I’m tired of doing this. My stomach is gurgling and twisting around itself. My hands are shaky; in fact, my whole body feels weak—like it’s running on zero. And it is, really. I’ve just binged and purged for the fourth time today, and I don’t know why I just did it. I don’t want to. I don’t like stuffing myself then puking it out. I hate how I feel before and after and during, yet I sure as hell don’t stop. I don’t get anything from it, and it’s taking my life ... slowly but surely I know this will kill me. I’ve known that since I started almost fifteen years ago.
My hands smell like vomit. Food disappears and my husband knows where it goes. It is costing a lot to binge. I know everyone knows that I am doing it. No one says anything anymore, but they have that look on their faces. They know, I know. It’s like a big rainbow-colored elephant in the room.
Tonight I am just tired of it—of everything. I ate the whole damn box of Mac and Cheese right after my husband left to go back into work. It’s so easy to do because he won’t be home for hours, and I’m so lonely. My kids are all asleep, and even though I’m pass-out tired, I won’t go to bed ... it’s a big bed to sleep in alone. So, I search the fridge, the cabinets, and I settle on something to binge and I puke it out; then, I hate myself for the rest of night until I finally go to bed and play the whole day in my head and hate myself even more.
And even though my therapist has asked me over and over what I am eating and puking—because we all know it’s not food—all I can tell her is that I am lonely. I hate that I am at home with the kids. I hate that my career is at a stand-still. I hate that I still have twenty pounds of baby weight on my body. I hate that I am angry all the time. I hate that I don’t’ want to hold my five-month-old anymore. I hate that I don’t want to play with my two-year-old anymore. I just hate it all, so I eat it all; then, I puke it all out like it’s that easy. Like kneeling over the toilet and sticking my finger down my throat until every bit of what I just ate is floating in the water below me will actually make me feel better. I’m sick, and I know it, but I don’t know how to get better—I don’t know how to stop.
