CHAPTER 14 Triggers as Teachers: Staying on Your Recovery Path
APPENDIX B Additional Exercises and Activities for All Chapters
APPENDIX C Facts About Eating Disorders and the Search for Solutions
APPENDIX D Recovery Journal Prompts
APPENDIX E How to Find More Help
Recommended Readings and References
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my editors, Amber Guetebier and Sandy Doell, for your support, life experience, caring, and expertise; Kevin Bellows, friend and editor; Jeanne Rust, for listening to my struggles and being a constant source of love and support.
Thank you Jennifer Armstrong, my technology guru, who freed me from communication complexities by simplifying my computer processing.
Thank you members of IWOSC (Independent Writers of Southern California), particularly Alice Romano and Melanie Chartoff and the UCLA Writers Program for sharing your expertise and encouragement.
Thank you to every patient I've ever worked with for your courage, wisdom, and trust as you shared your journey to recovery with me.
Thank you to my great friends and teachers—especially Lars and Ingeborg Lofgren and Hedda Bolgar—for your words of wisdom ringing and whispering in my mind. Your guidance in my own recovery path was always mixed with love.
Thank you to my daughter, Deborah, and my son-in-law, David, for your steadfast confidence that I would succeed. And thanks to my terrier, Winston, who is always ready to take a walk when I need a break from writing.
Most of all, I acknowledge and am grateful to my two granddaughters who, at the time of this writing, are three and five years old; Hannah Jane Rainbow and Delilah Noel Starfish. You continually gave me your uninhibited love, support, and inspiration—plus encouraging art work. You inspired me and provided constant examples of the healthy, creative, and joyous feminine life spirit that needs to be fostered, cherished, and respected by us all.
Dedicated to the spirit of life,
joy, and wisdom in all women.
Author's Note
The perspective and suggestions shared in this book are not a substitute for medical advice. If you think you have an eating disorder, please contact your doctor or another qualified healthcare professional very soon to discuss the emotions and behaviors that trouble you.
CHAPTER 1
Unreal to Real: Snapshots of My Story
“Self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening.”
—George Gurdjieff
I started making myself throw up when I was thirteen years old and didn't stop for thirty years. I hope that the snapshots of my story and other women's stories in this book, coupled with my own healing and recovery work with women for over twenty-five years, can help you find your personal path to recovery. Within the pages of these shared experiences, please look for what touches your heart, your memories, and your fears. If one story or one exercise delivers sudden understanding or amazement (because you didn't know anyone else behaved like that), you have found your entry into your recovery path. I hope this book supports and sustains you on that path to freedom. It can be done. I was bulimic for over twenty-nine years. I've been in recovery for twenty-six years. I've seen and been part of the recovery of many women along the way.
My bulimia story began one summer in New York when I was thirteen years old. I was vacationing at a Catskill Mountains resort with my parents. Guests could order any amount of any food from the dining room menu. I remember men smiling at me and an older woman saying, “Isn't it wonderful how you can eat all those desserts and remain so slim?”
I ordered and ate a sample of all the desserts at every meal. I knew I couldn't get fat because my mother wanted me to win the hotel beauty contest. I didn't want to lose the attention I was getting for my miraculous ability to eat so much, and I knew I had to please my mother by making a good show in the contest.
One night I discovered a secret trick. I could eat heaps of chocolate rugula and tiny creamy pecan pies, and then make myself throw up. Presto! I kept the attention and got rid of the calories. I was elated. I had found the solution to my problem.
The day of the beauty contest arrived, and I felt like a robot going through the motions. When I was on the platform in front of the hotel guests, wearing my white bathing suit, fishnet stockings, and black high heels, I was terrified and felt fat and ugly. Yet against adult women, I won.
I didn't give up my miracle trick after the contest and vacation were over. I continued eating and vomiting all through high school. Except it wasn't a miracle trick anymore; it was something I had to do. It became a shameful secret. I became surreptitious to avoid discovery as I binged and purged.
At first I relied on food at home. I prowled through the refrigerator and ate from leftover containers. I disguised the remains of my secret foraging—leftover stews and pastas were best for this. The uneven and chunky contents didn't show marks of my spoon, the way a slice out of a cake might. Large containers of pudding were also good for the same reason. Individual serving cups of puddings didn't work unless there were many cups. I hoped no one would notice if one or two were missing.
My secret life that was to last almost thirty years had begun. I ate in secret and raided the cupboards and the refrigerator unseen. I took care to leave no trace. I had no money of my own to buy food, so I also had to find subtle ways to binge at the dinner table. I ate slowly and methodically with my family and excused myself in the middle of dinner. I went to the bathroom, drank as much water as I could, jumped up and down to mix it all up inside me, kept the tap running to block my retching sounds, and threw up dinner. Then I rejoined my family at the table and continued to eat.
I struck gold when I started babysitting. The mothers of the children I watched were gracious. After a mother told me what to expect from her child and gave me emergency contact information she would almost always follow with, “If you get hungry, help yourself to a snack.” Then she would show me cupboards packed with snack foods and a refrigerator stocked with treats. I believed whole packages of potato chips, crackers, cookies, and ice cream were set out just for the babysitter.
After I put the children to sleep, I'd go to the cupboards and eat everything. Then I'd look for opened packages of food, especially crackers or cereal or cookies. Candy was good too, as long as I could throw it up easily. A limit for me was never opening an unopened package. I remember once seeing a mother who was obviously startled when she noticed how much food was gone. But no one ever said anything. And I was a popular babysitter. I loved the children, played well with them, and was caring and attentive. They always