Fighting Against Bulimia Nervosa

By Sara

Hi, I’m 19 years old and I’m from Sardinia, Italy.

I am sharing my story about eating disorders because it helps me to overcome my bad illness thoughts and also because I hope that my experience can help many people who have suffered or are currently suffering from bulimia nervosa.

About a year ago my life changed, so much so that at the first impact I didn’t even notice. One afternoon in May, I was sitting on the sofa, watching stories and posts on Instagram. At one point, my eye fell on a photo that a Victoria Secret model had posted. At that moment I thought, “How can a girl have such a beautiful body?”. I’ve always asked myself these questions. I’ve always had low self-esteem; I’ve never seen myself beautiful and sometimes I happened to pass in front of the mirror and not even look at me. 

After that post, my behavior started to change. I became sad, disappointed by my physique and by my appearance and I wanted at all costs to change my shape. 

As the days passed, I began to develop strange behaviors. My relationship with food had changed and the thing that interested me most was the physical aspect. 

Food had become partly a friend, but also my worst enemy. So, I started to binge. I needed to gorge myself on junk food; chips, ice cream, snacks, carbohydrates had become my support, but after eating this mountain of food, a desire to binge was accompanied by a sense of anguish, guilt, frustration. All this malaise led me to do something I never imagined I would do, that is, purging. Every day, my daily routine was accompanied by binges and visit to the bathroom. I was getting used to this, but I noticed that my weight didn’t go down, my physique didn’t improve, and my serenity was gone.

Going out with friends had become difficult and pretending to be happy was hard. The days passed and I was more depressed; I continued the usual routine and my days always ended with a sense of guilt and the anguish of having to start again the next day.

In late August, however, something went wrong. My parents discovered me in the act of purging, and this made me feel disgusting. Seeing my parents disappointed and embittered by my behavior made me more vulnerable. I realized that what I was doing was wrong, that my sense of liberation after purging was not happiness but self-destruction. I was sick with bulimia. 

If my parents hadn’t discovered me and I hadn’t made the decision to attend therapeutic sessions, maybe at this hour I would be in some hospital requiring treatment. This experience has changed me, and this could not have happened if I had not strengthened my healthy self, if I had not fought against the disease that was ruining me inside. 

Today I always feel the need to talk to someone about it. Talking about it is always a way out. So, I encourage people with eating disorders to talk about it. Talk about it with your parents, with your grandparents, with your friends, with your teachers, with your psychologists and I’m sure they will help you. Always take the initiative. Talking about it is never wrong. It is wrong to live this nightmare every day, to the point of no longer understanding the difference between good and evil. 

Have the courage to fight, have the will to live and overcome any obstacle, believe in yourself, because getting out of it is difficult, but possible. 

I keep on fighting; I keep fighting to forget. Now I want to live, I want the serenity and happiness that, that damned disease had taken away from me for almost a year.

World Eating Disorders Action Day

World Eating Disorders Action Day is taking place across the world on June 2, 2020. For the 5th year running, this grassroots campaign brings together ALL OF YOU from more than 50 countries and over 250 organizations around the globe to increase awareness about EDs and evidence-based treatment. EDs are life threatening, brain-based disorders, with genetic linkages and metabolic factors. They are also possible to treat, especially when identified and treated EARLY.

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