Dear Deb...

Dear Mia.....

TRIGGER WARNING

Dear Mia (bulimia),

I first met you in late middle school, early high school. Many people meet you at the toilet. But Ana introduced me to you after a binge. You took over for the next few hours telling me that it would be okay, but first I had to exercise until I collapsed. You lied to me saying that I could eat whatever I wanted as long as I exercised off more calories than I ate. I found group chats with others who were slave to you and Ana. We would have group workouts.

The others complained about the pain of their backs slapping the ground after a sit up because they didn't have the strength to let their bodies down more carefully. The others would complain about the bruises on their bodies after workouts. You made me feel bad about my body because I wasn't thin enough to be bruised along my spine from sit ups.

You would follow me into the bathroom and have me force myself to throw up my food. No one really talks about how gross throwing up partially digested food is. You can tell how far into the digestion process the food was. When I first meet you in the bathroom, the food comes up in a food shape. Before you leave me alone in the bathroom, the food is liquidy and stringy and there is nothing to glamorize about our secret meetups in the bathroom.

The trips to the bathroom was just a once to twice a week routine for a few months. The heaving. Sticking fingers that had vomit on them back into your mouth. Doesn't matter if you rinse your fingers between bending over the toilet. The amount of pressure on my body. Enough to make my eyes water and my body collapse before everything comes back up. A few instances I was too tired to get up off the ground after you and I met at the toilet. Some days I would binge. You would correct it. Then I would binge again. Then you would correct it again. Sometimes that viscous cycle would continue.

We didn't meet up in the bathroom for very long. After I stopped the bathroom trips with you, I didn't see you much after that. Once I saw you after I decided to make a homemade laxative. I saw you a few more times at midnight when you would force me to walk up and down stairs until I was too sleepy and too tired to keep going.

Although I didn't know you for very long, you have left lasting damage to my throat. I don't believe I would get heartburn at my current age if I had never met you. But now I get a lot of heartburn. I got a lot more frequent heartburn when I still knew you, but I'm glad you have left my life forever. You were in my life for maybe a year in total between the few months I met you in the bathroom and the whole year that you had me exercise to justify how much I had eaten.

I left you when I learned the truth about you. Calories are the first thing to be absorbed during the digestive process. All you made me lose was precious nutrients. I never lost any weight from the hours of exercise you made me suffer from. Most people who know you don't actually lose weight. Long term there is a tendency to gain weight.

For those of you who are reading this, you are not alone. I understand your struggles. I understand the temporary high, when you feel that the food is gone and you are done. It starts with once a week. It will never happen again. Then only after desserts, but it will not become a regular thing. Then it becomes biweekly. After "binges". Then soon enough it is everyday after every meal. Your body craves food and you become stuck in binge-purge cycles. There is nothing beautiful about forcing your body to throw up food. There is nothing beautiful about abusing laxatives. There is nothing beautiful about exercising to the point of collapsion.

Mia will give you nothing except lasting damage to your body. You are gambling with your life every time you force your body to throw up. I got away lucky. This is a really hard addiction to escape. It is possible to escape. There is a life beyond Mia. You are special and uniquely beautiful. You have a purpose in this life.

- Long Time Recovered

Victim of Mia