boundaries because I needed time and space to learn. I tacked a yellow 8 ½ x 11-inch sheet of paper above my desk listing all the courses I needed to take in order to graduate with a degree in psychology. It represented two and a half years of work. I looked at that list every day and knew that somehow I had to check off every class if I were going to get to my new life.
Fear or courage, determination or feelings on the edge of despair, drove me on. I had many gaps in my education. I used grammar school, junior high, and high school math textbooks to get me through calculus. A required computer programming course completely baffled me, but a friend helped me through with nightly phone calls and many homework emergency responses.
My life felt grim even as I met the requirements for my schooling, did internships, and studied for licensing exams, while simultaneously experiencing financial loss, raising a teenage daughter, and carrying on a glamorous romance where I lived and breathed the fantasy life of a princess. By the time I was thirty-six and in graduate school, I knew my marriage was over. I binged and purged, drank, and had affairs all throughout the divorce proceedings. This is bulimia in action. I was bingeing, not only on food, but on frantic activity and romance as well.
Between college and graduate school, my husband, daughter, and I went on a family vacation to Cornwall, England. On the trip that was meant to be a bonding experience, I realized I could not pretend there was any life left in my marriage. My husband left England for Los Angeles as we had originally planned. I stayed with my daughter for another week. That's when I met John.
I was still actively bulimic when John made his elegant advances. He fulfilled a bulimic dream I often see in many of my patients as they struggle to open themselves to the first stage of eating disorder recovery. Bulimic fantasies are not compatible with a life in recovery.
John and I had a long distance relationship. I didn't realize he was an alcoholic, even though I noticed his destructive patterns. He didn't know I was bulimic. We saw each other when we were both at our best, and we believed the lies we told each other.
I adored him, and he needed adoration. He treated me royally, which alleviated my terrible feelings of anxiety and worthlessness. We were happy. No, happiness only comes through recovery. We were ecstatic and psychologically merged as only two addicts can be.
He took me on extravagant trips around the United Kingdom and through California. We stayed at beautiful hotels, dined on gourmet foods, and built a make-believe future for ourselves. He supported me emotionally through my divorce and the pressures of my graduate studies and professional licensing. I supported him through his medical crisis and a triple bypass heart surgery.
Our relationship fell apart when the fantasies collapsed. Seeing each other intermittently, with all the yearnings and dramas that culminated in sporadic fulfillment, allowed our fantasies to flourish. They faded as we had increasing brushes with the reality of who were on a full-time basis.
Feast and famine is an underlying theme of eating disorders, and it applies to relationships as well as food. With a healthy commitment to reality, there is no room for relationships based on fantasy and ecstasy. (But, I must admit, I do smile when I remember the ecstasy.)
I binged and purged through all of this. My hair was falling out, and my menses were disrupted. I had a burning discharge the doctors could not diagnose. I look back on this time as the days of peanut butter sandwiches purchased on a flimsy credit card and exquisite lobster dinners in fine restaurants. The contrasts in my life were severe.
Yet, I learned I could get through this (not yet understanding that “this” was my early reaches toward eating disorder recovery). I still didn't know I was bulimic or that eating disorders existed. I knew I had a terrible secret that proved I was a terrible person. But despite seeing myself as a terrible person, I still had managed to shed a bad marriage, get an education, travel, create a better home for my daughter, and keep my promises to her. My daughter stayed in the same high school throughout this time, keeping her routines and friends.
What if I used all the energy I put into my eating disorder for something else? What might I accomplish in life?
What's remarkable to me is that my compulsive behavior was still a secret. Years later, my husband was shocked when I told him that I was recovering from bulimia during grad school.
The only person who knew was my daughter. Bulimia didn't have a name when I was ill, but my daughter knew when I binged. She knew it was odd for her mother to eat bags of potato chips and sour cream for breakfast in bed. She heard me throwing up in the bathroom sometimes and would knock on the door, asking, “Mommy, Mommy, are you okay?” When I felt dazed and unreal, she felt abandoned.
I did abandon her when I was in those bulimic hazes. I abandoned everyone and everything during those times, including myself. Eating disorder recovery has a lot to do with being present in this life no matter what you have to see, know, and feel. Part of being present now is acknowledging how my oblivion hurt people I love.
Throughout my entire recovery saga runs the ever-present thread of my love for my daughter. Her existence has always been an inspiration to me. One afternoon, long before I was in recovery, I was hiking in the Santa Monica mountains with a young woman who was more wood sprite and mountain goat than human. She led the way through what were familiar trails to her. She was far ahead of me and out of sight when I came to a fearsome place. The trail turned into a tiny stone ledge running between the cliff wall and a drop that was not survivable. I had to put my back against the wall and inch my body along the ledge until I was back again on solid ground. I was sure I couldn't do it. I would have to go back.
Then, I asked myself, “How could I do it?” Beyond the ledge was a large boulder. I said to myself, “What if my daughter was on top of that rock, and tigers were trying to get at her. Would I find a way to get to her?” My answer was a resounding “Yes!” With that image in mind, I got across that ledge.
My plan to have a good life at forty was on schedule. I graduated from my masters program, passed my qualification examinations, and received my Marriage and Family Therapist license. By that time, I was thirty-nine. At forty, my divorce was final, and my daughter was in college.
I liked my life. I had new friends. I found meaning in my work. I could help support my daughter financially and intellectually. I was still bingeing and purging.
Over the years, people have asked me what caused me to stop being bulimic. I have different answers as I continue on my journey. Certainly my awareness that my daughter's eighteenth birthday would coincide with my fortieth woke me up. I began understanding that my child's life had a trajectory. I couldn't imagine a long life for myself, but I became invested in my daughter's growth and development. I expected her to live, develop, and have a future. And when I imagined her living an independent life, I discovered I wanted a long future for myself, too. I didn't want to leave her. So my first step into recovery, (although I didn't know it) was to believe I had a future. Then my recovery work began. Another awakening thought occurred to me 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.
I believe that was the conscious start of my recovery. The people who were most influential in holding me, teaching me, loving me, guiding me, and providing me with therapy and inspiration were already in my life. I had made choices, unconsciously, that put who and what I needed near me, wonderful, trustworthy, and capable people to support me.
My former clinical supervisor, Lars Lofgren, included me in his family. Lars and his wife, Ingeborg, became my
