Despite the ‘obesity epidemic,’ the people as you dash through the city are thinner than you: only the middle-aged women in cheap department stores are fat; and unwashed men with beer bellies, loitering; and businessmen who can look how they like, as they support everyone else. In the farms people work hard enough to have [...]
Archive for April, 2008
XX
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
XIX
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
And is purging really ‘calming’? It’s an upheaval of slime and self-hatred and pain, bad smells, stuffed-up noses, the burning of your oesophagus, fingernails scratching the wall of your throat, little bits of food coming up and going down the wrong way, making you choke and cough acidic slime up into your mouth. Your teeth [...]
XVIII
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It can be good to carry on purging. If you know you’re going to need to purge, you might be less likely to binge. When your throat is sore and your knees bruised from bumping into things when dizzy — that might be a deterrent to stop you from bingeing again: the horror of that [...]
XVII
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Remember, there’s an exhilaration in feeling hungry, too. There are advantages in being so weak you feel you’re going to topple over in busy shopping malls. Someone would rescue you and sort out all your problems if you did. The hospital would decide what you were to consume, and you could just hide away part [...]
XVI
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The problem with eating disorders is that their axis, food, is omnipresent. Not just in the supermarkets, but in culture, daily interaction, routine, your body’s genuine need for it. It’s not the sort of thing you can just walk away from by taking all references to it away: you’d snip off 90% of the rest [...]
XV
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Boys: you also have eating disorders. I know this, but I only know about girls. Masculinity has a robust connection with the earth, with practical matters, that femininity is losing touch with. Now as some of you lose this touch too you don’t quite fit in with the men of your culture, but you’re still [...]
XIV
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Recovery from bulimia isn’t about controlling when you purge. It’s about controlling the need to binge. If you stop purging and carry on binging — well, that’s hardly ideal, is it? Recovery is about developing a healthy attitude to and relationship with food: where you can eat just one apple, and enjoy it; or 150ml [...]
XIII (bulimia kit)
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
You lay out your sad little bulimia kit on the corner of the bathroom cabinet. What’s in it? Bicarbonate of soda: that’s to rinse your mouth out after purging. Tissues, soap, a hair band obviously. You’ll carry water if you think you’re not going to be near a tap. Nail clippers. Olbas oil to stop [...]
XII
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
You’re an orthorexic little bint half the month, then binge on sugar the rest! What do you think that does to your body? Yes, it’s unhealthy, unhealthy, unhealthy. You already know it’s unhealthy. You don’t know why you do it. What happened to control.
Your periods are erratic, or maybe they’ve stopped altogether. It’s convenient. But [...]
XI
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Bulimics can know as much about the human digestive system as biology students. Sometimes we read about the digestive systems of other animals. But most of it’s practical: we compile catalogues in our heads, if we’re so minded, of different foods 10, 30, 50 minutes after ingestion. We know how they mix in our stomachs; [...]
X
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
And when you come home at the end of a day having glutted yourself with three times your calorie allowance, and your stomach is so distended from a similar binge the day before you do not even feel full, what do you do? Fast for the four days, peacefully, calmly? That’s not enough: you’ll just [...]
IX
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Do not turn to food for comfort. Do not indulge in it. You don’t comfort yourself with heroin or indulge in weekend trips to Paris. Deny yourself food as well. There are safer things you can enjoy. Try exercise, bodycare, haircare, sculpting with clay — it’s sensuous like chocolate.
VIII
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It is disgusting for you to be as fat as this. You should be light, and graceful, and able to move around with ease. You should be able to wear the clothes of any generation before — just because other women of this era are fat does not excuse your condition. Aspire to the good [...]
VII
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Don’t trust women who tell you you aren’t fat. Unless they love you very much, they will tell you you are slim so you eat and they look better than you. Sometimes genuine feminists will tell you you are fat and that’s okay, but that’s not going to stop you purging, is it? Men who [...]
VI
Posted in mia, tagged bulimia on April 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Wear a corset. Corsets compress your stomach and can make it uncomfortable to eat. Custom-made corsets are expensive, so start setting the money aside for one now. See corsetry for examples of what you should be wearing. S-curves are dangerous; choose a simple Victorian style, underbust or overbust.
