Chapter 2
BULIMIA
It really is a very authentic and modern disease. You wouldn’t actually believe how modern it is. How can you really detect somebody that is bulimic? It’s practically impossible as it is such a hidden disturbance.
It affects one’s psychic in such a strong way and the worst thing about is that even those that love and care about you can’t give you a hand in getting through it simply because they can’t “see” what is really happening, but they can certainly feel it.
Bulimia is a combination of two things: the feeling of emptiness as a result of personal unfulfillment and a way of releasing accumulated aggression.
What happens really is that you are subconsciously trying to find a way of filling up the great emotional “hole” that has formed inside of you, and food is just an instrument in your case. I say “in your case” because one must understand that most people do feel this emptiness at least once in their life as a result of some sort of stress or loss, still, real numbers show that almost all of us suffer from internal “emptiness” quite often and on a regular basis.
I always say that bulimia is a clear sign of depression, and the way that it manifests through its outbursts is a clear sign to it. Too sad that it so often a sign only for the ill person, and to him or her only.
The emptiness is always formed after a loss, physical or psychological: the loss of a parent, of a loved one, a part of your body, or: the loss of hope, loss of faith in life, loss of a great love, loss of a life target, etc. It is always about you being really attached to someone or something, and then losing it that causes great stress to your persona and that creates a huge havoc with your personal world.
When the great loss occurs, the mind tends to kind of block it, but it can’t really do it for a long time as the frustration does not just disappear from our heads – it only slowly accumulates. As the pain caused by the tension of that solid aggregate by the size of a mountain that has built in your mind starts to become unbearable, then in order to survive the psychic finds a quick way of releasing at least some of the accumulated negativity.
In the case of a bulimic, the instrument is food.
In other cases it can be drugs, alcohol, adrenaline seeking, gambling, obsessive shopping and other. It really depends on one’s personal history, usually rooted in childhood. For example if you would cry and be upset as a kid after hurting yourself whilst playing, your mother would give you a treat in order to make you forget about the incident. Yes, it is as simple as that, but this “immature behavior” from our parent’s side unwillingly creates a whole set of psychological triggers in our minds, that last until we die if we don’t make a conscious effort to change or remove them from our psychic. And that, or boy, isn’t this the hardest thing to do on Earth?
When you feel really down after a new outburst, and ask yourself with disgust “why am I doing this to myself?”, well, you can always find an answer there: in your childhood. Just think about, find a quite moment and go back into the past, you know you will find the answer immediately.
The good thing about it is that when you find the root of the problem you can start changing it slowly.
The biggest mistake that bulimics do, and this is why some of them are ill for years (like Jane Fonda for example, she admitted of being sick for almost 20 years!), is expecting to get cured in a short space of time.
How can you possibly get out of it within days when it took you months or years to make it a part of your life? It is ridiculous to expect instant solutions for problems rooted far back in your childhood!
But before I can proceed to getting you out of it, just like I gradually did with myself, I’d really like to explain this feeling of emptiness +aggression releasing first.
The logical structure of it is the following: a great loss happens in your life which leads you too deep sorrow and sadness. This forms a real “hole” in your life, and that emptiness makes you feel like a handicapped person, so your mind starts looking for ways of filling it up with “anything”. So that you understand, this is a very natural auto survival process because if your mind wouldn’t be capable of doing that you would autodestruct yourself. In other words, when people fall into a depression, what they really wish is to stop living…Our mind, poor if it, can’t take the constant realization of those suicidal thoughts and “invents” synthetic ways of lifting up your spirit. What it practically does is it induces an illusion upon you that “there is always something that is worth leaving for”, it does that in order to make you survive, it does it for your own best.
So the mind turns to pleasures. When the self destructive feeling is huge, it seeks for a big pleasure in order to balance it out and so that it can keep you alive. Unfortunately, the human body is prone to reaching out for material things for pleasure, and almost never for the spiritual ones, but that’s another discussion, for a different book. Who wants to understand me, will do so..
People fill in this emptiness with short lived sexual experiences, drug euphoria, cigarette smoke and other, all short lived, temporary releases, this is why a human gets so easily addicted. Because this is never a solution to the problem, it is only a temporary release.
The next thing that happens is that after a certain period of “illusionary releases”, not so much the body, as the mind gets really tired with you banging your head against the wall, so it signals to you “enough!”.
Aggression as a natural side effect kicks in. How else can it tell you ”Stop fooling yourself. Start searching for the problem. Don’t hide behind the drug!” it is so sad that we never listen, until it becomes so “bloated” that we need to “spit it out”. We do it, we do it, and we do it again, until the strain of the effects of this destructive behavior becomes so visible to the naked eye that we are disgusted by the work of our own hands.
Sadly, only at this time do we realize that the “self loathing” of any king : whether it is food, alcohol or a closet fool of clothes, is only pulling us down and furthering us more and more away from our life’s now “former” goals and ambitions.
When we let bulimia step into our lives, it comes in and takes over everything. (Isn’t it?)
“She” gets in and out of our territory-our life like a hurricane leaving an even bigger emptiness and emotional ruin behind it.
This is what I advise you to do:
Because bulimia, anorexia or extreme exercising are more of a body image related problems, the very first thing you need to do just after accepting that you have a problem is to look in the mirror and have a very honest and clear understanding of how your body must look realistically. Don’t weigh yourself, don’t measure your hips, tell the people that are preaching about how they think you should look to fuck off and finally…look at yourself in the mirror…keep looking at yourself!
If you hate what you see, you still have a very long way to go. It took you a very long time to start hating yourself that much. It’s not your body shape, nothing at all to do with it. There is a totally different issue here – self acceptance. Now it’s ok to be unhappy about this or that at places, which is absolutely normal and even motivating for personal progress if understood in profundity. But, if you totally hate your body image, then you are in serious trouble.
Luckily for you, I can absolutely guarantee you this as a former nominated Miss World contestant, I have come to hate my body in every single way…and, found a way back out of it.
Starting to really love yourself again is the key, just like we did when we were kids, we did it so naturally. We never thought about what would others think of us, or had to make other people content or whatever. A 3 year old kid just enjoys life, and this is how we should stay at 13, 33, 43, 53, and for the rest of our lives.
When you make an honest assessment of how your body should look realistically (just set fire to those false images that they portray in beauty magazines, all they do is make us feel ugly and insecure in order to motivate us to buy their products so that we can become “pretty” just right after using them), you will find yourself taking a deep breath of release, please believe me.
Now: you win, they lose!!!! Do you understand me?
And if you are already brainwashed by all those beauty commercials and Hollywood stars (most of them bulimic anyway so that you know, they are in a bigger trouble then you because now they became hostages of their own image. They will only pay a much bigger price as result of that, for constantly promoting an unrealistic image that altogether them, you and I clearly know is not real and never was, without even feeling responsible for what they do to our children at least..), the easiest way of understanding your ideal body weight is just by starting to eat whatever you want whenever you want it. Yes, this is the scary part for you, the part that was holding you back for so long from getting out of this disturbance just like it was for all of us, yet this is the only way out of it.
It is about overcoming your fear; facing your daemons. My dear friend, trust me, it is much easier then it looks. Our perception of it is what really is scary. Our sick outlook on our bodies is what’s really scary here.
The only way you can get out of it can be compared to jumping into a cold river from a cliff. You’ll never do it until you face your fear and just…let go. Just stop purging. Everyone binges every once in a while, but what makes them “healthy” therefore different from our state is the single fact of them not purging shortly after.
One day you shall wake up and simply stop binging, just like it happened to me. Yes, it’s that easy, just like it happened with people that stopped smoking, drinking alcohol, etc. Once you come to the realization of the uselessness of that disturbing behavior, you’ll stop naturally. It will definitely happen with you!
The “new” world that you will find yourself in after years of “imprisonment” will lead you into the most beautiful life that you could ever imagine. I remember that when I sent to hell all the bastards and all the bastard thoughts that have lead me to bulimia just...go, and started loving myself and truly enjoying life by doing exactly what I want, I started having the most wonderful dreams at night.
Life, you’ll start enjoying it, again. Sex, you’ll start enjoying it, again. Feelings, actually feeling the solid ground underneath your feet, smelling the great scent of the flowers, touching the tender skin of your lover and really enjoying the greatest foods that your body craves because it needs those wonderful vitamins, this, all of this and many, many other things will come your way if only you…let go!
Your body, once a simply hateful reflection of what you saw in the mirror, is a now the most beautiful, healthy and harmonious instrument that can only be compared to the most amassing hand made guitar. Listen to it…it now plays that music that you and only you enjoy.
You will soon find that your body directs you to the exact foods and amounts that you really need in order to be at your fullest potential, physical and mental. You will reach harmony. Only this absolute balance can give you real fulfillment. It will always be with you from now and will give you constant pleasure and satisfaction inside out.
Whatever or whoever is pulling you back from enjoying life, whoever or whatever is the sucker of your energy and blood, just...let them go. This illness was a lesson by which your body way signalizing that you need a change, that whatever you did before was destructive to yourself. So instead of feeling upset with yourself because you’ve managed to do so much damage to your temple over the years, simply...let go. Let it dissolve into the Universe, turn the page and start a fresh life, a life fool of enjoyment, great food and good sex, a life where you will be a little God in your own right, because you are one!