Eating Disorder Actions

By Mel

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Some people just don’t understand my actions and that’s why I always worry about staying over at a friend’s house. I like to eat at home; it’s my safe space, and I can do as I please (talking reasonably). 

So what happens when I’m invited out for lunch or get invited around to a friend’s house for tea? Well, that’s when my article comes into play. See, having bulimia nervosa comes with many different types of behaviours, for example:

When I go out for a meal, I ask for it to be taken away. Now, why would you ask for ltake away unch when you came out to eat with your friend? That’s what a lot of people would think.

But, if you’re my friend, you’d understand. As someone who overthinks, I think that everyone cares about what I’m doing, but truly they don’t. They just want to eat their food with their company. 

Another example of bulimia actions/ behaviours is I’m currently at my partner's new flat, so it’s a bit new for me to be staying over in an environment where I’m not used to being with someone else when I eat,as I usually eat alone in my room.

I bought food that I wanted to eat at home, but it was still hot so I let it cool on the side.
However, since my partner was there, I started  overthinking about what he thought of me assuming he would say, “Why on earth has she got food in a bag just there?” I was walking around, hiding the food because I didn’t want him to see me with it in case he would be disgusted with me.

When I’m around people, I buy tons and tons of food to stock your bedroom or kitchen.

For me, it’s my bedroom -on’t worry, I put the refrigerated food where it should be downstairs in the fridge - with small snacks like crips. I feel awful, and every month, I have a moment where I feel so disgusted in myself.

So what do I do? I beat myself up and then I go through the food I’ve got, cry to myself and put them in bags to take downstairs. Once there,I ask my parents to take it away from me as it was making me feel depressed. 

It’s the first time I’m writing about this, and it’s been happening for many years. It feels good to get it off my chest that I suffer from this because I don’t know if other people have this behaviour too. 

I guess that’s the next step for me on this journey; I’ve tackled the first stage of opening up. Now, it’s trying to find out if there are other people out there who know this feeling and how they deal/dealt with it.
Onwards, I’m hoping to manage my eating with more stability that I do at this moment. And to be able to reach out to others who suffer with Bulimia, listen to their stories to hopefully gain knowledge and new ways of coping with my emotions other than stress binging. 

It will be a very hard cycle to break after so many years, but I’m willing to try anything at this point.​