Trigger warning: I’ll be discussing bulimia in today’s post.
I’ve been thinking of different topics I could cover this year and one idea that keeps returning is to do a little series on mental health. During most of my life, mental health was almost a taboo subject, along with sex and money. Even now it’s rarely a subject of conversation between friends, so let’s drag it of the closet and examine it, as though it were a cold or the flu. Sharing this stuff isn’t easy and I’ve been sitting on this post for a week, trying to decide whether it’s “over-sharing”. I asked my daughter, Erica, what she thought and she replied, “Well, any time you’re talking about your mental health, you’re automatically “over-sharing”, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, and it might help someone” or words to that effect. So here goes!
Just to be clear, I won’t be talking about serious mental illnesses such as severe depression or bipolar disorder, but only my own experiences with less severe issues.. Not to minimize these issues, but just to emphasize that everyone is subject to challenges in life, most of which are not absolutely debilitating, but are nonetheless difficult. I’ve talked about depression in a previous post, so I’ll be talking about a few other things in my short series. Information is much more available than it used to be (thank you, internet!), but whether it’s easier to talk about mental illness IRL remains to be seen.
Considering that I’ve been a decently well-functioning adult for several decades now, you might be surprised to discover that I have suffered from bulimia, something recently brought to my attention called Childhood Emotional Neglect, and Imposter Phenomenon. I might dig out some more nuggets before the series is over. I might be surprised to find out what mental health challenges you’ve had throughout your life. So many of us are managing well, (at least to outward appearances), despite these challenges. Today I’ll share my experience with bulimia.
When I was a teenager, I was already very tall (had been tall all my life) and had filled out quite a bit by the time I was fifteen or sixteen. I was painfully aware of my body and how much space it took up, so I went on my first diet at around that age. It was called The Bread Diet and I think I found it in a magazine. I lost 10 pounds in a month by cutting out most fat and consuming only 1200 calories a day, but filling up on bread (two slices per meal!). It’s amazing to me how many details I remember about that diet when I can’t remember what I ate yesterday, but, I digress. Of course this diet wasn’t sustainable (most diets aren’t) so after the month was over I soon gained back all the weight I had lost. Sometime later I started babysitting and the parents gave me permission to raid their fridge, so I ate a bunch of ice cream one night and felt so full that I wanted to barf, so I did. That first time I didn’t have much trouble getting myself to throw up because I was already feeling nauseous, and so it was like a lightbulb went on; I thought, hey, no need to live with my transgressions, I can just purge those calories before they take hold! So, I proceeded to binge and purge semi-regularly for a few months. What’s weird about my memory is that I can’t remember where I was living at the time or how old I was. I might have been living with my Dad, (plus his partner and her kids) in Ottawa, where Ilife was a bummer due to factors I won’t get into, but which might have added to the likelihood of getting into this dangerous habit. If I’m right, I was about 17. Being a teenager is hard.
I was very lucky that I didn’t continue the habit of purging for very long. As time went on I started to fear that maybe this wasn’t a healthy habit. I don’t know why I was able to stop almost as easily as I got started, but I’m grateful that the habit didn’t become engrained. Of course, I had no idea that I wasn’t the only one on the planet trying to erase their “sins” in this way. Nobody was talking about bulimia at that time and I’d never heard of it. It was years later that I finally realized it was a pretty common mental illness, and many more years later before I had the nerve to tell anyone. I was morbidly ashamed of having had what I thought of as a disgusting habit, which I assumed would make people think badly of me. As eating disorders go, this one was very mild. Had I kept it up I could have ended up doing serious damage to my esophagus. In retrospect, maybe my living situation had improved and I was feeling happier, which must have helped me recover. At the time, I’m sure I didn’t connect these dots.
Looking back at it, there were many factors that probably converged to create the perfect environment for me to act out in this way. I was lonely, and unhappy with my living situation; I had moved away from home (Montreal, where I lived with my mother) for the first time; and I had always equated food with comfort. During that time (and throughout my life, to be frank), I had eaten as a way to feel better. When I was particularly unhappy, I guess I took that to an extreme, which led to the purging habit. Not to blame this on my mother, but part of her job as a parent (as I suspect she saw it) was to heal with food. If I had a headache or was out of sorts, her first question would be, Have you eaten anything lately? I don’t blame her, she was doing her best, and she would have been horrified to know that it may have contributed to an eating disorder, which she never knew about. I suspect my mother developed an unhealthy relationship with food from her own mother. I remember my grandmother as fat-phobic and absolutely scathing in her judgements about people who were obese. She had many good qualities, but that wasn’t one of them. As a naturally thin person, she couldn’t understand it, and firmly believed that being overweight was a moral failing. Mind you, I don’t remember her nagging my mother about her weight directly (my mother was not naturally thin), but her attitude must have been obvious to Mom. So, our complicated relationships with our bodies can come down from generations back.
From the age of about 15 I always thought I was too heavy, but now I look at pictures of myself from my teens, twenties and thirties and I can’t believe how slim I look! I was convinced I was overweight 90% of the time, and yet there in front of my eyes is the visible proof of the contrary. I still eat for comfort, I’m not going to lie, and I still feel that I’m too heavy, but I’ve made peace with it to some extent. I’m never going on another diet, since they never work long term, and dieting is a never-ending, depressing cycle.
Anyway, that’s my story and I hope it will help someone out there who may be going through the same thing right now, or who has a similar hidden shame in their past that they can put to rest. You’re not alone! I challenge you to have a conversation about eating disorders with your child or another young person. The more these things stay secret, the more dangerous they are.
If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, here’s a link to Ami Quebec, where there are many resources. https://amiquebec.org/eating-disorders/
I love to hear from you!