulimia was something to hide. If anyone knew then they would look at

me with pity, or hate me, instead of admiring my self-control and skeletal figure. Bulimia was

something dirty and disgusting, that I should resist talking about, however much I wanted

help. I think it was made worse by the fact that I was overweight, that I couldn’t even use it to

my advantage. I wished that, if I could not be thin, I would explode into a million pieces so

that no-one could see my fat body anymore.

And my body has certainly suffered from all the things that I put it through. In the first

two years of vomiting I found myself with eight fillings in previously perfect teeth, despite

having them sealed twice. Food came up by itself sometimes; not much but it was always a

surprise. And I got mouth ulcers and sore throats and chest pains a lot too. I dread to think

what my body must look like on the inside!

I longed to stop eating again, to be pure and free, my head spinning in the whirl of

manic speed induced by starvation. But it was always my fat and bloated body that stared

pleadingly back at me, scathing of my ‘determined efforts’ and ‘strong intentions’ to stop

eating for good this time.