Bulimia: One Woman’s Story

For as long as Sara could remember, she was always self-conscious about her weight. Although one could argue that almost every female in Western society is self-conscious about her weight at some point in her life, when a woman is struggling with an eating disorder, this discomfort is heightened drastically. Sara first developed what she would formally call an eating disorder when she was in high school. Now over a decade later, she can finally say she is fully recovered.

Sara is 5'6" tall and back then weighed what she thought was a disgusting 138 pounds. She had tried diets and exercise in the past, but they would only last a few weeks before she gave them up. She had tried using her mom’s diet pills, but those did not work either. Teenage life was hard and being “fat” made it even harder. She graduated from high school trying to be happy, but feeling miserable. She constantly compared herself to her friends who all looked incredibly thin and beautiful. She wondered why her legs looked so large and her hips so wide when everyone else seemingly had the perfect body.

Sara decided to do something about her weight before entering college. She started to count calories, exercise daily, and cut fat out of her diet. Eventually, she skipped meals and then stopped eating altogether on most days. If she ate even the smallest amount of food, she felt guilty and called herself a failure. She doubled her exercise routine after consuming liquid to get rid of the water weight. She chewed gum instead of food. She stayed away from social gatherings where food was present, which meant most of them. All of these methods worked for a while, but eventually Sara could not keep up this regimen. She found herself craving high calorie foods and eventually binging on them. One time she binged so much, she felt sick. Sara completely panicked. She was petrified of gaining weight and completely furious with herself for putting herself in this situation. She needed to get the food out of her and fast. Sara knew what Bulimia was and even though she had heard terrible stories about girls with eating disorders, she wanted to see if it would work.