Eating Disorders Community

The dangers are an electrolyte imbalance which can cause heart failure, erosion of the teeth enamel, and overall poor self esteem.

You really do not beat B. You manage it and let it slide away. It will almost always lurk in the corners of your mind but in time it is less and less an issue. The biggest issue I felt was breaking the cycle. Spending a few weeks away from it so that the body can resume processing food normally. I always felt there were two issues. The routine and the psychological. You have to understand and work on both to put it in the past. It can be done.

Oops

I have had several heart problems since I was a child. I am probably going to have one or two more surgeries, but completely unrelated. I am sure there may at some point be related problems if I don't get this under control. The counselor I had been seeing has just retired. There is no way I can deal with trusting another counselor and finding one. This one broke my confidence in telling my sister the diagnosises. Right now my weight is pretty stable, but I occassionally still purge, about once a day. I exercise thirty minutes a day. I don't consider that over exercising do you? It doesn't matter what the scale says, when I look in the mirror I see somehting totally different. I am just really scared of gaining all the weight back and not liking myself.

The heart is mostly a electrolyte issue I think.

TRUST - I cannot agree with you more. BUT you also should not let one bad experience stop you from getting the help you need. You tell the new counselor you will not tolerate any disclosures without prior written approval.

On thing you do need to get a grip with is that the very secret of your struggle also weighs on you. Accept it and that maybe people know. Do not hide it but don't blab to the world either. It is about accepting yourself. Work with the pieces without shame and put yourself together.

Thirty minutes is good. What you want to watch for is being too rigid. Saying I have to do this or that workout. You do not. You do want to get healthy but not at the cost of your sanity or even your health. What I mean by the later is that if you get a cold or flu. Take the time to get better before working out.

Keep your mirror time to a minimum. You are only judging yourself and we are always our worst critic.

I understand the fear of not liking yourself if you gain weight. Look at it differently. Say to yourself that adding weight would be unfortunate and would be dealt with but I still deep down love myself.

Thanks so much. I am working on it little by little. It will be easier if I just learn to accept myself. I appreciate your insight. I have a friend I work out with, but it seems it isn't good sometimes. She encourages me to not be so hard on myself, but at the same time encourages my drive to continue to loose weight. Ugh

When you work out you should find the joy in it. Think less about calories burned and on improving your health through a good workout. It is finding happiness in your achievements.

Bulimia. A terrible cross to bear. Glad you are in therapy. Are you seeing a dietician or nutritionist? If not, you need to. They will help you understand portions and meal planning.
A word of advice.. Stop looking at yourself through other peoples eyes. Do not let them influence how you feel about yourself. Your weight is not their business.
Bulimics tend to start out with their disorder being all about weight., but it ends up being about stress management.
Depression, anxiety, anger control issues, ptsd.. Are all part of it. But, Dissociative identity disorder is a very rare psychiatric disorder and I doubt that you have that. A counselor or therapist is not qualified to make a diagnosis like that. You know that.
Keep a food diary. Write where you ate, what time you ate, and how much you ate, then write down how you felt about what you ate and whether you purged or not. Then write down what was going on before you ate. That way you can look for patterns or triggers.
Use distraction techniques. When you feel the need to purge after you know you have eaten a normal healthy meal.. go for a walk, call a friend, chew mint gum, eventually the need to purge will pass. Keep a tooth brush and bottle of mouthwash by the kitchen sink and brush your teeth or rinse your mouth. Don't do this in the bathroom.. Its to handy to the toilet bowl.
If you want to scare yourself. Look up pictures of people who have died from esophageal and stomach ruptures from throwing up. A very real possibility for a bulimic. Nasty way to die, with your face in a toilet bowl.