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This post has been a month in the making, but this “process”, so to speak, took a year to get right. It’s been long, in the sense that I no longer recognise the person I was a year ago, but also not that long that I still see glimpses of her existence in my day-to-day, especially the darker ones.
But hey. One year, purge-free. It’s a milestone I never thought I’d ever reach but here we are. Here I am. Still existing. Still in working condition. And no longer requiring the crutches of bulimia to get me through the day.
When I first decided on writing this, I thought hard about what to say. Lessons learned? Maybe. How to overcome an eating disorder? I could, but I’m not certain if I’m cured of it, or if I ever will be. This is just year 1 of no purging. The triggering cycle of self-hate still plagues me, and a lot of us ‘survivors’. And it’s definitely going to take more than not vomiting to be a normal functioning human being again.
But for the sake of old times, and to serve as a reminder for future me, I’m going to start by detailing how this nightmare even started.
PART I: The Beginning
Four (five?) years ago, due to the overwhelming pressure from Asian relatives, I embarked on a weight loss journey even though I was nowhere near overweight. I went to the gym nearly everyday, and ate close to nothing. I was obsessed with the idea of being below 50kg, which is almost deadly given my height and bone mass. I restricted myself to a 900-calorie a day diet and drank only lemon water and green tea. Alcohol was a social exception but only tequila or strong liquor allowed because they contained the least calories.
I went on “cleanses” where I ate no solid foods for 9 days straight, while still running hard on the treadmill. Veganism was my new lifestyle but even then I would never go near vegan cookies or anything that had taste. Oh, I also banned salt and oil from my kitchen. Because anything that’s good for the mouth is bad for the waistline! Or so I was told.
All my efforts to slim down did come with a slight reward. I was the tiniest I’d ever been. I had abs. And I was showered with attention and compliments. I could fit into my Chinese friend’s clothes - a distant dream for someone who was considered big her whole childhood.
However, my weight loss journey came to an abrupt end when I found myself bed-bound after a really bloody cycling accident. My legs couldn’t move, which meant that there was no more gym time, which in turn meant that I’d be slowly piling back the weight I worked my butt off to lose.
It was in this moment I turned to bulimia as a temporary solution. But who knew a momentary decision like that could ruin the next three years of my life, and perhaps my relationship with food forever.
In the beginning, I hated the feeling of sticking my fingers down my throat. It’s honestly fucking disgusting. But I hated the feeling of a full stomach more, so I’d put up with it. I’ll stop once I can exercise again, I’d say. But then I’d wonder what was the point of torturing myself in the gym for hours on end, when I could get the same results for a few minutes of pain in the bathroom?
So I never stopped. And I lived in shame of my new habits for the following years. Purging every time I had more than 7 almonds. Purging every time I ate ice-cream. Just a continuous cycle of eat - feel guilty - purge - get hungry again - eat - promise myself I wouldn’t - oops - i did it again. (Britney reference!)
Therapy helped a little, in that it made me realise my eating disorder was part of a bigger issue, an issue of perfectionism, where my perspective of the world could only be viewed in black and white, right and wrong.
Up until that point, being validated by my mother was the only thing that mattered to me. As long as she said I was thin enough, then I felt I was good enough. If she didn’t approve of my body, then I would coin myself a failure. There was no in-between. No “I’m trying so it’s okay” stage. Just black or white. Ok or not ok. And my life was constantly fluctuating between those two options and those only.
So not being able to hit below 50kg? Failure. Not having my mom’s seal of approval. Bad. I can’t recall now but many things were not great. And purging was my way of clinging onto the only possibly good thing in my life - my thinner body that was society’s version of good enough.
But like many others, I was sold the lie that the lesser you eat, the thinner you’ll be. If it works with intermittent fasting, or anorexia, surely it’d be the same with bulimia. But contrary to logical reasoning, bulimia doesn’t make you thinner, it actually inflates you even further. For one, the body’s metabolism slows down greatly because the body’s trying to hold onto the nutrients that are forcefully removed every time a purge occurs. And second, all the finger action in the throat? It irritates the tonsils and swells the chin area, giving the face a “chipmunk” look that’ll take possibly years to get rid of.
I read and memorised all these scientifically-proven facts, and still for some reason, my brain thought “bullshit”, and then soldiered on with total ignorance.
It’s funny how blinded and stubborn one can be in the face of seeking validation. For me, the only thing that mattered was that my stomach was empty and flat by the end of a night. To hell with my metabolism, I was never blessed with a fast one anyway. How’s bulimia going to make it any slower? And a chipmunk face? Ha ha. Sure.
But biology is what it is. My metabolism did slow down. My face swelled up so bad. At this point, I was aware of the changes. I was growing wider, day by day, without really eating anything. The double chin was no longer a derp face I’d pull. It was there. And it wasn’t going away with filters and camera angles anymore. The person I hated so much growing up culminated in this one girl in the mirror.
She was big. Bigger. Overweight even. Hitting nearly 80kg heavy. With a sickening habit that her younger self despised, but was now slowly taking comfort in.
Part II to be continued -