were also good for the same reason. Individual serving cups of puddings didn't work unless there were many cups. I hoped no one would notice if one or two were missing.
My secret life that was to last almost thirty years had begun. I ate in secret and raided the cupboards and the refrigerator unseen. I took care to leave no trace. I had no money of my own to buy food, so I also had to find subtle ways to binge at the dinner table. I ate slowly and methodically with my family and excused myself in the middle of dinner. I went to the bathroom, drank as much water as I could, jumped up and down to mix it all up inside me, kept the tap running to block my retching sounds, and threw up dinner. Then I rejoined my family at the table and continued to eat.
I struck gold when I started babysitting. The mothers of the children I watched were gracious. After a mother told me what to expect from her child and gave me emergency contact information she would almost always follow with, “If you get hungry, help yourself to a snack.” Then she would show me cupboards packed with snack foods and a refrigerator stocked with treats. I believed whole packages of potato chips, crackers, cookies, and ice cream were set out just for the babysitter.
After I put the children to sleep, I'd go to the cupboards and eat everything. Then I'd look for opened packages of food, especially crackers or cereal or cookies. Candy was good too, as long as I could throw it up easily. A limit for me was never opening an unopened package. I remember once seeing a mother who was obviously startled when she noticed how much food was gone. But no one ever said anything. And I was a popular babysitter. I loved the children, played well with them, and was caring and attentive. They always asked for me. It was when the children were asleep that I'd go into my binge/purge dramas.
My attempts to stop my binge purge episodes through willpower failed within minutes. It never occurred to me to confide in someone or ask for help.
I binged on fruit in an attempt to control my massive eating. I'd take six or more oranges downstairs to the recreation room, turn on the TV, and settle in. First I would peel an orange with a sharp knife. Then, to postpone eating for as long as possible, I would cut the peels into many tiny pieces. I'd cut the white from the orange skin. I tried to get satisfaction from the cutting, but I always moved on to the binge. Looking back, it's curious to me that I never cut myself, as many children and adults suffering from anorexia and bulimia do. That wasn't part of my pattern.
I started college at Northwestern University, where I majored in journalism. At my sorority house, Zeta Tau Alpha, only one bathroom offered privacy. I planned my eating and vomiting so I could use that bathroom when the adjoining room was empty. I binged and threw up before dates in my attempt to appear as a normal eater in public.
I remember long and awkward times in public bathrooms. I risked discovery. If someone came in, they might see my feet turned the wrong way in the stall. In a small public bathroom I risked someone in the adjoining stall hearing me. I couldn't come out until they left. I wonder how much time I spent in bathroom stalls, waiting for people to leave?
My bingeing and purging remained a secret throughout my college years. My attempts to stop were secret, too. I had a sorority sister whose father was a doctor. He gave her a prescription for diet pills, and she often got more than enough to share with her friends. I used amphetamines for two years.
The diet pills did not stop my bingeing and purging. They stunted my hunger pangs, but I never binged or purged because I was hungry. The amphetamines helped me be more methodical in my planning. But the planning itself got out of hand.
The first pill I ever took knocked me out for an hour. When I woke, I felt my blood vibrating in my veins and a new kind of energy that helped me feel unreal and intent on whatever project I had in mind. I gathered my books, my notes, my pads and pens, and began mapping out a complex way to do my work. I became so intent on creating a system that by the time I was ready to actually study, I was too exhausted and confused to get far. I used the pills to stay up all night for several nights in a row studying for finals. No one seemed to think this was abnormal since many of the girls pulled “all-nighters.” I wonder how many of us shared similar secrets.
When I realized I was dependent on amphetamines, I stopped taking them and went through withdrawal without knowing the existence of the word, all in secret.
I married when I was twenty. I was living with my parents, and in my mind I was planning an event that was like a play with me in the lead role. I binged and purged three or four times a day and went through the ceremony in a trance. Nothing seemed real—not the groom, not my parents, not me.
My new husband was in the Air Force. We had little money, yet I had to binge and purge. I bought two inexpensive packaged cake mixes at a time, usually lemon cake because I liked it the least and hoped that would slow me down. One night, I baked a cake and served it for dessert. We both had a serving. My husband had another later in the evening.
The next day, after I had devoured the rest of the first cake in secret, I baked the second cake, frosted it, and cut out and ate the equivalent of the three pieces we had eaten the night before so the cake looked the same to my husband. It was the cheapest way to maintain my bulimia. I tried doing this with homemade bread too, but it was too difficult to throw up.
By my early thirties, I was a wife with a teenage daughter, and my life was still unreal. One day, it dawned on me that when my daughter turned eighteen, I'd be forty. These numbers were culturally defined for me. Eighteen meant independence as a girl moved into womanhood. Forty (for women at the time) meant being cast aside as irrelevant. The vision of my life alone with my husband was bleak. I wanted my daughter to become independent, but the thought of my life going on as it was without her to give it meaning was intolerable. I knew I had to prepare myself for the day when she would be on her own, but I didn't know how.
I read classic literature. I volunteered in the community. I binged and purged daily, sometimes up to twelve times a day. My binge/purge episodes kept me busy but provided no relief. I often fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV to stop feeling. When I awoke my despair greeted me. Sometimes I would binge and purge for days, unable to leave the house.
I spent hours on the beach with my German shepherds, Rain and Charlie, because I didn't binge on the beach. I walked and often wrote, but I could not sustain any activity for long. When I realized I could live this way forever, I knew I had to aim for something more. My marriage was lonely, my child was growing up, and I felt I was heading for forty and a drop into oblivion.
I was thirty-two. I decided I would do something to make the day of my fortieth birthday not be just good, but great. My goal was to wake up that morning happy about my life and looking forward to the day. I had no idea how to make that happen. It never occurred to me that I could stop bingeing and throwing up. As I think back, I believe that day was the first time I had a sense of my own future. I could never imagine living more than six months ahead. I believed I would choke to death during a purge. That day it occurred to me that I could take responsibility for my life.
One day, while checking my reflection in the bathroom mirror for any tell-tale spatter from my purge, I thought “What if I used all the energy I put into my eating disorder for something else? What might I accomplish in life?” It occurred to me, for the first time, that maybe I had a choice about bingeing and purging.
From where I was I reached out to the thing that had been consistently reliable in my life—reading. It had always been my solace, my haven, my escape, and my source of guidance. I enrolled in UCLA, majoring in psychology. I binged and threw up every afternoon. I remember driving home from campus, gripping the steering wheel and saying out loud, “I won't do it.” But I always stopped at the market and picked up my chips, ice cream, and Oreo cookies. At home, I ate it all and threw it up.
During my studies at UCLA,
