TranscendBulimia.com

I feel blessed to receive e-mails from all over the world since starting this blog — with each question, comment and conversation, I am filled with awe for the courage and strength from so many incredible people. This letter struck me so much that I asked permission to share it here with you. I hope it will inspire you as well — and to my reader who sent this, I am grateful to you for allowing others to read your story.

Recovery After 15 Years of ED

Thanks for making so much effort to put up all the wonderful information. I can see that you really want to help people with ED. And I think you are offering tremendous help to ED people throughout all your hard work.

I first entered your website 3 days ago. I could not help finishing reading all the articles you posted there. I have to say all of them are amazing and I can almost relate to everything you said. As a 15 years ED person, I feel obliged to share my experience with you. Hope this could serve a little help to ED people.

I had ED for about 15 years. When I look back, I found that you are perfectly right that ED people had problem more than just “in our heads”. I remember I was constipated since I was 6 and I vomited if I ate oily things which were the things my family normally eats, I had very dry skin, headaches and rosacea since I was little… When I reached my teenage years, not surprisingly, I became fat (I was 150pounds for 5’5. I am from Asian culture and most people are relatively thin). Of course, there were other serious emotional issues in my life which was another major cause of my ED. In my late teens, I started my ED and could not stop it for 15 years. During the time, I kept myself around 115 pounds.

During all these years, sometimes I could binge eat and purge 4 times a day, and sometimes I did 3 times a week which was my best behavior. When my ED behavior was frequent, I fainted a couple of times. I was worried, but still could not quit. After I reached late 20, I started to really worry about how my future would be: will I be able to have a healthy kid? Will I die before 30… What frightened me even more was at that time; most of my teeth were decayed: I have 7 tooth crowns, one missing tooth and cavities on most of my teeth. I look fit, but not necessarily pretty, I think. Most days I woke up with swelling cheecks and eyes. I did not like myself.

I can not remember how many times I tried to quit and how many times I relapsed. Every time after I tried to I quit for several days, I gained some weight. I was so frightened that I got back to my usual ED behavior again… I searched for information, but as you said, the right information is hard to find. Finally I decide to study on my own to figure this out… I started to try healthy food such as adding more fiber to my diet. I have flax seed and other cereal for breakfast and I eat lots of vegetables. In the mean time, I started to do Yoga. I found it helped. I was not as constipated and I was able to cut down my ED behavior to 2 or 3 times a week or so. My weight went up a bit (118 pounds). I felt fine with it.

Although I improved a lot, I still seriously had craving for sugar and high calorie food. Because I suppressed this craving, I found it came back even stronger. There were times I ate the whole cheese cake plus lots of cookies then I will finish a big bag of potato chips.

Oh, I forget to mention that I have been happily married for 8 years and my husband is a sweetheart. Later year, we started to discuss about having a baby. The idea of having a baby really freaked me out although we both want it. I was so afraid what kind of baby I am going to have while I am having ED. I did not how I was going to get back to my shape after baby while I am frightened even by gaining a single pound. I did not know how seriously all these physical and emotional stresses would affect my baby. I really freaked out and felt hopeless about this. I realized the most important thing is to quit Ed and learn to keep my weight without ED.

While continually exploring healthy eating, I thought I had to think about the cause of my ED. I thought through all the dissatisfaction I had in my life: my parent’s nasty divorce, all the bitter and weird feelings they threw on us and how they made me always feel abandoned and unloved. In fact all the dissatisfactions were the past, not present. However I live in present and how this still could be the negative effect of my life? One of the things that really help me to get over this was I begin to acknowledge my imperfection. I realized that I was just so stuck in myself because if you really listen to other people’s stories, you will find almost every family has imperfections in one way or the other. If I stayed stuck in the past, I will never be happy because you can’t change the past. In addition, I also thought through all the satisfaction and success I have: successful schooling, marriage etc. I feel I am blessed to have a very good life now. When I really think, I found the thing that made me dissatisfied was really my ED behavior. If that is something that made me dislike myself, why do I still stick with it and let it control me?

After I thought through this, I feltl lighter and happier. I started to love myself better than before. I began to seriously commit myself to recovery. The first 3 months was tough and weird, I felt excessive bloating, lots of belching, burping and slight abdominal pain. I felt the food was not moving in my stomach and I had no energy what so ever. I could not understand why I felt worse when I started to do the right thing. I was so frightened that I went to the doctor to check my stomach. Because the test showed that I have H. pylori in my stomach, I was treated as stomach ulcer. I took some medication for ulcer (antibiotics plus acid suppress) and it seems to help a bit at the beginning. Later, after the treatment all the symptom came back. I got more medication for ulcer; it caused more and more problems. Everyday I woke up with swollen face, hands and feet and I had no energy and headache. I did not eat a lot but I was gaining weight (128pounds). There were days I could not pass urine for 8 hours and I had lower back pain. I was told that I have kidney infection. Should I take more drugs for kidney infection? I figured perhaps after 15 year’s ED, my body did not have the ability to absorb the medication and then got rid of the toxin the drug produce. I decided to stop the acid suppress pills. I realized perhaps because now my all my internal organs have to work on their own (without any purging aid), they can only work very slowly. Perhaps I should learn to be patient.

One of the things with ED is that you often fight against it by yourself. I have not even told my husband. If he knows that I have ED, he will be so freaked out that he will send me to hospital right away. Because no one knows it; you are still expected to be responsible for things. Despite all the troubles I am going through, I still have to work. As a full-time student, I don’t think I can afford the time and money to go to therapist and to be honest I am not sure most of them are going to be helpful. Then I decided to fight against it by myself.

I decided to stop the medication and all the vitamin supplements and I started to totally rely on my body. Interestingly, I did not feel worse. I continue to explore healthy eating and Yoga. I do not have any specific book to follow and I will try the Body Ecology Diet book. Gradually, I feel better and better. In the fourth month, I felt fine and I lost some weight (124 pounds). Now I am on my sixth month of recovery and I weight 121 pounds. My stomach is still sensitive and I have to be very careful about what I eat; however, I definitely feel better and look better (told by many people even though I use very little makeup). I have stopped binge eating and purging for 5 months. I had one episode within the 6 months which was in a party, but I guess I forgive myself.

I guess I can not say that I have recovered fully because sometimes I still feel that I should be perfect and I am not good enough. After I read your website, I learned lots. I am experiencing all the tips you posted. I feel very hopeful because I see an example of success. I see what you had been through is exactly what I am being through now. I feel happy that I am not the only one.

Thanks again for your dedication. I think it is great help for all the ED people.

A question?

One of the questions I am still struggling with is people’s genetic component. I believe that most ED people (although I do not know any so just by intuition) genetically tend to be over weight. They inherited that from their parents so they tend to worry about weight since very early age. So once they reach to their teenage and become a bit overweight, they feel hopeless and might think binge eating and purging is the only way they can achieve fitness. How could we fight against our GENE? I often wonder if healthy eating could change a person’s genetic component. I mean you could change some of things you inherit from your parents, such as bad eating habit, but what about some deep physical components (e.g., low blood pressure, under active thyroid, etc.) Would we change or improve or better manage our negative genetic components by eating healthily? I would like to know your insight about this. I am fighting again my family gene. It seems to me now that I was able to manage.

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I am so touched by this letter that I feel tears in my eyes each time I read this. This woman is a triumph — she shows us that recovery is possible — even if it means trusting her body, probably one of the scariest things of all for us. And she shows the kind of strength that I see in so many who have e-mailed, called and posted. We are all in different stages, but we are all seeking some version of the same things — to feel loved, to feel happy, to feel free. We all deserve this.

Dear reader, I am sending you love for all that you have been through — and as I send you this love, I imagine that it surrounds the rest of the readers of this blog and anyone else feeling pain. May we all stand together in support — may each of our insights help one another find the way.

Tomorrow I will post an answer to this reader’s question on the gentetic component — I have learned so much about this from Donna Gates, author of the Body Ecology Diet and I’d like to share it with you as I answer the questions here.

With great love and light for all,
Heather

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