Raw Ramblings of My Recovery for Bulimia.
I even named my eating disorder – Mia** – because it felt easier to dis-identify from the eating disorder that way. The eating disorder was not me, yet it was a part of me. But when I gave her a name, then I could recognize, or at least start to distinguish her “voice” from me, my true voice.
I wrote this entry during my recovery for bulimia back in 2007, shortly following my release from an inpatient treatment center. It is so honest, so real and really shows the true nature of the eating disorder voice.
I share this with you so that you can see, I have been where you have been. Or maybe you are going through this right now and you need someone to sit with you and say, I understand, I’ve been there too.
Expose the negative eating disorder voice within you!
Mia tells me that I’m not good enough.
She’s always there to tell me I’m worth nothing and I don’t deserve anything good in my life… I don’t deserve to be happy. She tells me that I’m a big fat pig, that I have extra fat here, and here, and there, and all over. She tells me I need to do something to get rid of it. She tells me it’s a good idea to purge out everything I eat. She tells me it’s a good idea to restrict my meals.
She tells me that these thoughts are normal.
She tells me that it is going to make me happy and make everything all better if I just listen to her. She tells me that I need to follow her ways or I’m disobeying “who I am.” Because that’s all I’ve been, a slave to Mia my whole life. I’ve worshipped her and followed everything she’s ever told me to do. When I stop and try to live on my own and be a real person, she’s scared shitless. She doesn’t want to lose me as her slave. She doesn’t know what to do, so she grabs on tighter. She yells louder.
She tells me that I won’t make it, that recovery will never last, that happiness isn’t real unless I get it from her. She yells and tells me that recovery people are lying, that she knows best, that I should listen to her because she knows how to make me happy, how to keep me busy, how to feel like I have a purpose in life.
Mia tells me that feelings are scary, and I need to keep them all to myself, so Mia can have them. She wants them all so she can make me purge them out later to get that temporary high, that temporary relief that we are both searching for.
As I try to pull away, her voice gets louder and clearer. Suddenly I realize she’s there. She’s real. She tells me that if I don’t listen to her that I’m going to be depressed and sad. She tries to make me depressed and sad by telling me that I’m worth nothing and I’m just a lazy fat piece of shit.
She tells me I have no purpose in life. She tells me that life just isn’t worth living if I don’t have her. Mia tells me that no one would care if I died. She makes me think of suicide as an option and has me plan out my death exactly as she would want me to kill myself.
Mia is an evil being. Demanding and bossy and wants exactly what she wants when she wants it. If I don’t listen to her, she gets soooo mad. But when I do, we revel in the high together.
She’s like my best friend and my worst enemy.
**[Get it? buliMia. Just in case you were wondering. Other women call their eating disorders Ana (anorexia) or Ed (eating disorder) but for me, even though I became anorexic, I more related to bulimia because of the binging and purging. And my eating disorder was not male. Nope, she was a f$8&#*g b!tch so I called her Mia!!]**
This seems extreme but honestly, it was so true at the time.
Looking back, I am so grateful. Eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates of all mental diseases, and it could have easily taken my life. I was close to death many times. Yet I hung on and withstood the most trying experience of my life.
My recovery for bulimia and anorexia had a LOOONGGG ways to go following this writing!! Obviously!
This entry really reveals how dysfunctional and irrational the eating disorder thoughts can be.
It’s really the eating disorder thinking that perpetuates the eating disorder behaviors. When I wrote this entry I had about 60 days without using the eating disorder behaviors, however the eating disorder voice got so loud!!
When we are going through recovery for bulimia, anorexia, binge eating or EDNOS, and we stop the behaviors, of course the negative eating disorder voices will come to rear their ugly heads!! Loud as hell!!!
This is when many women simply give in and have a “slip” or relapse altogether, because the eating disorder thoughts/thinking is so overwhelming and is so ingrained in our being that it feels “normal” or comfortable. So we go back to the behaviors, and we feel guilty and ashamed about it. Which feeds the eating disorder and the whole vicious cycle begins again.
Eating disorder recovery is a process. A process of learning to deal with these limiting and negative eating disordered beliefs similar and underlying those that I have revealed in this journal entry. I had to deal with all of those issues throughout the years I was in my recovery.
Of course I am still growing, and I definitely am not perfect, but the eating disorder is now in my past. It is such a relief to not have to worry about food anymore.
I am so grateful that I can use my energy for useful and fulfilling things that I love, instead of pouring all my energy into worrying about what I’m eating/not eating, my next binge and purge, or my weight on the scale.
I’m not afraid of eating or food anymore. I love my body, I love my body and it loves me back.
I have so much to share and it fills me with great joy and love to know that you too are on the same path.
Thank God that I made it through the sadness, the despair. Thank God I didn’t give up and that you haven’t given up either.
And thank you for reading this, because I know it was meant to be. I had to go through it all to be standing here today, sharing this gift with you.
You are not here by accident. You were attracted to me because I can help you and you know this is what you need to hear.
My hope is that you can relate to this in some way and realize how similar our eating disorders are.
They all manifest in different ways, with different and varying circumstances, events, individual personalities, relationships, and behaviors, yet the underlying feelings and beliefs are very similar.
It still really shocks me when I’m doing phone and email coaching, especially because I get to know these women on such a deep and intimate level and it’s amazingly strange and wonderful how similar our eating disorder behaviors, experiences, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are!!
It reinforces that we’re not alone. There are millions of women out there struggling through this very same thing.
Don’t give up and don’t let Mia win! You deserve full recovery for bulimia, anorexia, binge eating or EDNOS and you deserve a life of freedom. 
Peace, Love + Freedom,
when i read what you wrote in your journal, i couldn’t help but feel like i had written it with my own hand. i am 17, starting college and am trying to get away from the devil i call ana. i’ve been recovering alone for 2 months and only now started feeling fat again, although i am still underweight. is there any way or anything i can do to make me see myself for who i am?
Hi Sam,
Isn’t it amazing how similar our thoughts are as eating disordered women? You really are not alone in this! Its sooooo super important to get support through this process. Do you have a mentor, family, friends, doctors, therapist or dietitian you can use for support?
I know what it’s like to “feel fat” even when underweight and I actually wrote this article about it that might help: what to do when you feel fat
What are you really feeling underneath the “fat” feeling?
But honestly, the biggest thing that helped me to see myself for who I really am was to dis-identify myself with the ED – it’s not who you are, Sam. Your true beauty and true self is underneath it all and that eating disorder voice is not who you really are. (Mine was a self-critical, judgmental, horrid b*tch) It takes some self-examination, awareness and letting go but it is possible to discover who you really are through this recovery and healing process. You deserve to love and accept yourself exactly as you are, Sam! You are a beautiful soul underneath it all. I’m here for you if you need anything…
Blessings,
Lauren