THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 5, 1994 TAG: 9408040059
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAIGE FORBES, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY BREAK
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
I REMEMBER WANDERING the aisles of a grocery store, filling a cart with forbidden high-fat food: Oreos, tortilla chips, chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies, Pop Tarts, doughnuts, Ben and Jerry's ice cream and Fritos.
Next came a stop at Burger King for a double cheeseburger, a large milkshake and fries.
After that, I rushed home to my room and tore into the food. I stuffed it into my mouth for what seemed like hours, not even enjoying the flavor but continuing to eat. I was like a robot on automatic drive. All I could think about was filling my body with food and making that empty, lonely feeling disappear.
I ate until I could stuff no more into my body - until I felt so fat I was going to explode. Then I panicked.
I imagined all the calories and fat heading straight to my hips and thighs. I felt myself swelling up to the size of Roseanne Arnold and had to do something to get rid of the food. So I headed to the bathroom and spent the next hour lurching around the toilet, jabbing my fingers down my throat until it bled. The vomiting felt good despite the physical pain. I felt euphoric and cunning, as if I had outsmarted the vast majority of naive people.
It was a familiar ritual that I continued until my stomach was empty. Usually, by this time, my nose was running and tears of mascara cascaded down my face. Exhausted and cranky, I would retreat to my bed to curl up into a little ball and sleep, free from the pressures of my life.
As I look back now, I am saddened that I spent so much of my high school career in this spaced-out mode. You might call it praying to the porcelain god or some other catchy phrase, but I call it bulimia.
I never set out to become bulimic. People who went on shows like Oprah and Donahue had eating disorders, not ordinary people like me.
I'm just the girl next door who went on a diet the summer after 10th grade. Over time, though, the diet turned into an obsession that dominated my life. I lost weight, but I lost so much more. I lost my self-esteem, my judgment, my happiness and, eventually, myself.
At first, I reduced my caloric and fat consumption and increased my exercise. I lost 20 pounds, but for some reason, I felt that if I lost another 10 pounds everything would be OK. I thought maybe then I would feel smart and loved and have a date for Homecoming.
Losing those last 10 pounds seemed impossible, so I started eating even less and exercising more. I began thinking about food all day long.
One day in chemistry, I planned my next two weeks of food intake and exercise. I started running six miles every day after school and found myself running as much as 14 miles on the weekends. All of this from the girl who swore she'd never run another mile when physical education ended in the 10th grade.
My calorie consumption ranged from 1,100 calories a day, when I was unable to resist the urge to splurge, to fewer than 100 on my most successful days. I reduced my fat intake from the necessary 14 grams a day to none at all.
Before long, I began to spend more time by myself exercising and started canceling plans with friends. It was just about Christmas of my junior year when I finally figured out how to make myself vomit. I was so excited! Now I could eat all the foods I deprived myself of without getting fat.
At first I just purged normal meals that I ate, but then I started bingeing on huge amounts of forbidden food all the time. I entered a world of my own.
Feeling tired and lacking drive, I would roll out of bed and come to school wearing the same clothes I had slept in. I stopped doing most of my homework and lost my concentration. Everything upset me. I cried at home, at school, in my classes and everywhere in between. I spent most of my time alone or sleeping.
When I had to be around people I usually argued with them. I was miserable. All I really wanted was to be thin, to feel gloriously thin and loved, but all I did was alienate myself from my peers. They were into laughter and good times, while I got my excitement from eating and vomiting.
By May, my parents discovered my problem and I started getting treatment, not only for bulimia but for severe depression and anxiety. Of course, I ignored what my doctors said and continued with my harmful habits. I finally reached a point where I just couldn't cope with the everyday ups and downs of life. I stopped going to school and ended up in the homebound program.
Now as I look back, I see that my attempts to establish some type of control in my life failed because I was spinning uncontrollably in circles. At the time, I reasoned that I was the only sane person on Earth. Everybody else was either insane or jealous. Now I realize I was wrong.
After a year of therapy, I no longer concentrate on food 24 hours a day. Of course, that's not to imply that I don't worry about food, because I do, just not as much. I go through times when I actually believe that my bout with bulimia is over, but I also have months when bulimia plays a larger role in my life.
Today, when I gather the courage to tell someone about my condition, they often assume that it must be over if I can talk about it. My friends want to believe that I'm cured if I eat a cookie or two, but they aren't there when I get home and catch a glimpse of my ``huge'' thighs in the mirror. I still suffer from bulimia; my ordeal with it is not in the past but in the present.
I still would like to lose 10 pounds, but I'm not willing to ruin my life just to be thin. I've missed out on a lot of activities, and I've got a lot of catching up to do. ILLUSTRATION: SAM HUNDLEY/Staff
Photo
Paige Forbes is a 1994 honor graduate of First Colonial High School.
She will attend Hollins College in the fall.
by CNB