You're so weak (Bulimia)

Member Name: yesidoo

Product:	Bulimia
Date:	06/09/01 (276 review reads)
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Debi was a perfectionist. Debi was always better at school than her friend. She was a fantastic athlete. She wasn’t particularly gifted academically but she studied hard, revised and made up the difference of the natural intelligence that had eluded her. Debi was 5ft 2in tall, she wasn’t particularly attractive, but she had a certain something about her. She was quiet, but had an amazing sense of humour, and her parents pushed her all the way so that she could be the best she could. Her friend was slim, always had been. Embarrassingly so at times. She ate whatever she wanted, when she wanted but still she had arms like stick insects, no breasts, and no curves. Little Debi, though small had a lovely slim curvy figure that all the boys at school would secretly drool over. Her friend was tall, and it only accentuated her lack of curves, and breasts. Her friend used to feel silly walking next her, she used to feel like a monkey, with arms too long, and if they were ever stood talking together, at 5ft 8in she would always bend one leg to appear more like Debi, and so be smaller.

Debi and her friend used to talk about all sorts of things, one of them was about weight. At 14 this was not usually a great deal of talking, because neither of them, although very slim, never put on any weight, and if they did, it was only in relation to their height and growing bodies. Debi was always (and probably still is) a size 8 and she used to feel fat if she went to a size 10. But Debi was only petite, so it was ok. The two friends grew up, but remained firm friends, sharing the same humour and goals in life. They moved in with each other when they were a little older, by this time Debi’s friend had a baby. Debi’s friend felt really fat and frumpy with her stretch marks. Being taller than Debi was hard for her, sharing a house with Debi was hard for her. Debi was so slim, no matter what she ate, she stayed so slim. Her friend wondered how she did it. <
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Her friend found out one day why she was so slim. Debi was Anorexic. She would starve herself, and rejoice in her denial. Even though the hunger pangs were almost killing her, she would feel joy…delight at her perseverance. Sometimes, she would jokingly mock her friend if she was eating a mars bar. She would say with a wry grin on her face “naughty girl, look at me, I’ve not eaten for two days, you big fat pig” but she was only joking. She was not being nasty to her friend, she was doing it to make herself feel better. I’m sure she never meant for her friend to feel bad. But then, that was Debi, always the perfectionist. If she said she was doing something, she didn’t do it by halves.

Debi would survive on one apple a day and would do one hundred sit ups in her room. Her friend didn’t have the time or inclination to do this, partly because she was always a bit weak, and could never stick at anything, and partly because she had a young baby to look after. The little boy would love sausages, cakes and sweeties from the shop, and you know what kids are like. They never finish anything off do they? So what do you do? Well of course you finish them off for them, shame to see it go to waste isn’t it? Her friend, was 21, had given birth and was a very slim size 10. She was tall and was always complemented on her figure, but she couldn’t believe what they would say. She had no boyfriend, a young baby, and rarely went out. If what people said was true, why wasn’t she in love? Why weren’t the men flocking at her door to go out with her? She knew why.

Well, Debi was thin, so controlled, her friend envied her discipline. Her friend trie d to emulate Debi. She tried strving herself, but she wasn’t as disciplined as Debi, and she couldn’t always starve herself because she had to eat with her son. Her friend soon realised that she could starve herself all day with Debi, and th
en when Debi had gone to bed, she could gorge on whole packets of biscuits, then a sandwich or two, perhaps some toast, maybe even four bowls of cereal, and then make herself sick. She hated doing it, but she felt jubilant when she had finished. It was almost as if she was the one who was now “better” than Debi. After all, Debi was racked with hunger pangs, but her friend wasn’t. Her friend would look forward to her evening binges. Sausages, chips, chocolate, bread, crisps, pizzas, anything. If it was there, she would eat it. Then she would be sick, and she never put weight on.

Sometimes her friend lost weight, but on the whole she stayed exactly the same weight, so her family and Debi never realised what she was doing. Her mum was particularly envious of the way she could eat whatever she wanted and never put weight on. After a while, she became tired of being sick all the time, but she soon realised that you could use laxatives to get rid of the “excess” too.

The laxatives were painful. I mean really painful. She wouldn’t know when she was going to have to “go” or for how long, and it was embarrassing. The flatulence was really noisy and smelly and very hard to disguise! I know, gross isn’t it? But then, it was effective, so who cared? She became weak, and knew the calorie content of each and every thing that entered her mouth!

People think eating disorders are about weight. It isn’t. It’s about control. When you feel you are losing the grip on everything around you, you can control this one thing. If you are weak, there are ways round it, like binging and vomiting. To the outside world you are thin and in control.

It has taken her friend, me Lisa, a long time to realise that the only way to really be in control, if only of your weight, is to not to think about it. To this day, I still watch what I eat, and I do get down if I put on weight, and I do get happy, na
y overjoyed if I lose it, but I know now that the only way to be in control is to be me. If I want a pizza, I will have it, if I want a chocolate bar I will.

The worst thing for an anorexic, or a bulimic is to be in competition. They spur each other on. With every pound lost of the other one, they want to match it, and more. They can’t bear for the other to be thinner than them, because to them, the other one is “winning”. For Debi and I, it was never about who was thinner, it was about who had more willpower. I was always the weakest, and so I became bulimic, she was “stronger” and could deny herself far more than I.

Luckily for both of us, we moved out. I will always have the same feelings regards food, I will always watch my weight, and have the same worries about it, but now I am more relaxed about it. I have no-one to compete with now, only myself.

I haven’t binged, vomited or used laxatives for ages. I will always have feelings that started the bulimia, but I am older and wiser now. I have two children to look after and I know that it doesn’t matter what I weigh, they will love me. The stupid thing is, I have always been slim, even when pregnant, I just always want to be slimmer.

I am now5ft 9 and 9ST 12lbs. Do I wish I was slimmer? Of course. Will I put myself through hell to be slimmer? No way! Life is for living, not counting calories.

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