Purging

[Saharah Blue]

To purge mean shoving your fingers deep down your throat until it almost hurts, you are looking for a response. That response is a automatic bodily response.

Sometimes the deepness down your throat doesn't work fast enough, so then you must massage or tickle various sides of your throat to make it happen, for years on end it ca be the same spot over and over, then one day it doesn't work and you have to find a way, anyway to get this shit out of you.

Vomit, in a really good fast pleasing session will likely get all over, it will smell, and it is up to you in your physically shaky state r to clean it. It gets on the sink, the walls, and floor. Sometimes you find small telling traces later, when you were so certain to you meticulous wiped all evidence clean.

It will betray in numerous ways, be it the vomit speckles, no matter how small. Or the time in the loo, or your appearance after....etc... even your unwillingness to eat, or your need to drink a lot of water etc... these are all dead give aways. People spot them and say nothing, pretending its not something to bring up.

I have had bf roommates complain, I have had family roll their eyes. I have had loves, hurt at the amount of money they just spent on my dinner.

I have puked in private, in public loos, whenever I couldn't sit with it.

I have purged my guts out, only to turn around and eat or drink immediately after, like nothing had happened.

It cause more social distress and embarrassment for others, I have been open and private, and I find that people can't look me in the eye for my behavior.

I don't care, and I will never stop, no one will assert that kind of control over my intake or purge. My body is my own, it causes me little distress or thought. In fact if I could teach the world this sense or peace and renewal, I would.

[Shelley]

I/ve tried making myself sick before, but would only reach with nothing coming up, must be doing It wrong.

[Roses]

Sahara, that took guts to write that, well done. I do exactly the same and use other purging methods too. I understand. xxx

[Saharah Blue]

Sahara, that took guts to write that, well done. I do exactly the same and use other purging methods too. I understand. xxx

It is the first time I have ever written about it ever. I mentioned it, but never described. I don't know how feel about making that post, I was in a lot of anguish when I wrote it.

It definitely is not healthy behavior, or meant to be a how to. It might be better if the post is deleted. Thanks for your understanding.

Sah

[Roses]

I disagree and don't think it should be deleted. It is not a 'how to' post it is an accurate account of the hell you go through on a regular basis and perhaps if I had talked about it or written it out like this, it would have helped me to deal with it. Somehow seeing it written out like that makes me realise how much I am putting my body and mind through when I behave in this way. You are right, it is no healthy. But it is a starting place and hopefully you can make positive steps to help you feel better about yourself. xxx

[bumblepipi]

I do this too. I like feeling empty. it also crosses my mind how absurd it is to go to a restaurant order lovely foood and end up spewing it down the loo. Mind you at some point it's gonna end up there anyway. x B

[Life is sweet]

I'm shocked to see you so open to the world. I have never heard a thing about this until now, except sly mentions of it. I think it is fabulous that you wrote about it. Kudos to you.

[tizzywizzy]

Thanx for your pure honesty in what you wrote. I too have a history of purging which is back in my life again currently. I've had big chunks of life when I have absteined, maybe the times life has seemed more in control. It still helps with the cleansing after binging. My bulimia is currently in remission, according to my diagnoses. I am back to binging nearly every day but probably purge half of the time. Over the years I have developed a pleasure in the full feeling and often settle like that. My relationship with food is purely emotional still, always has been even in the more regulated times when binging and purging were rare. I swung from comfort eating when a bit fed up to starving for punishment. I have had issues with food for 24 years. I am currently clinically obese and have all the usual conditions of a historic bulimic: hiatus hernia, gastro-oesophageal reflux disease.....Currently , for the first time in my life I am being 100% honest in therapy regarding my food issues coz I owe it to my kids to get as well as I can. Apologies if this is a trigger to anyone, I'm new to the computer so don't know how to label it. I guess we all know that our food issues are about comtrol. What I'm beginning to see is that whilst i control the entrance and exit of the food in my body, the addiction to the food is controling me. I want to get free. Does anyone understand me or have I just landed here from another planet????????????? Replies welcome, tizz x

[tizzywizzy]

Well here I am again .... have binged and feel uncomfortably full and sick. Know that I should purge and half of me needs to yet a part of me wants to stick here with the full feeling and avoid the acid burn, reflux etc of purging. Does anyone have this self-debate? or is it just me being crap. Please don't take this as an offence to anyone but I actually wish I could just switch off my addiction to food and be anorexic instead. I guess I don't mean that..... I want to be able to not eat at all until my weight is back to healthy. If I had the money I'd have a gastric bypass or something coz my weigfht is exacerbating health problems. gonna have to go puke, sorry for the crap. STRUGGLING with this shit at the mo.

[giddit]

Been bulimic for 25 years, regularly overeating and purging, everyday usually. Have put myself in debt, have wrecked my teeth, fingers, throat and body, but you know what it kept me safe. It helps me manage things that are too painful. I'm doing DBT at the moment and have medication for my Bi-polar and personality disorder and am taking it slowly. I have days when it all seems to much and I empty the fridge and cupboards and find myself trailing down to the local supermarket to stock up again. But you know I've had clear days and I know that these will begin to add up to clear weeks and then months...but I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I cope in this way and it isn't a sensible way, but it is a tool I use to keep on going and until I have replaced it with something more constructive it will just have to do for the minute. I could think about how much money I have thrown down the toilet, I could think about the time I have wasted eating and purging, then the money I have spent on bleach and cleaning fluids to clean up after myself, but what's the point? I did it, I still do it...but tomorrow may be a clear day, and when it is I'm not going to celebrate or brag I'll just accept that I got through another day and let the next day come rolling in. I think what I am trying to say is don't spend too much time focusing on what you do, it is bizarre and awful, but don't let it distract you, we are all more than our actions reveal we just have to be courageous enough to step out from our hiding place in our case its the bathroom and we need to learn to speak not purge. Put bulimia, food and weight in the background of your life and try to work on the here and now, because whilst you work on that you can't put your head in the cupboard, and if you can you can't open the packet of biscuits quite so quickly and then you have to put things down before you can disappear into the bathroom. I CAN'T HELP, BUT I WANT TO OFFER YOU ALL HOPE.

[Saharah Blue]

I have been purging for the last 26 years. I am okay with it, my teeth rotting a bit, but not extreme, luckily. I lost the body image value at age 18. Since then it has only been about control and renewal.

No one really needs to know or care, it's not important. I look fine, in fact I look the picture of some with bulimia, my weight spot on for someone of my age.

I only purge as needed, it has nothing to do with losing weight, I just want a fresh start, or my emptiness to match my emotion.

Sah

[72879252]

I do exactly the same since my boyfriend left me a bit ago. Im 17 and ive done this for a bit now i know maybe I shouldn't be doing this but i don't want to stop. I hope this will help me loose weight and get him back 1 day. Somehow now i feel a lot better with myself .... however I now maybe I need help and maybe am not doing the right thing but .... it makes me feel good about myself... Does anyone understands me??

[Jaimie_CS]

Your description is totally accurate for me, but i feel differently about it emotionally - being bulimic makes me feel totally out of control, the guilt every time i do it is overwhelming, and the hopelessness that follows a binge when ive managed to be good for a day or two is shattering. Every day or so there's a new resolve and a new approach to stopping it, ive tried fasting, strict dieting, no dieting, no carbs, eating whatever i want (that didnt last long.) but i still have a crippling fear of losing weight so the first time i put anything other than a vegetable in my mouth i panic and purge.

i almost wish i could find the peace with it you have, but i still think of the whole thing as completely unacceptable. My pdoc told me to not take it so seriously, that it was pretty normal and i was shocked, ive never felt anything other than rage and shame over it.

[piuma]

hi i hate doing it, it makes me feel awfull, untill it time to start again and im relieved! i hear ya tizzy the self debating thing, and i too have swung from one ed to another, when i was in ballet school i was very under weight, hmm, learnt som,e very bad habbits ther, and it damaged me. anyway thanks sarah for being so open bout it! it def is not a healthy thing to do. xx

[Saharah Blue]

I think as long as you keep pining to lose weight by this method of coping, which what it is, is taking it too far.

YOU want you cope and lose weight at the same time how terribly convenient and mulit-task. Pick and stick with it, you either want to cope or you want to lose weight. You get possible peace with one or the other, I have never known anyone ever to find peace in tandem.

Plagued or pleasured.....

Sah

[Russell]

I have a rather unique gift/curse!!!

When things are bad I simply restrict like crazy.

When I hit rock bottom I consume wheat/gluten eg: bread, biscuits etc. I have a severe allergy to the stuff (c e o l i a c disease) The end result is drastic weight loss but it comes at a price.

Everyone has their coping mechanisms I guess :S

[Saharah Blue]

I think as long as you keep pining to lose weight by this method of coping, which what it is, is taking it too far.

YOU want you cope and lose weight at the same time how terribly convenient and mulit-task. Pick and stick with it, you either want to cope or you want to lose weight. You get possible peace with one or the other, I have never known anyone ever to find peace in tandem.

Plagued or pleasured.....

Sah

I probably did not write this very kindly or clearly. I think the only reason I am okay ie. not ridden with shame or guilt, is because emotionally it gives me a second chance to get it right. I am empty of all I did wrong and can have a new start to coping.

when I was a teen, when it all first started, it was a lot about losing weight, about feeling fat and unacceptable. I was never fat, just felt ashamed of myself and my body, not because my body was ugly, it was beautiful, in fact it was well developed for someone my age. I had too much sexual attention. I wanted to somehow control all the sexual attention by being invisible, by being anorexic, only no matter how much weight I tried to lose, I couldn't lose my curves.

I was plagued by every little thing I ate or didn't eat. Food began to dictate my whole life and social interactions. I only ate every other day and had to start planning my social life around not eating. I didn't want people to know so I would have to decline invitations on my non eating days. This got really awkward and obvious to friends.

Then I started having a few friends at school admit they purged, so I started doing the same on the quiet. When my restrict days failed, I started falling back on this. I spent my whole teens determined to be 86, 76, could have even lived with a 100 lbs. the best I ever got was 103lb and felt a constant diet failure.

My experience has been this, if you can accept purging as part of how you cope then you will be okay and make some peace over it.

If you are determined to lose weight this way, it will never be enough.

If you are hoping to use it to cope and use it to lose weight, most likely you will feel failed, guilty, or ashamed. Beacuse when you really look at it, all socially unacceptable secrets, feel shameful.

Sah