Ask Me Help Desk - I want to stop being bulimic

I am finally admitting to myself that I am bulimic and I need help. I have never told anyone this, or let anyone find out. It started a couple years ago as I was deperately trying to lose weight for my wedding.. well I did. I lost 35 lbs in 7 months. I told myself I would stop after the wedding, and would try to maintain my weight with eating right and excersize. Well, that didn't work. I was addicted to making myself throw up. This is very embarrassing and I don't want my husband to find out. Anyway, my question is, I plan on going to the doctor to get help. Does anyone know what they will do? I'm sure they will probably make me go to counceling but will they also send me to a nutritionist? I know if varies by insurance, but normally, does insurance cover this? I am really hoping to go to a nutritionist so I can learn how to eat better and healthier. I tried to stop on my own and in a month I have already gained 10 lbs :( :( :( I get really discouraged when I can barely fit into my 7's. I know it is inevitable that I am going to gain weight back... I just need help in the process. I have read about serious health problems that can arise from being bulimic and I am scared

You definitely need counseling, and they will most likely want you to see a nutritionist. When I went into treatment for bulimia I had a psychiatrist, a therapist, a nutritionist, and a family counselor. They said that the eating disorder was a symptom of depression. They put me on antidepressants, which was the first step in my recovery. I'm better now, but have other problems because of the years of throwing up. I have really bad acid reflux and have to take medicine for that, because the acid from the throwing up eroded my esophagus and it just never got better.

Hi my name is Jen, and I was in the same situation that you are in right now. And it sucks. You have already completed the first half of recovery. You admitted to yourself that you have a problem. Now here comes the hard part admitting to everyone else that you have a problem. I know you don't want your husband to find out but you have to tell him because if you want help he is going to find out and I think you want him to hear it from you and not someone else. The way I told my family was I brought them with me to the doctors office. And there is ways of not purging and not gaining the weight back. Normally all the treatment is free. They have out paient clinics, that your doctor will refer you to. And you will be sent to see a nutritonist, but that is an awesome thing because they will help you find the right things to eat with out gaining a ton of weight. Being bulimic is a very very very scary thing. My friend was so bad with purging she ended up almost dying because she ruptured her stomach. You can rot out your teeth from the acid in your stomach. I know I'm missing 3 of my molars. You can do this I mean stop being bulimic but you need your husband and your family for a support team. Your support team is the most important thing in the world. If I didn't have mine I don't think that I would be here right now. If you ever need anyone to talk to about this please let me know.

Congratulations in taking the first step to better yourself!!

Yes, you will most definitely need counseling, by a psychologist as well as a nutritionist.

Bulemia is a mental illness, not necessarily a physical one, at least until you reach the stage as the poster above.

Not knowing your particular health insurance we cannot know whether your insurance will cover this. You will need to contact them, or your doctor will most likely know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Foxy459459

Normally all the treatment is free.

This all depends on the treatment facilities in your area. In my area there is no free treatment.

Thank you for the replies. I am just so embarrassed to tell my husband about it. Every time I go to the bathroom he will probably wonder now. But I guess this will help my recovery because If I know he is paying attention it will be harder for me to throw up. Thank you, jen and hellawes, for sharing your experience with me. That really helps because I have never known anyone else with bulimia (that I know of) so it's good to have someone to relate to.

It is probably best if your husband knows about it, so that he will be able to support you. I was found out by my parents when I was 16, and I already had a letter I had written, asking for help and saying how sorry I was. When they found out I was throwing up it had been because I was doing it in the bathroom sink and it got stopped up. I got the letter out, they read it, and next thing you know I'm getting help. They were very supportive, and, yes, suspicious if I went to the bathroom immediately after eating, but that only helped my recovery. I was able to look at what I was putting into my mouth, and think, "If it's going in, it has to stay in or people will wonder." Also, people who love you will be more supportive than you think. I later had a relapse at 18 years old, and my boyfriend who loved me very much knew what was going on. One day, he looked at me as we prepared dinner and said" I really wish you would stop doing that." And I did. I'm 28 years old now, and have not made myself throw up since. Let me know if you need someone to talk to.

The doctors will send you to a nutritionist I promise, you just have to stress that you want to stop being bulimic not gain weight. I have been in your shoes, and unfortantly help didn't come easy to me... I did gain weight and since I am very stubborn I found my face in the toilet again... puking. Just have faith, and don't give up... im a lot better than I used to be, and I do think that over time I will win this battle, just like you can. Insurance? Well it should cover it, it's a physiological problem... and it's a hard one to get over, but you can do it... try support groups, they help a lot.

I'm a 16 year old girl and I want to become bulimic. I always seem to say that I'm going to eat healthier and exercise, but I can never stick to it. I think me becoming bulimic would be the best possible way to get to the weight I want to get to.

Honestly. I am 20 years old and have been bulimic since I was 13/14. It is as if my whole world revolves around it. I am completely obsessed with my weight. This week I was in a store and I had a seizure in front of everyone. It really did open my eyes, and tonight I plan on asking for help from my boyfriend. I have never been more afraid in my life. But it needs to happen.

I've been bulimic since I was 11 years old. I'm now 19. I finally sought help this past year. I'm in intensive therapy and eating better- but this came too late. My acid reflux has gotten so bad that it has developed into Advanced Barretts Disease and will likely turn into cancer by the time I'm 25- and there is very little anyone can do about it. PLEASE learn from my mistakes. GET HELP NOW! It's scary, it sucks, and it's hard as hell but I promise you it's better then knowing that you will probably get cancer in the next 5 years and it is almost entirely your fault. GET HELP! p.s, I gain 15ish pounds when started getting help, it sucked so bad, I thought it was the worst thing in the world. But guess what? My family is still by my side, I have a fiancé who loves me and still thinks I'm beautiful, and I have Jesus Christ now who is the ultimate reason for living and being healthy. Take that step and get help. It will be worth it!

I am 16 and I started doing it about a year ago. I do it almost everyday. My lifes very stressul. I don't have my mom and my dads never around, I work and go to school and never have time for myself. I used to play sports and I stopped cause of working and school and the fact that I had to move 6 times in the past 2 years. I want help I need it. I just don't know where to start. I have a twin brother who's my best friend. He found out about it. He tells me to stop and I ask him for help. But I'm stubborn. I have no one who understands how hard it is to stop this, any advice?

It has been two years since the last post... honestly I am responding today because I am facing a pretty serious problem. I have ben bulimic for 7 years and cannot find a way to stop. When I was 16 I joined a "modeling agency" called barbizon. Now before I go further, I am not blaming anything on their part. It was simply my reaction to my environment. I was in class with many slender girls. I on the other hand was 5'3" weighing 135 lbs. these girls weighed 125 at 5'7" so I became rather self conscious. On top of that, my track girl friends always compaired themselves to the victoria secret models in magazines and would run extra after practice, take diet pills, and eat foods way out of my parents budget. So... I started to purge. I know my problem at the time had much motive. Modeling, peers, even my father had a huge problem with fat women. I then also fell in love for the first time with a guy who weighed way less than me and was much taller. Other people thought he was grossly skinny but he was my first so I was rather naïve. Five years later found out he had an aderoll snorting problem. Anyway, the first two years of bulimia paid off for my "goals" at the time. I went down to a size two. Weighing 125 lbs at 5'7 1/2". I felt beautiful. but i struggled with some health problems. my attention span and memory was very slight, i had UTI's more common than ever, i was always tired, and had little to NO SEX DRIVE! this was a problem. however, it wasnt till i woke up one night dead out of sleep craving the stale christmas cookies in my mothers kitchen that i realized my body was in trouble. before i purged after every single thing i put down. even if it was a fruit or vegetable. after that i tried to keep more down. i eventchually broke things off completely with my boyfriend after 4 years wich helped me dramatically. he always made me feel like i was never good enough (one of my incentives). plus people around my work place started to catch on and i got embarissed. so i held things down longer before i went. i began to realize my weight was no longer the issue. i gained weight and i didnt care. if anything it was somewhat relieving because ppl werent always asking me "how do you stay so thin?" "where does all that food go?" "goodness girl I wish I could eat like that". i began to realize this disorder was habbitual. after every meal i have an urge to purge if you will. but would fight it because i felt others would notice. and in public settings, you dont want to run off to the public restroom violently purging so everyone can hear. so purging becomes more of a challenge. i later found myself facing stuffing myself beyond compacity to force myself to purge because my body was fed up (or so i bellieve). the fingers down the throat didnt quite do the trick till i unternated hands. it was more of a guilty "why am I doing this" feeling. So once I was full, even if alone in my home, I would wait because I wanted to eat more. And I knew if I threw it all up now my appitite would be ruined for later. In other words, I was horribly depressed. Realizing my problem then trying to face it, gain (at this point) 30 lbs and continue to purge made me feel discusting. I felt so alone, and everyone close to me I felt knew what was going on. It got so bad I literally ate 10 meals a day at one point. Fully prepared meals. I then started doing research and discovered the girl who died because she ate so much her stomach ruptured. Thankfully I started taking a medication that has helped me regulate my eating. I'm sure many of you are familiar with it its aderoll. I don't abuse it because I've witnessed its side effects, and I don't wish to depend on it. I'm simply using it as leverage until I gain a new bodily routine. I can now have a health shake in the morning, take medicine, be fully attentive for five hours then am hungry again. At that time I then am not craving any specific sugars or carbs, just energy, so I think smart with what I consume for dinner. However after dinner sometimes comes desert, and if I don't feel full ill search for bread or other substance that will fill me till I feel I absolutely need to purge. This happens much less than before though. I have no health problems as before either. I know I still am at many risks though. I still haven't told my doctor. My mother knows and family thinks I've recovered due to weight gain, however, I'm still far from fully recovered. I've noticed I don't want to gain any more weight. I've also noticed the reason I've lost weight dramatically in the beginning is because I had a more conscious diet and as I advanced as a bulimic I felt my body was invinsible of foods, now making my food habits spoiled and unrealistic. Being as cautious and embarissed and ridding of bulimia as I am, I've been eatng much more health concous foods. I've been studying what will help me loose weight or stay where I am withought binging. I am noticing another problem though unfortunately. I believe my metabolism is completely unnatural. Although I eat good foods, its taken much longer to digest. I believe this is because in the past I would urge my stomach not to digest the food I've eaten, but rather wait a while till people would think less of my visit to the bathroom. So now I believe I've set a new pattern for my digestion. Can anyone relate to any of this? Is anyone this advanced? Does anyone have any advise (other than see or go to a specialist or group therepist and what have you)? I plan to go to a group service if I don't gain any further recovery within this next semester. I will be done with college and hopefully have the time that needs devoted to gain a full recovery.

I'm 17 and my mom kind of caught me in the act 2 years ago.. it was a horrible situation and I started to cry and say I'm sorry, I'm bulimic, I can't help it. Mom evidently just slapped me and told me , bulimic? Your just crying for attention. So I mean, months passed after that, and I did it secretely , and less and mom thought I stopped. But now it's the worst stage I've ever been, and it doesn't seem like its going to stop. I waste so many hours in the day vomiting. Honestly, admitting it is not an option for me. I guess I'm going to have to wait until I'm old enough to get help myself.

Hey, I'm thinking about writing a letter to my parents asking for help. It just seems so much easier than talking about it. But I don't know where to start or what to say..

I have lost 120 lbs being bulimic... and I just want to stop... I do a good job eating most the time, I just get such a bad tummy ache from doing it now... how do I avoid that pain FROM eating... at first it was the pain from not having food, now its pain from having food. Urgh. I don't want to be this thin anymore, nothing looks right that I wear and its making my teeth rot I can tell that already... which means my insides can't be looking too good... all I need is a way that I can keep the food down without it hurting my stomach... is this possibly an ulcer?

It's been awhile since this post was published, so I'm hopeful you're well on your way to full recovery. I did a blog post the other day that I thought would be helpful to people trying to answer this same question so I wanted to share...
How to Stop Being Bulimic - Let Your Cork Float

Hope this is also helpful to people looking to answer this question.

Love and light,

Polly
Welcome to My Eating Disorder Recovery Website and Community

Im in the same boat as you - this behaviour has been going on a little over a year now and I have tried multiple times to end it. It never lasts. I haven't told anyone about this, Im so ashamed that I am unable to fix this on my own. I don't know if I will ever have the courage to get myself help.

I'm 18 and suffer from bulimia. I took it up about 2 years ago and am still doing it. I NEED to stop but I'm scared which makes sense. I fear that when giving up being bulimic that I will have to cut the amount of calories or how much I eat to a bare minimum. I've looked up the effects of long term bulimia and have been threatened being hospitalized by my family. I really am afraid to talk to my friends about this but then again I need as much support as I can right now. The thing I fear most of all is gaining weight. As I mentioned before I'm going to try and end this before it gets worse but I don't want to gain weight and then again I don't want this thing to switch from bulimia to anorexia. Could I have some advice please? Thanks