No one knows I'm bulimic

Editor - I don't know how long I have been bulimic. I don't know when a "good appetite" turned into bingeing. But for many years now, I have sat hidden in my room secretly eating piles of food. I'm really good at it too - no one has ever noticed or realised what I'm up to.

As a medical student, I can somehow separate myself from this problem and see it all clinically. I know the risk factors, the presenting features, the complications, and the outcomes. This does not do anything to stop me though. Instead, knowing all this makes me able to pretend to myself that I control the disease, when I really know it is the other way round.

It's not the fashion industry that has caused this, although I am sure that it can affect some people. I'm not bulimic because I want to lose weight. I'm not really sure why I am bulimic, except perhaps it helps me with dealing with life. When I am bingeing, I don't need to think about all my problems. For just a few minutes I feel fine, then comes the horrible realisation of what I've just done. I feel a sense of revulsion about my body and myself. I've never understood why any of my friends like me or even how anyone could find me attractive. After bingeing, I see myself for the disgusting creature that I am.

Afterwards, I have often tried to make myself vomit. I felt I had to, so that I could get rid of the sick feeling in my stomach from the pile of food I'd just eaten and from the revulsion I felt that I'd actually eaten all that food. In the end, I have never managed to vomit, so instead I stop eating until I feel so ill that I have to eat, or I feel so bad about myself that I binge again. I deserve this sick feeling though. It's all I should expect after eating huge mountains of chocolate, crisps, sugar, cereal, bread, anything that I can lay my hands on. I never put it all in front of me and munch through it all that way. Perhaps I know that it would disgust me too much to see how much I am eating. Instead, I hide food in bags, coats, under my bed so no one can ever see it, not even me.

I know I should get some sort of help, but I am not going to my general practitioner about it. I don't want to be labelled as having a mental illness or psychiatric disorder. I think that would make it real, something that is actually part of me rather than just something I'm writing about. I've told my flatmate, but even then I could not say it out loud and had to write it in a letter. And now I can't bear to answer his questions because I am too revolted by my replies.

Anonymous


studentBMJ 2000;08:217-258 July ISSN 0966-6494