Eating Disorder TV Shows

I’ve recently been watching a lot of eating-disorder related TV. On the one hand, it makes me feel good to know that there are other people out there suffering as much as I am. I feel like I’m part of a group, and the episodes always show someone going through recovery, which makes me feel like I do it too. On the other hand, sometimes it makes me feel like what I’m going through can’t compare to the suffering of these people; that I don’t deserve to go to therapy or have the support of the people I do.

I still like watching them though. It’s rather cathartic.

The shows:

Supersize versus superskinny:                                                

This was interesting because it’s a show that helps fat people become less overweight AND shows that being too skinny is also not healthy. The weight loss and gain on this show is slow and healthy and the eating habits are analyzed and shown for their true colors. This show helped me wrap my mind around upping my calorie intake to something more reasonable.

http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3Dz7pihCSnpus

What’s Eating You:

This is a show about people with very serious eating disorders. It was interesting, it was engaging (to me) especially because I recognized so many of the symptoms and understood what the people were going through. There’s only one season, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZBJhGgZRgI

Shows that perpetuate the ED mindset:

The Biggest Loser:

People killing themselves to lose weight? Hell yeah, that’s healthy. This season, there’s a girl on there that’s a size 10, and she’s still losing weight. A size is 10 normal! She looks great! Why is she still busting her butt to lose weight?? This show also makes it clear that being overweight means being unhappy. No wonder I can’t tolerate a one pound increase on the scale. In my mind, that one pound is one more pound of despair.

Am I missing any?

(Invisible) Signs of Bulimia

Bulimia is very hard to recognize, especially since those who have it try their hardest to cover it up from people they know. I tried not to say anything negative about my weight, because I thought that it could be a tip-off for people to recognize that I was leaving the table after dinner to vomit my guts out. I always made sure that no one was walking my the bathroom while I was throwing up, and if I threw up in the shower, I would hide the food in bunches of Kleenex and stick it in the bottom of the trash can.

There were times when I certainly could have gotten caught. The thing is, though, that NO ONE WILL BELIEVE YOU’RE BULIMIC unless faced with incontrovertible evidence. That’s the main reason I get away with it.

It’s nothing bad on their part. After all, less than 5% of people become bulimic, so why should they assume anything? And the disease doesn’t manifest itself in physical ways like with anorexia, so if people notice a detail you left out of place they will reason it away.

Sites have lists of signs to look for:

-       using diet pills

-       exercising all the time, even when hurt or tired 

-       going to the bathroom after eating all the time or showering right after dinner 

-       swollen cheeks from throwing up 

-       calluses or scrapes on the fingers from using them to induce vomiting 

-       teeth that look clear

-       broken blood vessel in the eyes 

(http://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/bulimia-nervosa.cfm#d)

(I exhibit all of these symptoms except I've never taken diet pills. Not because I didn't want to...)

And here are some things I would look for in addition:

-       someone restricting food intake

-       having a negative body image or thinking they’re too fat

-       being grouchy after eating a large meal

-       holding stomach after eating or just randomly

-       weighing oneself all the time

But again, people don’t see one of those signs and randomly start thinking you have bulimia. They won’t even think you have bulimia if you straight up tell them “I feel fat.” Or even if you obviously go to the bathroom right after dinner and come back with broken blood vessels bleeding out of the back of your hand. People are very good at not seeing what they don’t want to see. 

Hello

Hello. My name is Emily and I have been bulimic for about two years. My goal in starting this blog is that it will help me recover and it could help someone else through their own journey. So far I have gone only about 5 days without binging or purging, which feels longer than it actually is.

My history with eating disorders has been a long one. In eighth grade I went from 120 pounds to 100 pounds by eating less than 500 calories a day. That lasted only a month, however, because my body couldn’t handle the starvation and I gave in to eating.

I gained 30 pounds and during ninth grade I depressed. When I met my first boyfriend I got a lot happier and immediately lost five pounds just because I felt better about my life. However, I still hated my body and weighed myself constantly.

The summer before 12^th grade (my first boyfriend was long gone at this point) I decided that there was no excuse for me to be “fat” anymore. I was tired of people thinking that I was ugly or feeling like the out of shape one in gym class. I made  myself bike, run, and walk anywhere from 1-3 hours a day, also limiting my food intake to about 1200 calories a day. Needless to say, I lost weight, and I entered senior year 115 pounds, feeling great about my body.

I kept this kind of relentless exercising up for a while, but when Thanksgiving came around and I stuffed myself at the feast I knew I couldn’t possibly burn everything off so I tried vomiting it up. It worked too well, and it seemed like the greatest way to get what I wanted. I could eat all day and not feel full!

Now it’s the end of my freshman year of college and I’ve come to fully understand how bulimia is destroying me. I asked to see a counselor a month ago and have been talking with her ever since.

I still binge and purge though.

So I plan to blog until I feel like I’m free of this illness.

My hope is that other people with this illness will read and we’ll be able to support each other, but we’ll see what happens.