Cure For Bulimia

Beginning May 2006, ABC’s 20/20 cameras followed Sue, a 48-year-old married mother of three suffering with anorexia, through her treatment at The Renfrew Center of Philadelphia.  20/20 was there with Sue on the morning she entered residential treatment, when she stepped down to Day Treatment in July, and when she completed treatment at Renfrew in August.  One year after the day she entered treatment, 20/20 followed up with Sue and her family to see what recovery from an eating disorder is really like.

Visit 20/20 website for more information about the segment that aired on Friday, Jan. 18th.  To view the segment, which has been broken up into three parts, click on the following links:

Introduction;   Part One;    Part Two.

After all of the filming was complete, and almost one year since she completed her treatment at Renfrew, we sat down with Sue to see what it was like to take the brave step of seeking treatment as an older woman, how her life is different now, and what she hopes other women will learn from her experience.

As more and more studies are done on bulimia, more theories are beginning to point to the fact that bulimia and self image really are related. It is the problems with self image that lead to the eating disorder…at least as far as some psychological professionals are concerned.

The truth is that most people have issues with their self-image. This is an issue that starts sometime during adolescence (when it is at its most torturous) and continues on into adulthood. What matters is the way that we handle the feelings that we have about our own image.

They say that a person can be anything that they set their mind to; whatever it is a person wants to be, they are supposed to be able to become. What of those who don’t know what they want to be or are afraid that they will never become anything or anyone important in life?

These are the types of people that succumb to things like depression and bulimia. One of the first steps that bulimic has to take is to work on the self image. Focus on what you want to become instead of the past mistakes. Accept yourself the way you are now and set a new limits within yourself of who you want to be.

Bulimia is a problem that usually has a great deal to do with issues of self image. Women have a feeling in many cases that they should be a certain way. Looking a certain way is what sets a woman’s value in many cases, and that is something that society has slowly but surely created.

In the constant effort to fit this image as to what society expects a woman to be like, it is all too easy to get a messed up self image and fall victim to depression, bulimia, or any other mental problem.

We are all different and very unique. You can set your mind on becoming a movie star. There is nothing wrong with this if you have your own action plan on how to achieve it. If you want to look like a star and are doing nothing about it but only hating your own look and stressing yourself about to fit into size 2 than you will never become a star. Have a picture of “future you” in your mind the way you want to become, feel that you are already half way out there and follow the plan on how to become you want to become and you will be it.

Think about this! Look at yourself as outsider. What kind of picture you see? Depressed, worthless, helpless with low selfesteem… Now, what would be your future picture: happy, confident, productive and healthy? Keep this image and create an action plan for changes in every part of your life. Start with bulimia, the addiciton that keeps you away from your dreams. If you are here reading my blog that means you are already searching for the answers and you are in recovery. You are in recovery because you are looking for the solution, searching for advice from those who went through it already and is on the other side. YOU ARE IN RECOVEY!

For those out there looking for help with bulimia recovery, outside of all of the other things you do to better yourself every single day, try this: visualize yourself as a person who has fully recovered from the grips of bulimia. You can lead a normal life with normal eating habits and a healthy system, but dispelling the myths of society and visualizing and striving for success is the best way to go about starting out in such endeavors.

It sounds very easy to say that once you visualize yourself in bulimia recovery, you can be there just as quickly. That is simply not the truth and recovery is definitely going to take some time. But it is impossible to recover without changing the self image. Denis Waitley, famous psychologist once said: ” OT OS NOT WHAT YOU “ARE” THAT HOLDS YOU BACK, IT IS WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE NOT” (“Psycology of Winning)

Succumbing to the problem and rolling over is not the way to go about it; facing it head on and your own self image issues is the only way to get past it.

It all comes down to what you want for you. Do you want to recover from bulimia, or are you willing to let it claim your life as well?

Bulimia is an addiction. Did you know that? It may not seem like it, but it is—an addiction that results from regular girls and women like us not knowing their own worth. Abusing our bodies is the only way to really abuse anything that matters as the rest of us can seem worthless at times. In this sense, one of the main reasons why we deal with this illness is self-esteem, or rather a lack of it.

Many people out there are born knowing that they are beautiful and wonderful, and important. I wasn’t; if you weren’t born with this knowledge then you know this. This can be changed, though. The right positive reinforcement can lead to healthy attitudes about ourselves and somehow along the way many bulimic girls just like us lost out on that knowledge. I know that when it comes to me, personally, I can hardly remember ever looking in the mirror and being pleased with myself. Too much hair in one spot and not enough in the other. Not enough in the chest but way too much everywhere else. Most girls have been there at some points, but I lived with this every day until I learned that something had to give. From here I adopted some personal development changes like trying to be pleased with myself no matter how I looked—because that was how I looked. In pretending to just deal with my imperfections and flaws they became less of a big deal. It isn’t as easy as I make it sound I am sure, but through a long and dedicated road I was able to manage. Help yourself by realizing that it is time for you to change, and create that value in YOURSELF.

The dictionary definition of the word ‘esteem’ means to appreciate the value of something. Everybody has something to be proud of, even if it is only one thing. Are you a great listener? Do you have a good job? Good grades? Are your kids really smart? Start out by making a list of all of the things you can consider successful—even if they were slight. Anything that makes you feel even remotely good about or proud of yourself should go on this list.

Then comes the important part—the change. Think about what has to be done here and make a plan to do it. You know you have a problem with bulimia. You may even know why, that self-esteem is lacking and creating a horrible circle. Start out by changing the things that you do in life to help you be more successful and work cross-laterally on your bulimia as well. If you don’t like your job, start working on your resume and look for a new one. Once the search starts the opportunities will come to.

The same thing goes with your bulimia and self esteem. Once you find excuses to appreciate yourself you may find yourself having more and more reasons to. Focus on the things in your life that you liked, the things you are proud of and would like to share and forget about the rest. When you fail, you learn something and this applies to every area of life.

Our self esteem as women should be based on our actions and the way we live rather than the way we feel. Emotions change, successes and failures do not.

If you don’t do something about your bulimia you are always going to have to deal with it; do you want that? For yourself, make the decision to figure out what it is about you that drives you in that direction and before long the answer will come. The reward for all of your hard work is knowledge about your addiction and if you follow these bulimia tips a path to bulimia recovery—for good.

There are many things out there that may contribute to your bulimia. One of the more important qualities that regular bulimic girls like yourself lack is responsibility—for yourself.

What is self responsibility? Dr. Wayne Dyer describes the word responsibility as, ‘to respond with ability.’ Bulimia is an addiction; there is no doubt about that. It is an addiction to a poor self image many times, and the response for that in this case is binging and purging. Like any addict, bulimics blame others for their condition as it is a lot easier to place the blame for the problems that you create for yourself on someone else. At least that way you don’t have to take immediate responsibility for them.

What I present to you now is a new approach in psychology—one that will help you in your efforts to recover. Self recovery is the way of overcoming bulimia that would mean the most, that would be the longest lasting. Only self recovery—helping YOURSELF to recover—will make you truly free from the clutches of this horrible disease that is bulimia.

How does self responsibility apply to this? It is about taking control of your own life, and not worrying about the role of everyone else in it, no matter how important they are to you. It is easier to blame your mom or your husband or your overbearing sister for your bulimia problem, but who actually carries out the act? Who makes you eat the way that you do? Who goes to the store and buys all the food? Who goes through it all at once and then throws it up later?  YOU. You are the only one responsible for your problem. You are the only one who can help you to truly recover.

Take control over what you are doing and what you eat. Take control over what you do with your food and whether or not you actually digest it, or if the toilet gets to. Take control over your life, who you date, who you let stress you out, who you surround yourself with; make changes if that is what you have to do to take control.

From now on, you have the control. You know that you have the control, but are you going to use it to help yourself? That is the question that really begs answering. You can change things for the better.

Like now—you can stop reading this message and forget you ever saw it OR you can make that change right now that you always knew you could. Take control and take back your life.
 

Bulimia is about control. Yes it is true that it may be due to self-esteem issues and other things of that nature, but a good percentage of the girls out there that deal with this illness have a chemical imbalance to deal with, making it difficult to see the forest for the trees, so to speak. Chemical imbalances are more common than you might think and they contribute to many an issue with mental health in both the sexes. Bulimia is just one thing that can result from a chemical imbalance and many professionals feel that it is an issue that must be treated with the help of medication. It doesn’t have to be this way. Whether you know it or not, YOU have the ability to control your mood, and how you feel, and how the way you feel affects the rest of you.

Sounds crazy, right? I know because I used to think so, too but one of the best bulimia recovery tips a person could give you is to take control of your life—it is all a matter of just doing it. If you make yourself think or believe something enough your body will respond. Here is an example:

Sit and think about the last thing that made you very worried or frustrated. Think about it in detail, when you got the bad news, the events that unfolded, and such. Maybe something bad happened to you or you lost somebody very close to you. After a while, your heart rate is bound to pick up and you may start to have a physical nervous reaction, yet these were just thoughts. The thoughts that you created in your head caused a reaction in your body, didn’t they? You can apply this toward your life in a positive manner, too. The point here is that no matter what you think, you can change the way you feel and the things you do by changing your own thought patterns; after all, nobody has power over your thought patterns but you.  The reason why this is, is because when you think positively your body produces endorphins, the brain’s ‘happy chemical.’

If you can find a way to do so, build up the habit of thinking positively. By doing so you sill have more control than you ever thought possible—control over the chemistry of your body. Positive emotions create endorphins, which make you happier and better able to handle life’s hurdles.

Don’t think this will come right away. It will take practice, but that is with anything worth having. If it rains today even though you had everything planned, you can decide to do something else while it pours and reschedule your plans or do them anyway. The choice is up to you—the rain doesn’t have to stop you. You can control more than you ever knew you could.