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This is embarrassing, but I am going to post it anyways - partly because as I approach my 40th year I no longer feel so much anxiety about revealing my blemishes and humanity as I did when I was a 20-something, but also because I know that if I am going through this, then there must be a dozen others out there that are also facing the same obstacles.
What follows is a paste of my personal response to another member that is also struggling with Bulimia ... and I hope that if you too are going through this or if you have overcome it (!) you will post on this string and give some insight or encouragement.
NOTE: I have edited out any personal info that might have revealed the original poster.
What follows is a paste of my personal response to another member that is also struggling with Bulimia ... and I hope that if you too are going through this or if you have overcome it (!) you will post on this string and give some insight or encouragement.
NOTE: I have edited out any personal info that might have revealed the original poster.
I can see that you haven't posted here for a long time, so I'm not sure that you will get my message, but I wanted to let you know that I read your post in the eating disorders forum and that I totally get what you wrote and I am impressed that you shared such a raw and emotional description of what you have been going through.
I've been away from the site for many months, and I wish that I'd been here when you posted because then I'd know that you would have read what I'm about to write just when you could appreciate it the most.
I had thought when I started Atkins that somehow I'd been healed from the urge to purge, and honestly, in the very beginning I really thought I was. I didn't think it was a miracle cure, but for the first time in my adult life I had relief. For anyone that has had to deal with the overwhelming pressures of an eating disorder, you can understand how the absence of that pressure can feel like a calm in the middle of a hurricane.
I've been away from the site for many months, and I wish that I'd been here when you posted because then I'd know that you would have read what I'm about to write just when you could appreciate it the most.
I had thought when I started Atkins that somehow I'd been healed from the urge to purge, and honestly, in the very beginning I really thought I was. I didn't think it was a miracle cure, but for the first time in my adult life I had relief. For anyone that has had to deal with the overwhelming pressures of an eating disorder, you can understand how the absence of that pressure can feel like a calm in the middle of a hurricane.
Once I settled into the Atkins way of life though, those urges resurfaced and I was once again sucked into the cycle of eating & either massive exercising or more often sticking my fingers down my throat to throw my meals back up ... but only when no one would be aware of what I was doing.
I never told anyone about my struggle. I never wanted to let on to the "normal people" that I dealt with the so-called gluttonous meals in that manner. I wanted the "newly reformed" to believe that by simply following a low-carb way of eating that they too could find good health and a sense of well being - because, logically, I knew that is how I SHOULD be feeling and I ought to be celebrating the freedom that this lifestyle affords ... BUT I did not experience it. But I should have, right?
I believed SO MUCH in this way of life that I wanted to help demonstrate that it was the sure way to success ... and hide the ugly route that I personally had traveled. I told myself that had I followed it by the book I too would have been a shining example - had it not been for my eating disorder. That complicated everything!
Having this secret way of dealing with "big" meals while my counterparts lamented about the calories and heaviness in their tummies made me feel so above it all and more in control.
I wish I could tell you some secret about how to "fix" this, but I don't have one and if there is some magical cure I want in on it!
The point of my message to you is to tell you that you are NOT alone and that you are not weird or unusual, and that there are oodles of ladies that are struggling right along with you. Most won't have the nerve to admit what I have, but I feel compelled to lay it all out here and now.
I hope that you do get this message and that you know that you are not alone!!!
Should you choose to follow Atkins or not - I hope that you will reach back out to me and let me know how you are doing...
I never told anyone about my struggle. I never wanted to let on to the "normal people" that I dealt with the so-called gluttonous meals in that manner. I wanted the "newly reformed" to believe that by simply following a low-carb way of eating that they too could find good health and a sense of well being - because, logically, I knew that is how I SHOULD be feeling and I ought to be celebrating the freedom that this lifestyle affords ... BUT I did not experience it. But I should have, right?
I believed SO MUCH in this way of life that I wanted to help demonstrate that it was the sure way to success ... and hide the ugly route that I personally had traveled. I told myself that had I followed it by the book I too would have been a shining example - had it not been for my eating disorder. That complicated everything!
Having this secret way of dealing with "big" meals while my counterparts lamented about the calories and heaviness in their tummies made me feel so above it all and more in control.
I wish I could tell you some secret about how to "fix" this, but I don't have one and if there is some magical cure I want in on it!
The point of my message to you is to tell you that you are NOT alone and that you are not weird or unusual, and that there are oodles of ladies that are struggling right along with you. Most won't have the nerve to admit what I have, but I feel compelled to lay it all out here and now.
I hope that you do get this message and that you know that you are not alone!!!
Should you choose to follow Atkins or not - I hope that you will reach back out to me and let me know how you are doing...
Wendy
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