This article was first published in FLARE magazine.
Eating to Extreme
Eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes. Writer Lori Henry was one of the lucky ones to win her battle
The cover of Flare magazine, the issue that this article appeared in.
Everything looked perfect from the outside: I had honour roll grades, was a role model at my dance studio and had lots of friends. Behind my smile, though, was a completely different picture. I spent my time in high school in Port Coquitlam, B.C., lying to those around me, skipping school to binge on fast food, running on the treadmill until I couldn’t stand and nodding off in class from the sheer exhaustion of it all. Yet, for six years, no one knew I was bulimic.
It started when I was 12 years old. I had just begun junior high school and wanted everyone to like me. I figured that having the perfect body might help. They’d have to like me then, right? Maybe if I cut out meat, ate less and started working out, I’d lose weight and gain attention. The bonus, too, was that it would help me in dance class, where I stared at my flabby thighs in the mirror four days a week. The thing with dieting is, I could focus all my energy on my body and forget about the pressures of fitting in, keeping top grades and being awkward. My new plan: keep dancing four days a week, maybe five, run on the treadmill everyday for an hour, even if I had already danced, eat only fruit, veggies and grains, and let no one distract me, especially my friends. They quickly became second on my priority list, the first being to get skinny at all costs. I dropped five pounds within the first two weeks.
But I soon discovered that the less I fed my body, the more I craved. All the sweets I didn’t allow myself- forbidden carbs such as bagels and pasta, and ice cream I wouldn’t dare be seen eating in public- I couldn’t stop myself from binging on. Sometimes I would lose count of all I’d eaten after stuffing down more than 2,000 calories in half an hour. Then, the fear would set in. I was so scared to gain weight and felt so full that I would try to make myself throw up. But that only made me feel better for a minute. So I adopted a new strategy: everyday, I’d go home directly to the treadmill and run for two hours until I was shaky and pale. I chastised my weakness when it came to food and vowed never to eat another “bad” food again.
The mirror would not lie, though; my face now puffed out and looked bloated. How could I let myself slip like this? How could I eat so well and then ruin it all by binging? These fallbacks only made me more determined to lose weight. My punishment was to eat less and workout more, even though this strategy hadn’t worked in the past. The cycle continued and I got worse: I’d eat even less and work out more than ever, lost in a haze and now binging and purging up to four times a day. Back then, I couldn’t see what I was doing to myself- and now, I realize even my brain function was suffering. I had stopped thinking clearly months before, partly due to malnutrition, partly due to obsession. The only thing I knew was that I hated what I had become, despising myself even more than my body.
No one knew of the secret life I was living, and the deeper I got entangled in my eating disorder, the bigger the smile I would plaster on my face. Even though I couldn’t sleep, was permanently starving and my mind was fuzzy, I could not stop- nor did I want to. I was physically and mentally too weak to realize that I needed to make a change. My whole spirit had been sucked out of me and I felt like an empty shell.
- Eating Disorder Personal Story of Recovery Article in Flare magazine.
My life changed one day in grade 10. I was working on a group exercise in drama class, trying to concentrate while my head spun in weariness. I finally just let go, physically unable to hold up my body and tired of pretending I was fine. My knees buckled and I came crashing down to the floor in a heap. Time stood still as my classmates stared in confusion and the teacher asked if I was all right. I laughed, knowing how far I was from being okay. I just wanted to lie on the floor and go to sleep for eternity. Instead, I muttered that I had tripped and excused myself to the washroom. Every step down the hall released an emotion that I had been bottling up for months. Tears began pouring down my face and I ran to the counsellor’s office. “I’m losing it. I’ve messed everything up and now I’m fat. I can’t do this anymore. I’d rather die,” I babbled.
“…eating disorder,” were the only words I heard her say. I looked up from beneath my tears and stared in incomprehension. Images of skinny girls with sunken cheeks and women binging on cookies rushed back to me from gym class videos: was I one of those desperate girls? It was like being hit with a bat and rattled into clarity; the last few years suddenly came into focus. I had never thought of myself as bulimic. I had been so caught up in the chaos that was my everyday that I didn’t even grasp my own actions: hiding out alone bingeing on ice cream and pizza, then running on the treadmill for two hours. This had become so normal for me that I couldn’t remember life any other way.
The counsellor referred me to a team of doctors, including a nutritionist and a psychologist, and I embarked on my first attempt at recovery. The clinical environment wasn’t working for me, though, so I told them I was feeling better in order to get out. But trying to fight an eating disorder without help is like swimming uphill; the battle is too extreme to face alone. Within weeks I was back to bingeing and purging and, because I was now conscious of what I was doing, I hated myself even more. The worst moment came after I had been drinking all night and making myself purge the small amount of food I had eaten. I kept repeating in my head, “I’m such a slob. Why am I such a fat pig?” I woke up feeling like death itself and knowing I needed to get help again.
- Eating Disorder Symptoms and Warning Signs in Flare magazine.
Looking through a community newsletter, I found a listing for a counsellor named Shelley Jensen, who specializes in eating disorders. I learned the importance of not just finding a therapist, but the right therapist. Shelley didn’t focus on what I was eating and how many calories I was burning, but dug deeper into why I felt so overwhelmed: bulimia was a tool I reached out for to help me deal with my emotions. It wasn’t a positive choice, but it seemed like an easy solution. This was the beginning of my true recovery, a process that took almost four more years.
It was a bumpy road separating myself from bulimia. I would leave one session frustrated, not being able to understand why I couldn’t stop binging and another feeling in total control of my life. Shelley would patiently explain to me the real facts about nutrition and I’d find myself asking her basic questions like, “Are you sure toast won’t make me fat?” I had to re-learn how to eat and how to consciously replace my self-destructive behaviour with healthy activities. Instead of starving and stuffing my body, I learned how to journal my frustrations, relax in yoga class and take long, slow walks to calm the chaos in my mind.
I feel like I took as many steps backward as I did forward. The key to recovery for me was to have a supportive hand to guide me when I faltered. This I found in Shelley and the other professionals who helped me along the way. The hardest part was taking one day at a time and having the confidence to know that I was getting better, even when I binged yet again. I often felt like a fragile deer learning how to walk, except I was learning how to eat, treat my body well and respect myself. I am fully recovered today at 26 years old and am living a life I could never have imagined living, one where nothing holds me back and I live by my own rules. The possibilities are endless and I refuse to limit them.
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Lori Henry is an actress and writer based in Vancouver. Her book of poetry, Silent Screams, written during her battle with bulimia, came out in a second edition in May. She was the Editor of Beauty: You Define It magazine, and is now a Director of Shelley’s Angels Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing financial assistance for long-term counselling and support to those suffering from disordered eating.
