I have firsthand experience with this not-so-rare phenomenon. It’s hard enough to want to look good to others and feel good about yourself and feel attractive enough to attract a partner, but add the scrutiny of the camera and the ten to twenty pounds it adds to your frame and it’s one surefire way to go. . to disaster if you have an eating disorder.

I started binging and purging when I was in high school. It wasn’t just a way to deal with my “baby fat,” it was a coping mechanism. I thought I had it all under control. Six months later he was still doing it. Six years later, I realized that I really did have a problem. Twelve years later I finally found help. Today I am free of bulimia.

There is no one way to get rid of an eating disorder, each person has their own path. I never thought that I would see the end of my very dark tunnel from hell that was my eating disorder. I want others to know that there is hope. If I can do it, you can too.

I found a therapist who gently guided me back to myself. I was a lost soul. I couldn’t meet my eyes in the mirror because he was so disgusted with myself. I was so nervous and stressed before an acting job that I would lull myself into binging and purging all the time, trying to be careful that my eyes didn’t get too swollen for the next few days of on-camera work. I wanted to do a good job for the director and the other actors. I wanted to look good in front of the camera. I never felt thin enough. I look back at the movies I’ve made and shake my head in disbelief. I was not fat. He had a totally different perspective, a totally distorted perspective of what he thought he was like and what reality was.

I’ll tell you what worked for me. My therapist kindly asked me to call him when I felt like he was going to binge and purge me. I couldn’t do that. It was too invasive for me. I wasn’t strong enough. Then he asked me to call him and leave him a message when he was going to binge and purge me. I couldn’t do that either. So he asked me to write it down and send it in an email when he was going to binge and purge me. It took me a while, but I was finally able to do it. This is what I wrote:

OK, I can get into that. I maybe not. I’m fighting in the middle. I’ve been doing really well today…according to my standards for caloric intake and exercise.

I’m eating Baked Lays and they’re usually good, however I have a few other things here to eat and if I go there I don’t think I’d like to eat them. Right now it feels like a calorie thing…sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. I’ve been around a lot of people lately. Sometimes that is so stressful that I resort to binging and purging. I still don’t know if it’s just not having done it in a couple of days or trying to escape being around people and feeling so affected by them. Now I’m eating some of the ham and cheese sandwich I got at Circle K. I took the bread off to feel better but I don’t think it will last… now I feel even worse because I’m eating the other half, without most of the bread. But, I’m almost daring myself to do this just to be able to do this (Write about it and go deeper into it)…before I was thinking that I wanted to eat and not think about it and escape… from me. .. then I thought better, that I was afraid of not wanting to have to write about it. Now I’m sad that I’m writing about it…as I take another bite…this sucks. I want more. I don’t want to want more. This has been a lazy click. (I call it a “click on” because that’s what it felt like, like a switch was suddenly thrown and there was no going back from binging and purging.) More thought processes going on… not so suddenly click just because that can’t happen if I’m writing about it. I don’t feel good about it and it slows me down, but I don’t think it’s bad enough to stop me just yet. Although I hate this. I hate this. Another pair of Baked Lays… is adding up. I hate this. Now I feel like I need to do a complete go out and get something cheap to binge… I hate sharing this. I feel exposed. I’ve said that before. I feel like I have let… myself/you/the world down. I’m such a good person without this… I know it’s not true, but I felt it a moment ago. I feel bad. Tears fall down my face without even crying. I hate this. My throat feels like it’s going to burst with the pressure. I don’t want to go there but I feel like I already have… I eat another chip just to check. Hand to mouth Comfort in the crunch. That sounds so silly. It is 22:49. I think, logically, I have until 4:00 pm tomorrow for my next call for this movie I’m working on and I can sleep late and be fine to get my eyes a little puffy because I have time so they don’t swell up.

Three more Baked Lays… I don’t even feel that guilty about Baked Lays… I feel guilty for my life. Now, that came out of the blue, but I don’t know exactly what I mean, but I had to write it down just in case I figured it out later…why should I feel guilty about my life? Logically and even spiritually I can grasp some of it but I don’t understand it. I don’t want to ignore it exactly, but I don’t know what it means, if it means anything. It just popped into my head. Well, now that I’ve tried to think of all that so logically and beautifully… let’s get back to this… I don’t want to come back to this. Much easier not…ham and cheese, Baked Lays. I have egg whites and… what else… I don’t want to think about it… I want to go to a fast food place and order a lot of bad, bad food and bring it out and eat it. everyone. That makes me cry. I don’t want to taste it and feel the process of taking it out of me. GOD I HATE THIS. I’m doing it to help me. I hate it. I still don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to leave here because then I’m going to do this and I’m going to feel so disgusting that I did this and that I’m not such a good person because I’m doing this… I don’t want to look at this.

Now that I’m looking at myself, I don’t want to look at myself going to a fast food place and buying food. I feel stuck. Trapped with food inside of me… stuck. I’m counting… I’m counting Can’t I purge and feel alright? Can’t I purge and not weigh 150 pounds tomorrow morning? I know that’s unrealistic, however I want to LOSE weight for this next movie. I feel like I’m failing at that. I don’t know how to get there. I dont know. I just know that I would have to have help and that doesn’t feel very good because I don’t have anyone to help me. It would be a 24/7 job and I don’t know anyone with that amount of time, let alone…me. What should I do? I dont know. I dont know. I want to get rid of what’s inside of me. That makes me cry a lot. I want it not to be a part of me. It’s separate from me… food, it can’t even be a part of me. I hate digestion. It means that food has become a part of me. During the day this is not a factor in my life… I eat healthy and I know I need nutrition in my life and food to nourish me… protein every three hours, carbs, protein, fat, exercise, etc. etc… at night I want them to feel separated from me. The food. Leave me alone. Go away. I eat food and I don’t want to go to bed without something in my stomach, yet I want so badly to part with it. I want you out of my body. I don’t want to have to vomit. I just want it to go away. I don’t know any other way to get rid of it.

I’m going to submit this now so I don’t go over it too much and think about it. These are my thoughts, organically now.

Writing about my episode changed something in me. He gently guided me to having to feel what I was so desperately trying to escape. It’s like I had a camera in my head recording what was going on so I could figure out later what might help me stop my behavior. I started writing more and more and it helped me, like a kind of therapy of its own. I turned what I wrote into a book, which itself was also very therapeutic. I want to help others find their way out of their own eating disorder hell. My book is: “Wasted, from the inside, not just another actress with bulimia.”