My Secret Life (10 page)

When people think of bulimia, I assume they jump straight to the image of the purge itself, not realising that what leads to it is almost certainly just as grotesque a deed. For the purpose of our own understanding, perhaps we best draw on example in this case. Somewhere in that vast abyss of my disease, I have plucked a picture from my mind that has solidified itself in the deepest parts of my memory.

I was surely 19 on this particular occasion. Things were going well if I recall correctly and this, among other things, is usually detrimental to my fasting abilities. I have found that it’s when I’m at my happiest that I am most likely to eat. When the world seems a complacent environment and I truly start to believe in the given false sense of security, I eat as ‘normally’ as I possibly can. I assume that this was one of those rare times. Or perhaps I was just famished past the point of planning ahead. Whatever the reason, it was 2.00 am when I sat up in front of the television, twitching with the hunger and dwelling on how the house had bedded down long ago and would certainly be asleep by now.

Don’t ruin yourself
, she hissed inside me, knowing my thoughts and desires. I knew she was right. Once momentarily unleashed, I knew I would let myself unravel completely. But I swear it had been like an abduction in which I was taken hostage by my body. I had no control from that point and sure enough, about an hour and a half after the thought first entered my brain, I sat exposed in front of an open fridge. By that stage, I had eaten three packets of crisps, a left-over steak dinner, two yoghurts, a bag of salted cashew nuts, a few chocolate bars and about a half litre of milk. It had only been 40 minutes. Still, I was not full. Too stuffed to so much as bend over for an extended amount of time, instead I plonked myself on the floor, rummaging around the cold shelves and feasting on a slice of lemon cheesecake in the process. With little to find, I settled on two bowls of chocolate cereal and one more packet of crisps.

My stomach had physically expanded like an inflated balloon and I was almost instantly light-headed from the rush of what I had done. I had eaten myself into a mental eclipse and would have cried, if my tear ducts had not been so incapacitated by the fat which smothered every inch of me. I felt like I had just poured liquid fat over myself like hot wax and was simply waiting for it to set. Collapsing back onto the couch, I was sweating profusely and thought my spine was about to snap as it attempted to uphold my weight.

The relief from my own starvation was temporary and short-lived. Those previous hunger pains had stopped long ago and so by the time I was through with my binge, I had already forgotten why I began it in the first place. Heavy shame set in. If anyone had seen me in those morning hours, they would probably never look at me the same way again, as I have never done so. The times spent bingeing, quite simply, remain some of the filthiest moments I have in recollection; they are the snapshots in time that are so violently maimed by my actions, I hate to think of them and indeed, my repulsive state within them. Bulimia nervosa is a disgusting illness in many ways for an alarming number of reasons, but this would be one of the most primitive of those reasons. Looking back even still, all I see is a mildly obese teen; breathless and panting, sweat rolling down her back, bits of every kind of food wedging itself between her teeth, tongue flailing, jaw throbbing, stuffing garbage down her throat and nearly taking her fingertips off in the process.

The humiliation attached to this picture is festered deep inside and even now, I am ashamed of it. I’m ashamed of who I was and what I did. But nothing I have felt since comes close to the swelling degradation in which I drowned then. That voice in my head stopped screaming and the silence was penetrating and life-altering. I had disgraced both of us to a point whereby I don’t think she even knew what to say. In the wake of her apparent absence – life, disease, purpose – everything stopped. The haunting nothingness of her eerie silence broke my heart. I thought the world had stopped turning and that time stood still. I was all alone then and more than ever before, that was when I truly hated myself.

I would rather die
, I thought to myself. If this was who I really was, I would rather die than live as this. She would never forgive me, living as the monster I knew myself to be. Surely even God could not forgive me. And I was certain I would never forgive myself. I thought about waking the next morning and how the damage I had done tonight would be seen like scales on my skin. That notion, and the now encroaching feeling that life without her had no purpose, made me want to pull the plug on my own existence. Yes, I would have rather died. I dwelled so long upon the thought, that I sometimes wonder why or how I’m even still here today. It became more and more likely every time I felt that shame hang on me like a damp cloth. The potential reality of my own suicide is still something I often hate myself for whenever I think of how close I came to it.

I suppose this is why I saw purging as such a positive facet to my life. If I hadn’t purged, God knows what actions I would have taken instead. It is for this reason that I believed purging, and bulimia herself, to be somewhat of a saviour to me. If she had not provided me with the mental tools to do the things I did, I shudder to think what I would have done instead. But alas, we’re racing ahead and should restrain ourselves for the time being from launching into the purging process.

After the night of Ami’s 19th birthday, something had to be done. I had seen the monster again and was terrified to think what would happen if I let it out. I had been out of control for too long, had packed on all those lost pounds and had watched as my life started to unfold all over again. There exists a very fine line between dieting and eating disorders, and after years of teetering around that border, I had finally crossed it months ago. I think I knew this somewhere inside of me and where I usually typed ‘diet’ into the internet search engine, I know typed the words ‘anorexia’, ‘bulimia’ and ‘emaciated’ again and again. The words, as well as the facts and images that followed them, became an obsession. This was my pastime and soon I would make sure it was my entire life too.

The abundance of pro-ED sites on the internet would probably shock people who have never lived this way. For those who are unfamiliar with these websites, a pro-ED website is a place where eating disorders are endorsed, glorified and warmly condoned. They go so far as to affectionately name the most popular and well known diseases such as Ana (anorexia), Mia (bulimia) and ED (eating disorders in general). I feel obligated to verbally bash and condemn such places but even from my post-recovery point of view, I still can’t bring myself to do so. Though we could never undermine the dangers of these online communities and the toxic environments they breed, there simply isn’t any malice in their creation. What we are discussing here is sick people talking to other sick people, seeking refuge and understanding. To judge would only prove to accelerate our own ignorance. Moreover, I simply can’t lie to you dear reader and therefore must admit that in these underground worlds, I felt I was finally home. The sentiment I once had for these hidden places and silenced people is, to this day, tender to the touch.

It was more than a hot-spot for ‘thinspo’; this haven and these people provided the company I had beseeched for so long. Their words, struggles and even personalities leapt from the screen and straight into the most empathetic part of me. I knew these people as I know myself because we shared our darkest demons in that place. Free of persecution and the constant feeling of abnormality, in that safe space, I could step out from the shadows even if only briefly. I was myself for the first time in a long time. I was the self that she, my Mia, had created and I wasn’t embarrassed about who I was or what she had made of me. If anything, I heard the affecting stories of others and even begged of her to take me in as she had done so with these people. This was her mercy and she was my own personal heroine. Mia, Ana, ED – whoever she was, I now wanted to be hers entirely. No friend and no boyfriend could ever have what I gave to her because as I wasn’t worthy of them, so they were not worthy of her. Unable to take back all the self-worth I had given away of myself before, instead it had been merely shifted from one place to another. That worth fell into her hands; the hands with which she caressed me from time to time if I was good.

There in that terrain, the one which rests behind closed doors, tucked under baggy clothes and sizzling beneath burnt-out eyes, I had found my soul mates. They knew what it was to hate yourself. They understood how important it was to step on a scale every 45 minutes. They underwent the burden of sacrificing old friends and former loved ones for her benevolence. They felt the loneliness that plagued you during late hours awake in bed and the stabbing knife of hunger during daylight. Whomever the girl, she was the me of Jacksonville and Seattle; the me of Brisbane and Sydney; the me of Sheffield and Manchester; whoever she was, we were the same person because despite the different lives we lead, we stood united in our underworld of misery and depravity. Suddenly, I wasn’t so alone.

Aside from the camaraderie between the people who frequented such sites, I found a degree of freedom in having such a place in which to retire. I traipsed endlessly from page to page, soaking it up and breathing it in. I accepted the normality in which this world was being executed. It was as if this lifestyle and this state of being were so obviously natural to us all. I teetered my way through tips and advice, ways in which to properly conduct the progression of my disease. I discovered how best to suppress the hunger that was now a permanent part of me and more importantly, how to conceal everything with an almost professional air of efficiency. Moved and softened, I read the painful accounts of others and watched as they poured themselves into their words, seeking reconciliation and acceptance. The empathy and longing for their well-being remains as strong today as it was then.

Fasting competitions and gospels about the glory of eating disorders left little doubt that I was living as I was intended to. This, surely, was my destiny in life and the path God had set out for me. He had meant for me to share my life with my bulimia, I was convinced of it. There was a false sense of completion to who I was and my place in the world. I belonged here and thus, belonging anywhere else didn’t matter to me all that much anymore. Furthermore, these websites helped me justify my new lifestyle.

This isn’t a problem
, I started hearing her whisper.
This is a blessing in disguise and our gift to the world. Together, we are worth the air we breathe. United we stand and alone, neither of us may even dream to exist
. I had discovered the Holy Grail and it was there, amidst those black feelings and lost memories. I was home.

***

My obsession, which had been born in the tiniest embryo of my mind, turned outwards and visuals worked in sync with feeling. What I saw corresponded greatly to what I felt thereafter. The problem was that even my ability to interpret such imagery was, in itself, contorted and insufficient for lack of a better word. Online ‘thinspo’ of celebrities and model-like figures wasn’t enough anymore because it could not attack my senses in the way reality did. Only through reality could my sharp thoughts and swelling feelings take life and walk the streets in front of me. Through the reality of my disease, those thoughts and emotions soon appeared everywhere. They were the kick in my morning coffee, the smoke from my cigarettes and every interaction I had with people. The epidemic had spread at a feverous speed and no longer existed only in my mind; finally, the world seemed to live in its reflection.

The pro-ED websites did not create my bulimia, but they crafted her. She was shaped through their existence, among many other things, as we continue to explore. Reality was found when I saw women exposing themselves on those sites. They weren’t models, or actors or a-list faces who walked red carpets for a living. They were genuine people living secret lives and were everything I could ever dream to be. I started to believe that there was an authenticity to their eating disorders and not to my own. What determined this credibility and degree of success in my bulimia would take various shapes and forms, which we will discuss at a later point.

But for the time being, I think I can safely make the note that it was these websites that classified my own eating disorder as bulimia nervosa. I say this because I learned – similarly to how a student in a classroom learns – the differences between what it meant to be Ana and what it meant to be Mia. Equally, I sought to define myself within the given conditions of the disorders I was learning about. I think once the disease was comfortably instilled in the workings of my mind, choices like these were easy because I wasn’t the person making them anymore. So, perhaps I didn’t choose to have an eating disorder. It chose me. Yet, once in full swing, I suppose I chose to classify my eating disorder to bulimia; I felt empowered by the very decision itself.

I knew I could never live the life of an anorexic. Though I had developed an adversity to food and a general discomfort with eating, I still never envisioned myself sacrificing it completely. Bulimia seemed an obvious answer to all my problems. It would be mine to keep forever and sometimes I wonder if it was as simple as “picking” it. I mean, nobody forced me to put my finger down my throat the first time I purged. I think sometimes though that by that stage I just chose to accept the lifestyle which already existed in my mind. It wasn’t a process of “picking”; it was one of submission.

Ultimately, what seems to define bulimia in the minds of others is the purge. The reality is that purging does not occur without a binge and sometimes a fast before it. My bulimia was defined by all three and as a result, was well underway in its manifestations long before I ever regurgitated my first meal.

But that crucial point was always going to come. It arrived sooner than I could have ever anticipated. That’s the thing with an eating disorder; for something that takes years to develop, when it finally shows itself, it snowballs. I was riding a free-fall and for some of the time, I rather enjoyed it. Granted, it went on to become the most dangerous and devastating chapter in my young life. But it wasn’t all bad, not at the beginning anyway. One doesn’t persist in this kind of existence unless one truly feels that something is to be gained from it. God help me, I really believed in it.