Exposing the voices
To save everyone, including me, the monotony, this post will compile the worst of my struggle with exercise-induced bulimia from late summer of 2021 until late spring of 2023.
Let’s begin. Like you already know I did not fully stop exercising at any point. And it became one of those things where after I got out of the hospital with fresh red and white blood cells, I was feeling better. I could breathe normally while exercising and did not experience the frequent nausea I once had. Since the outward symptoms were practically gone overnight, it put me in more of a struggle to limit the amount I did because the reason I had agreed to go to the eating disorder clinic was because I couldn’t breathe. Now that I could breathe, the voice said everything is fine- you’re good to go back. Only, I wasn’t.
I knew that I needed to eat differently, and, as I detailed in the previous post, I tried. But, with this new attempt at eating came failure and what felt like self-shaming; which it was, except the origin was the ED, not my intuitive mind.
For anyone who has been through this, this may look/sound all too familiar (and yes this mental convo happened):
Me: [eats breakfast according to the meal plan]
Voice/ED: you didn’t even do anything yet, why do you need to eat?
Me: well I was in the hospital and I don’t want to be back there again and the dietician gave me a very strict plan, and it said no exercise- which I already don’t follow
Voice/ED: so? You saw the dietician before you had the transfusion done. So her information is inaccurate now because you’re in a much better place physically than you were when you saw her. I mean look- you can breathe well, you don’t get nauseous
Me: huh interesting that’s a good point. maybe I don’t need to follow the plan in it’s entirety. I mean I am just supposed to eat more than I was and make sure I’m getting in foods with the proper nutrients. I think that was my real problem in the first place
Voice/ED: now you’re getting it! Add in the iron, vitamin B12, folate, vitamin d, and all the other nutrients you are supposed to be getting but that doesn’t mean you need to gain any weight- you’re fine- they’re just trying to make you fat because they think you look too good
Me: that’s such a good point I mean I’m on all these supplements now and I’m aware of what vitamins I need to be getting in to make sure my hemoglobin level stays good. I was also kind of wondering why they were pushing gaining weight so much anyway... like I really don’t want to get fat.
Of course, I’m sure there are differences for each person, but the spiral-like pattern an ED follows works like a charm. Hopefully it makes a bit more sense now that you've seen a sample of the internal mind games and deliberating that take place.
Keeping moving...
I cannot tell you any specific event that initiated the worst 2 years of my life, but I sure can tell you what happened. I developed a new routine with food and exercise and that drove my life, again.
For anyone niche enough to not only know where Cortland is, but then also know the larger Cortland county, you may know the areas I talk about next. If you don't know, don't worry you're not missing much.
Anyway, I discovered a fairly untapped part of the county via Pendleton St. Ext and Tower Rd. The first time I went there, I was with my mom and it was actually a pleasant experience. The views are as good as they get for Cortland, NY.
In fact, the views are what partially brought me back each subsequent visit; the other reasons were the isolation and the hills. Isolation- so that I thought I wouldn't be bothered (and because that's how the mental health disorders like to get us). Hills- obviously because I needed to burn more calories. Rather than try and describe what became my morning daily route, I've mapped it out for those of us visual people.
It isn't the perfect replica of my route, but it was the closest I could get on Google Maps. Before you ask, I once tracked it on a borrowed Apple Watch and it is a 15.5 mile walk with 2,100 feet of elevation gain.
If for some reason I wasn't able to get this done on a day, it didn't matter what other exercise I did that day, the voice told me I hadn't done anything worthwhile. However, on the 98% of days that I did check this off each morning, I felt like I could breathe a little bit... at least for long enough to have my 'well-earned' breakfast/lunch. [And yes, you caught that correctly, I did not eat until after I had 'earned' it]
After I had a meal that contained elements of the dieticians "suggestions" of breakfast and lunch (like cheese and crackers) I was ready for the next activity. This typically consisted of a bike ride. It didn't have to be a specific route per say, it just had to be about 20 miles- if it was more than that I may have actually started to feel like I had accomplished something that day. Bike rides also didn't always happen because NY weather is a mess most of the time so... in that case I took myself for a breezy 10 mile walk in the rain, sleet or snow.
If I was really lucky I got to do ALL of the activities. This most commonly happened when I met up with my dad for a walk after he was out of work or if I could convince my mom to go with me or I went with a friend (more rare). Everyone who knew me was also impacted by the ED.
You may be asking how I had time for all this in a day? Well like I said I walked FAST, but then yeah, college prevented me from exercising 24/7. Let's just say when I wasn't in class or doing schoolwork, I was moving. Again, ED told me I didn't have a problem. "After all", it said, " you never skip any classes to exercise and you have A's in all your classes so you clearly have your priorities right".Only, as you would probably figure, my priorities were whack.
Ironically, the best time back then to encounter me was leading up to and during dinner. I was the most calm because I had done what I 'needed' to do in the day and now I finally felt like I had done enough to earn the food I had been holding over myself all day.
I say 'ironically' because I understand that for many, the binge eating part of bulimia is typically not when they would want people to be around.
Honestly, it didn't bother me much to be around people during my dinner and snack time because I did appear to eat mostly healthy. I let people see my post-dinner "snack time" as the unhealthy part because I would typically have a bowl with popcorn, pretzels, and Goldfish.
With that said, the time I didn't want anyone around for was dessert. Like I alluded to in earlier posts, dessert was my thing. I knew that it was a fine line to walk because culture tells us eating dessert makes us unhealthy and weak. It might sound dramatic, but personally, there was a lot of shame around eating dessert because I knew the stigmas that existed, particularly being as active as I was. This fueled the voices more and kept me trapped in the cycle that seemed inescapable.
Walk, bike, walk, eat, eat dessert, eat more dessert, eat more dessert, sleep, wake up feeling disgusted with myself... repeat.
Until... One spring day at the end of junior year, my body just had enough walking. To this day, neither me nor my care team can tell you for sure what happened, but because of my beliefs, I am strongly convinced that God, knowing where this path would take me, put a hard stop to my speed walking.
[Enter in run #1 post high-school indoor track]
~Another day, another slay~
Lydia
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