Bulimia

I am 11 years old. It is the afternoon before my brother's wedding. I am lying on my tummy in a hotel in London. Mums and sisters and cousins and aunts of all involved rush around comparing presents and clothes, make-up and hats. I am watching a film in which a young gymnast is becoming ill from throwing up. Her coach is happy though; she is losing weight. My mummy comes into the room and sees what is on the TV.
 
'That girl has Bulimia, you know,' she says.
 
I am 13 years old. I am terrified and terrorised within school. I have come to learn that if I lock myself in one of the cold metal toilet cubicles and pull my feet up onto the seat, I can hide until assembly. I do not have to face the locker room and the torment that so often accompanies it. I make huge sacrifices for this. I carry all of my books around in one bulging bag, weighing down on my tiny 5ft frame because I am too scared to come and go to my locker, leaving and retrieving books as required. My ballet teacher comments that one of my shoulders is starting to sag. I cut an odd sight scurrying across the playground.
 
'Ahh, there you are.'
 
I look up and see 2 girls from my year peering over top of the cubicle beside me. My plan has been foiled. My heart is pulsating in my chest and my ears are ringing. I know that for the next 5 years I will have to face the locker rooms.
 
'What are you doing in here you weirdo?'
 
I say the only thing I can think of:
 
'I feel sick.'
 
As if to prove my point, I throw up on cue into the silver bowl.
 
The girls are disgusted and leave me in peace. I sit there in silence as the bell rings for assembly and the corridors quieten. I feel an odd feeling of peace and serenity and calmness inside me. I have unwittingly released a hideous goblin which will follow me in some capacity for the rest of my life. It is my saviour; when I feel sick with anxiety and terror, I am sick. I am blessed with a strong stomach and the ability to throw up at will. I am proud that I do not even have to use my fingers. I come to look forward to after school when I can stuff my face with confectionary and cakes from the local bakery, chips and crisps, anything I want. I am a growing girl! Look at her, eating like a horse! It's brilliant.
 
By 19 I am 6 stone 4lbs and swinging from eating nothing but carrots and pumpkin seeds to binging on 3 takeaways a day and then excercising and purging. My sister has to order a special bridesmaid dress for me from England; the size 6 in the shop is too big. Grotesquely, I like to sit in the empty bath and puke, rinsing it down the plug hole and then letting the water shower over my head. Cleansing me and calming me.
 
The manic and depressive phases of my Bipolar disorder have begun by late teens, but no one is expert enough to recognise these. I overdose on an anti-depressant. Arguably a drug which made my mood-swings cycle more rapidly. During my ECG in the hospital a beautiful sized 16-18 nurse asks me, 'Why did you do it?' I tell her simply, 'I was tired.' When she frowns at me I tell her I am exhausted with feeling fat, with binging and purging, hiding food and living in the bathroom. She tells me, ironically, she would kill for a figure like mine.
 
After the 'overdose' (for I still cannot say the 'S' word) I see a doctor whom I have not seen since childhood. He knew me as a bright, loquacious child - 'the girl who could dance' as he reminisced. He sent me for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and, although this in itself was not enough to manage my depression and hypomania, it has reduced my Bulimic tendencies. It is still there, however, looming in the background. One throwaway comment from a girl in work could be enough to have me running back to the toilets and hiding from the locker room of life. Thankfully, however, I always seem to find my way back out.