BULIMIA & BINGE EATING

Bulimia, Binge Eating, Anorexia and Body Dysmorphia you name it. In the world we live in today it's no wonder so many young girls develop these issues. With the rise in Social Media and Instagram we are made to feel inadequate and we constantly compare ourselves to these 'picture perfect' models and influencers that grace our screens. I know more friends you can shake a stick at who have suffered with at least one of these disorders, and a whole selection of them who live with it undiagnosed, feeling like there's something wrong, but aren't quite sure what. I am here to share my story and tell you that it does get better. Trust me.

As I mentioned in my first blog, I was always slightly on the chubby side as a child. My weight was definitely not a huge issue back then, that was until I went to senior school. I had been at boarding school since the age of ten, so the concept of living away from home did not faze me. It should be noted that prep school boarding, when mummy would come and visit with snacks at car park time on Wednesdays, and our Maths teacher would serve our meals from the end of the table while requesting that we put our knife and fork down at a 45 degree angle in between mouthfuls, was rather different to senior school boarding, where the teachers couldn't give a flying fuck about us and we were pretty much left to our own devices - at least when it came to food. So, you can imagine my excitement starting senior school when I was suddenly in control of everything I ate, and even greater excitement at the prospect of the school tuck shop! So, I started senior school with my tuck box filled with healthy food, nuts and seeds, lots of fruit and only a few small packs of chocolate - this goes back to the topic of 'everything in moderation' which I was yet to learn.

At senior school we had a huge canteen and a beautiful dining room which was once a converted church. It was always incredibly busy and from the amount of pushing and shoving that went on in order to be served first, anyone would think we hadn't been fed in weeks. Anyway, it became apparent pretty quickly that my relationship with food was far from normal, let alone healthy. I used to go to breakfast early in order to rush through the queues in the canteen and out to the dining room, before anyone could see the obscene amount of food on my tray. Over time, I developed a love of mini croissants, I am not sure why, they weren't even that nice, they were dry and definitely mass produced having come out of a freezer bag, but I didn't care, it was food, calories and sugar that I so craved at the time. I remember they had these ridiculously stupid tiny white cereal bowls that I would pile high with my mini croissants (usually nine or ten of them), and underneath, hidden away, was at least half a pot of Cadbury's chocolate spread. This went on for weeks and months, and I naturally got bigger and bigger, and it became a cycle I was unable to stop, I had become addicted to sugar. I think the turning point when I realised my eating habits had gone from just unhealthy, to an actual disorder, was when I became friends with the kitchen staff and they would sneak me pots of chocolate spread through the window that I would take back to my dorm and finish within about ten minutes. I mean come on, if that isn't a red flag then I don't know what is!?

Being in an all girls boarding house meant I didn't care about the girls judging what I ate, and besides, I may have had the worst eating habits of all my friends, but that's not to say theirs weren't pretty dreadful too. So, this gave me the excuse to eat everything and anything I could get my hands on. I would binge on about eight pieces of toast (occasionally sprinkling sugar on each slice - how vile is that!), bowls of unbaked cookie dough, and endless Freddo bars, Wisp bars and Curly Wurlys which I would melt in the microwave and eat off a spoon! During my binges I could consume up to 10,000 calories, sometimes more! This was only over a one hour period on my lunch break, never mind the breaks in between lessons, evening snacking, and the fact I was eating all of this on top of three main big meals! Eating that amount of food is enough to make anyone feel incredibly sick, so, that's exactly what I did. I made myself sick.

The vicious cycle of bingeing and purging only got worse from there, but I began to love it. I started doing it once a day, which slowly increased to at least three times a day and eventually up to five or six times in one day. It was my little secret, not even my roomate at the time new about it - thank god for running water, deodorant and chewing gum! Now, I should tell you, throwing up the contents of your stomach every time you eat is NOT an effective method of weight loss! No matter how much I was sick, even if I had reached the point where I had bloodshot eyes, tears rolling down my face, and was chucking up nothing but air, I could never get it all up, even if it felt like the entire contents of my stomach lining, including all my internal organs had been thrown up - it hadn't.

After about a year of this ritual which had got worse and worse as time progressed, it started to really affect not only my physical state but my mental state too. Having to keep a secret like this was incredibly hard, especially from my parents. Anyone who knows me, will know I have a very close and open relationship with my family - some may say I reveal too much, but that's just me. So, I went home from school one weekend with every intention to explain all that had been happening. A problem I had, and still have to a lesser extent, is that I am incapable of expressing emotions without it coming out as anger initially, and that's exactly what I did. I was vile and angry and aggressive all weekend until I had created yet another screaming argument with every member of my family, which finally resulted in me bursting into floods of tears and revealing everything that was going on in my little fucked up head.

Although I could have told my parents in a more calm and rational way, the timing couldn't have been more perfect as it was coming up to summer, so with the help of my parents, I was Bulimia free for about three months. I wasn't binging, because I had nutritious delicious food cooked by my mother, and didn't have the distraction of chocolate spread and mini croissants, which meant I didn't feel the need to purge either. Over time, not being able to get rid of the food I had consumed became more and more frustrating, so I started just restricting my calories in an attempt not to gain weight. I mean honestly I laugh at my stupidity now, because of course I then relapsed. Restricting calories to such an extreme extent is obviously going to lead to a massive binge at some point, and it really did! My family were out of the house for the night and so, I ate quite literally, everything and anything I could find in the fridge, larder and cupboards. I think it started with a bagel or three, then moved on to cheese toasties, then on to pasta pesto and bacon, then I would make cookie dough or pastry biscuits (if we had the ingredients) and ended with a bowl of icing sugar. Icing sugar was always the weirdest one, who does that?! Just a spoon, icing sugar and water! WEIRD! and then, of course, the overpowering guilt I felt from eating that amount of food, and the complete and utter fear that I would gain weight meant I had to get rid of it somehow, so, again, I made myself sick.

When I relapsed I felt too embarrassed and ashamed to tell my parents again, so it continued on and off for the next four years. Sometimes it was daily, and sometimes I could go a week or two without doing it at all, but for those four years it was a pretty constant disorder and was always in the back of my mind when I ate. I don't blame my parents for my relapse or for me developing an eating disorder in the first place. I think at the time Bulimia and especially Binge Eating were not well known eating disorders. If you ever said to someone,'I have an eating disorder', their immediate response would be 'oh, so you have Anorexia'... errr not quite! Anorexia seemed to be the only eating disorder people ever discussed or were even vaguely aware of! So how the bloody hell were my parents supposed to know how to cope with me and my disorder if no one else did either? They are both now recognised as eating disorders, more research has been done, more awareness campaigns have been created and more articles and books have been written - most of which I have read, my favourite book being 'Overcoming Binge Eating' by Christopher Fairburn, an excellent read even if you don't suffer from it!

It's quite sad what it took for me to finally stop this cycle, but as a lot of you may know, I am a singer. Singing was my life and everything I did revolved around it. When you are being sick up to eight times a day for five years, it starts to have a very negative effect on your body, something that didn't even cross my mind when I started this process. Having that amount of acid coming up the wrong way starts to shred away various complicated bits in your throat and vocal chords, which I did not understand scientifically, but what I did know, was that I was losing my ability to sing, and that scared me more than anything else in the world. So, just like that, I stopped. Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect and it never happened again because it did, and it sometimes, very rarely, still does even today, but the fear that I would lose my one talent that made me different and made me special, was more important to me than throwing up my food in an attempt to be slim.

I never thought about the repercussions Bulimia would have on my body physically, of course it affected me mentally but it also affected my throat, vocal chords, and stomach, but most of all my teeth! I went to the dentist for a routine check up a while after I had given up this habit, and was faced with a bit of a shock. Having never needed braces or any serious dental work and having always had perfectly clean teeth, you can imagine my surprise when my dentist announced I needed seven fillings as a great proportion of my teeth were decayed, and could potentially continue to decay over the next few years. I explained my past to him briefly, as I was sure it could not have been just excess sugar intake that had caused it, but it was too late, and ended up costing around £1500 to fix - If you only take away one thing from this post, let it be this. Bulimia is a waste of money! Not only because you don't keep down all the food you pay for (it becomes very expensive buying all that chocolate spread ), but you'll end up paying thousands of pounds in dental care too!

It took me five years, a weight gain of nearly four stone, depression, self harm and therapy to kick this habit. Nothing is worse than the feeling of self hatred and guilt this horrible eating disorder gave me, and had I known Bingeing and Bulimia would lead to every other issue I was ever faced with from then on, I would have thought twice the first time I was bent over the loo seat trying to reverse the effects of my first Binge. I can't change the past, but I learnt from my mistakes and I am a million times stronger today than I could possibly imagine because of it, so for that I am grateful.

And I think it's safe to say... I avoid Cadbury's chocolate spread these days!

Lots of Love x

Overcoming Binge Eating - Christopher Fairburn

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Binge-Eating-Second-Program/dp/1572305614/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=60008779864&hvadid=259068795573&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9072504&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t2&hvqmt=e&hvrand=8219744833936219083&hvtargid=kwd-353683914127&keywords=overcome+binge+eating&qid=1552305892&s=gateway&sr=8-1&tag=googhydr-21