Written Text Qualifications

[Anonymous] here, Day 262,
Just wanted to say that I'm abstinent and grateful to be so.  Just had a wonderful dinner.  Going to go to bed soon.  Grateful it's Saturday.  Getting excited for a trip to Cambridge soon.

I heard someone who had a story very similar to mine with the bulemia.  All the little nuances and work-arounds and sneaky things that come with the bulemia.  My eating took off when I learned to throw up.  Up until that point, I wouldn't let myself binge.  When I learned that I could throw it up, I was off and running.  I never could go backward.  It was as if a dam had burst.

When I binged, I put as much food in my stomach as I could.  It would hurt really bad.  I thought my stomach would pop.  Really.  I don't know what damage I did.  I cared but I couldn't stop eating.  I had to have it.  I had to finish the boxes, helf-gallons, cartons, bags.  I couldn't leave any food uneaten.

I binged on things that didn't taste good when there was no other food available.  I had relationships with men to distract myself from eating.  I even started my own business once because I thought if I kept busy enough, I wouldn't eat.  It never lasted.  I always ate again.  As I hear some people say, food made all my choices for me.

I am deathly afraid of eating again.  My life as I know it today would immediately go down the drain.  I would not have a job or friends.  I would not have teeth (they'd all fall out from the acids).  My hair would fall out.  I might end up in the emergency room with a ruptured esophogus or stomach.  If I survived that, I'd for sure be in a mental hospital soon.  I would have to rely on my toxic family for support.  (That's probably enough in itself to motivate me to stay abstinent).  I might even have to move back there near them so they could monitor my health!! (no!!)  Everyone at work would find out.  I'd lose my independence.  They won't even let you go to the bathroom in solitude in eating disorder units.

So, I don't want that.  no, certainly not.  I want to walk through the pain of raw abstinence and earn some self-respect knowing I did it.  Someone told me that "if you can get abstinent, you can do anything!!!"  I believe her.  I believe that getting and STAYING abstinent is the toughest thing you could possibly ask of a human being.  If you (I) can do this then I can for sure write an essay for an application to school.  I can for sure say no to my boss or whatever.

I'm so grateful to the people who have done all of these things abstinently and never died from it!