MY STORY - Part 2
I started High School lonely without my Jennifer, but I still had my first sweetheart to cling to. About halfway through the year, I met a new best friend, and we joined ourselves to the party scene. I thought it was great fun. Since I was about 10 years old I had always imagined myself one day living in the "fast lane." It was painfully obvious I would never be popular, and that crowd was repulsive to me anyway, so at last I found my niche. The summer after my freshman year, my new best friend moved away. After that I only had male friends. As soon as the new school year began, my parents found out I was drinking and smoking pot, so there was a big uproar over that. I managed to decieve them with clever talk, though, and my partying continued. People always imagined that I had no problems and that I was so well put together. I learned how to put on a happy face, but I was depressed most of the time. Marijuana made me want to eat and sleep. My new boyfriend liked to eat when he was high too, and he seemed to enjoy feeding me. As I prepared to start my Junior year in highschool, I became so upset about my weight and binge behavior, that in a hysterical moment I finally confided in my Mom and told her I wanted to get some counseling. My parents did what they could to find the best psychologist in the area, and I saw him weekly until I left for college two years later. I continued to get worse. In college, where (surprise, surprise) I studied Nutrition, Health Education, and Psychology, I taught myself to purge after a binge by sticking a long eyeshadow pencil down my throat. I soon developed a pattern of driving to several stores, bakeries, and fast food joints over a period of a couple hours, eating between stops, going home and finishing what I could, and then throwing it all up. However, I wasn’t very good at the throwing up part, so I also used syrup of ipecac to induce vomiting. This was an absolutely horrible activity. But I was so utterly afraid of getting fat from all the food I’d eaten, that I was usually willing to do about anything. I didn’t give up the ipecac until an internal medicine specialist told me I was probably going to kill myself. On the flip side, I did everything I could to develop myself into my sexy fantasy woman. I jokingly referred to myself as the "spandex queen," because my favorite getup was lycra (spandex) leggings, heels, and little tank tops (when I could get away with it, that is). I lived for weekends and parties and dancing, and though I usually had a boyfriend, my goal was to get as much male attention as possible without getting myself in trouble. Those college days were dark and scary. I was like a Jekyl and Hyde: I’d spend days merely surviving, despondent and angry, wallowing in self-pity. My appearance would deteriorate for a while from all the binge/purge activity. I would become pale, puffy and bloated, and I couldn’t bear to take care of myself. But then the weekend would come, or a "Hump Night" (Wednesday night) party, and somehow I would pull myself together and turn into this happy, glowing, glamour girl. To make a long story somewhat shorter, I wound up dropping out of
college in my senior year because I was so sick from bulimia. I had
started out a 4.0 student but had degenerated to such a degree that at There was an outpatient eating disorders program at a hospital near my
hometown, so I started seeing a therapist there, and I joined a support
group. But I started getting into some really heavy drug use with my new
boyfriend and soon began missing appointments. My drug stint lasted 2½
years, and during that time the bulimia took a back seat. I still overate
from time to time, but my drug use left me too exhausted to be bothered
with throwing up, and I became such a recluse it stopped being so
imperative that I be thin. When I finally met the Lord again in 1989, He set me and my drug-partner/husband free from addiction to drugs and alcohol, and I began a brand new life. At first, I was soooo happy. Boy was I in for a shocker! The bulimia came back full force. It quickly progressed so that at times the severity of it approached that of when I dropped out of college. My weight was up and down, up and down, gaining and losing, the same 20 pounds over and over and over. I was mystified and full of terror. Frantically, I sought help my usual way, but now I included my pastor. Nevertheless, I still leaned on psychology for answers. I read several books and tried "Christian counseling," which seemed smarter, at the time, but really left me no better off. I worked swing shift, so during the day while my husband was in school, still in my bathrobe, I often ate all day, purged a few times, and pulled myself together in time to get to work. While I ate, I closed the drapes to hide as a way of shutting out reality. Sometimes I even imagined I was okay, as long as I didn’t have to deal with the outside. But I couldn’t stand to brush my teeth, shower, dress, or comb my hair, because I didn’t want to have to look at or touch myself. Going to the stores to buy food dressed in sweats and looking disheveled and sick became a convenient means of self-punishment. Then, after several hours of bingeing, at the last possible moment, I reluctantly cleaned up and got dressed for work. Frequently I continued eating there (I was a grocery checker, of all things). I found it extremely difficult to look customers in the eye, or anyone for that matter, for I was so ashamed of myself. It wasn’t unusual for me to continue eating all the way home, and purge again. If I didn’t have a good opportunity to throw up without risk of detection, I went to bed with my distended stomach, full of despair and shame. Sometimes I wished I could just die. Amazingly, almost no one suspected how troubled my life was. What an actress I was, huh?! It was during those days that I frequently had fantasies of hurting myself. I would be sitting in front of the TV, or washing dishes, or whatever, and this vision of breaking my arms against the corner of a wall or the edge of the table would come to mind. One of the others was a picture of me stabbing myself over and over again in the stomach with a big butcher knife. At work I fancied myself walking down the aisles of the store, taking glass jars of things like pickles and smashing them on the floor. I hated myself so much and was so angry over my lack of self-control, I felt like I was always on the verge of exploding or spinning out somehow. Sometimes I wondered if I might snap and lose my mind. Worse yet, I thought the idea of being committed to a mental institution was wonderful, because then I wouldn’t have to think for myself or take care of myself anymore. My self-confidence was completely bankrupt. And this was going on after I was back in fellowship with the Lord! But something else was happening at the same time. I was devouring the Word of God. I loved my new church, and the messages being preached there were having a powerful impact on my life. I loved hearing, reading, and talking about God, and my husband and I went to church nearly as often as the doors were open. Much of the damage in my life was repaired, simply by the power of the Holy Spirit working in me as I continually put myself in a position to receive from God. My mind cleared and my emotions became increasingly stable. I began to get a revelation of what real beauty is, and the bleached hair, long nails, and suggestive clothing went by the wayside. It just seemed the natural way to go.
My Story - Pt. 3
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the time of my withdrawal I was failing every class. I was bingeing and
purging on the average 3 times a day and was chronically depressed. In
fact, depression had become such a normal state for me, I had to be extra
depressed to consider it depression. Counseling wasn’t working,
antidepressants hadn’t worked, reading self-help and insight books hadn’t
helped. My family and I decided it was time to get even more serious about
treatment.
