Insults I Give Myself

The ones that are italicized are things that other people have called me, not just insinuated.

The ones in red are the ones that hurt the most. 

Vain

Conceited

Stupid

Awkward

Boring

Useless

Ignorant

Pitiful

Ugly

Fat

Mean

Self-centered

Gloaty

Bitchy

Gullible

Push-over

Uncaring

Ogre

Troll

Pig

Greedy

Undeserving

Bad girlfriend

Expendable

Bothersome

Waste of time

Needy

Clingy

Disgusting

Looks like a man

Grotesque

Flabby

worthless

Pros and Cons of Recovery

Pros of Recovery:

.     No more throwing up

2.     No tooth worries

3.     I will be more in control

4.     No headaches

5.     I’ll be awake

6.     I won’t worry about food

7.     I won’t gain weight from binges

8.     I won’t get irritable from hunger

9.     Increase in energy to do things I love

10. Increase in libido?

11. I won’t hate myself

12. Better singing voice?

13. I’ll be warmer?

14. Robert will stay with me

15. Less embarrassment

16. No more Carols

17. Save money

Cons of recovery:

1.     restricting makes me feel powerful

2.     restricting gives me motivation to work and care about myself

3.     restricting gives me a sense of accomplishment

4.     exercising makes me feel powerful

5.     exercising gives me motivation to work and care about myself

6.     exercising gives me a sense of accomplishment

7.     I won’t feel important

8.     I won’t be interesting

9.     No more excuse to be isolated

10. I might be bored

11. I might gain weight

12. I might get depressed

13. No self-righteousness

14. Sometimes I like binging on my favorite calorific foods

15. At first it will cause discomfort

Me Odio

Before I developed the habit of binging and purging, I weighed about 130 pounds. I was depressed, apathetic towards life, and hated my body. Every day I would stand in front of the mirror and say over and over to myself, “Me odio,” which means “I hate myself” in Spanish. I said it in Spanish because if someone heard me, they wouldn’t know what was going on in my head. I whispered it to myself to and from school on the bus, before I went to sleep, and when I was alone in my room. Nobody was more hateful of me than myself.

When I started exercising to lose the extra weight I had put on my being depressed, that all changed. I came back from running one day (although I only ran for 5 minutes at a time in those days) and I looked at my puffy red face in the mirror and tried to say “I hate myself.” But I found I couldn’t. So instead I said “I love myself.”

From then on, I just didn’t have the desire to say “I hate myself.” I would try to force the words from my lips but they felt alien to me. And I found myself looking in the mirror and smiling, and liking what I saw.

Realizing that you do not hate yourself is the best thing that can happen to you. It’s the first step to accepting who you are and loving your personality, no matter what you look like. When I realized this, I became more confident and happier. My self esteem still was and probably is incredibly low, but it had been raised a few notches just by the change in thinking.

Look in the mirror after you’ve taken a shower and tell your reflection that you love yourself. It can make a lot of difference. 

I Don't Deserve this Disease

Something I’ve always felt during the bout of my bulimia is that I don’t deserve this disease. Not in the sense that I’m a good person and I don’t deserve to throw up my food all the time and cry over not losing a few pounds, but in the sense that I don’t deserve the attention I give to it, or the attention it’s been getting me from others, or the feeling that I’m special because of it, or the feeling that I do have a very serious problem. I don’t think I deserve to have those feelings because in my mind, my life is great, aside from the bulimia. I have great parents who are still together, great siblings, a few close friends on whom I can count, an amazing boyfriend, enough money to get by, I’m not obese, I’m healthy, and I’m going to a great school equipped with a reasonable set of smarts. WHAT DO I HAVE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT?? Where did my bulimia come from??? I don’t have any problems, so why am I reacting as if I do?

Admitting that I need help and going to treatment don’t do anything for these sentiments either. I don’t feel like I deserve treatment because my life is good and compared to some my behavior isn’t so severe. This makes me feel like I have to be more deserving, which means my illness has to be more severe, which gives me more motivation to binge and purge, even though the treatment is supposed to have the opposite effect.

I also feel guilty whenever I try to talk about this with my boyfriend or my friend that knows I have bulimia. I feel selfish for always being concerned with my disease and for needing help with it when the rest of my life is so perfect. I would like to talk about it more with Robert and more with these people I’m seeing, but I can’t. I can only mention it every few days, and when I do the conversation does not last more than a few minutes.

I know that I’m well off, and I don’t want to burden anyone else with my problems. I don’t want to be or seem selfish, or self-centered, or absorbed in my problems….