Venting How to deal with bulimia?

[traumer]

I've been bulimic since I was 11 simply because I was a fat kid and wanted to lose weight while also eating food :D but instead I got a shit metabolism and food problem but still I lost many because I was also starving myself. I've been in therapy I've taken pills all that kind of stuff and I was clean for like a year without puking so it turned into binge eating disorder and I gained a lot of weight. Lately I feel horrible about my weight and my body so I thought maybe if I starve myself again I can lose weight again but it's so much harder than before because I don't have anything to distract me while starving myself. So now it goes like I starve myself for a day then I binge eat everything in my fridge and puke everything out. My stomach is burning like crazy and I feel like I'm going to pass out is there any ways I can do to at least feel better?

 

[TBONTB]

I've been bulimic since I was 11 simply because I was a fat kid and wanted to lose weight while also eating food :D but instead I got a shit metabolism and food problem but still I lost many because I was also starving myself. I've been in therapy I've taken pills all that kind of stuff and I was clean for like a year without puking so it turned into binge eating disorder and I gained a lot of weight. Lately I feel horrible about my weight and my body so I thought maybe if I starve myself again I can lose weight again but it's so much harder than before because I don't have anything to distract me while starving myself. So now it goes like I starve myself for a day then I binge eat everything in my fridge and puke everything out. My stomach is burning like crazy and I feel like I'm going to pass out is there any ways I can do to at least feel better?

can you go get treatment for your eating disorder? Sounds like you need tools to stop the cycle

 

[traumer]

can you go get treatment for your eating disorder? Sounds like you need tools to stop the cycle

I don't know how to I went to therapy and it did work for a while because my therapist said "if you force yourself to vomit for another period you are going to vomit your stool" and I was so scared so I stopped but I'm afraid to ask my parents about it because my father just had an important operation lately and they are so focused on that

 

[VoidButterfly]

Ultimately, the best approach is of course to stop doing it, but that's a lot easier said than done. You have to sit with the discomfort and just find techniques that help you not binge preferably but certainly not purge if you can avoid it. Distraction techniques, grounding techniques, whatever it takes. I find it helps to avoid keeping dangerous food in the house even. If you do end up binging and purging you'll probably want to make sure you're refreshing your elecrtrolytes with some kinda dhiarrhea rehydration treatment at minimum, or another more thorough electrolyte replacement solution such as tablets.

 

[sanctionedusage]

the only thing that got me to recover was reaching a state of severe discomfort and pain 24/7 directly caused by my anorexia. severe nausea (im mildly emetophobic), chills, low blood pressure, incredible nonstop headaches, abdominal pain, constant weakness, panic, and insomnia were all unbearable after about 10 months of their peak so I slowly increased my intake until I realized I just had to recover for all of that to realistically go away. If I'd used harm reduction, I probably wouldnt have reached this point for maybe another year or two nor had to go through the grueling recovery of reversing it. It was as simple as, if I wanted to keep going and keep proving myself and keep chasing a standard of superiority, I had to recover a little bit to be alive to continue that. Because as it was, the standard I was holding myself to was just turning me more pathetic and subhuman than the average fatty normie.

But bulimia is different in that there's not really any harm reduction that isn't just, not being bulimic. If you're comfortable with the worst of physical discomfort, which is likely if youre engaging in the most dangerous and fast-acting deadly behaviors (purging), I dont see what could incentivize you to recover besides actual self esteem therapy and other intensive psychological help aimed at building self compassion and self love.

 

[BlueVolt]

I had anorexia and then a mix between anorexia and bulimia and I've fully recovered from it (there is no symptoms left even if it was a nightmare for me during a few years, so there is hope).
Of course there is no magic solution but I realised that binging was most of the time a self-defense mecanism from my body, to protect it from starvation. Binging was not the problem, restriction and control were though. I tried to eat normaly and I still had binges but this wasn't true, I wasn't eating normally I was still trying to have control on my food. I think sometimes you may think you're full but you're not, the piece of cake that makes you happy is also kind of necessary and if you try to resist you'll have the whole cake later.
Sometimes even the thought of doing calories restriction (even if I did nothing) caused me to binge. My body was protecting me from my own thoughts by making me eat preventively.
So I started to accept every binge that occured and stopped purging and I realised that my obsession with food disappeared progressively.
I needed to accept that I cannot choose my weight, the natural weight we have is something programmed by our body and if we try to change it the risk of developing an ED is very high.
This seems easy to say but the process took months for me, and I guess because of society standards it's easier when your "natural weight" is compatible with these.

(Sorry if my english is bad, I am not a native speaker)

 

[mahoganylvr]

i have EDNOS. the first time i remember counting calories was 12. at 13, i went to see a psychiatrist and cycled through a bunch of antidepressants that didn't work, so he put me on an antipsychotic. i gained a lot of weight and developed a binging habit, but my solution was to completely starve myself for years. i was essentially anorexic, but i don't fit the diagnostic criteria because my body just won't be underweight. i just bounced back between binge eating and starving myself from 2018-2025. during that time, my weight fluctuates 40-60 lbs every couple of years, so my metabolism is fucked up too. i've finally stabilized a bit now.

when i was binge eating, i had no energy. i felt like shit all of the time, i ate in secret, and i only felt ashamed of myself. i ate weird food combinations specifically because i just wanted *something* that would satiate the need. it didn't matter what. personally, i'm scared of vomiting... and i started vomiting, so i stopped. when i was starving myself, i had no energy, too. i was dizzy, my hair was falling out, i was cold all the time, i often almost passed out while doing things i loved, and i couldn't concentrate. after a while, i got so scared of these symptoms i realized that i had to at least try to recover.

when i started recovery in 2021, i did it on my own. it was horrendous. i cried while eating, i had panic attacks all the time, and i was terrified out of my mind about gaining weight. eventually i had to accept that i was going to gain weight. it was easier after that. i eventually just had to accept that my body's baseline weight is always going to be 10-20 lbs overweight. my body has muscles which let me move. my body has fat that protects my organs. the placement of my fat is like my mother's. body fat itself isn't a bad thing, and one can still have a high body fat percentage even if they do everything "right" (exercise, watch their diet, etc). eventually, i just realized that the fat on my body isn't bad. it is protecting me. no matter how much i weigh, there are still the same people in my corner that love me through it all. your weight doesn't define how worthy of life you are. it's neutral. you are still a person, no matter what you weigh. i can't say that recovery will be easy, but it's worth it to try.

 

[timf]

Bulimia can be seen like other eating disorders as a type of self harm. While it might start as a way to control one's appearance, it become integrated into life as a control mechanism. The Romans practiced it with vomitoriums. However, this was so that they could go back and enjoy eating another mea;. They did not appreciate the damage the acid was doing to the enamel of their teeth.

If one has established an unhealthy control system, it can be tricky to try to stop as often the sense of control is so important that one does not want to stop. Sometimes there is success in shifting to a more healthy control system like obsesively playing tennis or working out at a gym. Sometimes on can find an AA meeting filled with heavy smokers.

If you can see your life as filled with various tasks and a schedule filled with activities, it may help to include things you do for yourself that you have control over and using that to see yourself with increasing control.