Illustration by Christine Wei
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I recognize it’s problematic to say I was “good” at bulimia nervosa. People are usually good at stuff like sports or art. Bulimia is just about the furthest thing from a game, and it’s certainly not an art form.
But if it’s going to go undetected for 15 years, like it did for me, being good at it comes with the turf. The disorder is based on secrecy, and secrecy requires pulling a fast one on both the people around you and, in my case, myself.
The purging began during my last year of university. I came home one night, full of food, and a sudden instinct took over. I went to the bathroom and … yada yada (I won’t spell it out but I’m sure you get the gist).
I felt weirdly at home in that moment. The incongruous nature of feeling comfortable with my face hovering over a toilet should have been a harbinger of the pain to come, but it wasn’t. I mistook an eerie sereneness to be a measure of peace, not an eating disorder getting its hooks in me for the first time.
I purged once in a while at first, telling myself that the infrequency meant it was harmless. That was the first bulimia-related lie I internalized, but it sure wasn’t the last. What I didn’t understand is if you give an eating disorder an inch, it’ll take a mile. Or two miles. Or 200 miles. It’s insidious. Before I knew it, purging was a part of life, as normal as putting on a pair of socks (if you put on socks six or seven times a day).
When once in a while turned into constantly, and months turned into years, I knew deep down that what was happening wasn’t normal. But rather than acknowledge it, I subconsciously removed judgment from the equation. I learned to view each porcelain encounter as neither positive nor negative. I made myself intentionally naive, numb to what was happening every time I had a staring contest with a commode.
I had no goal or endgame in mind. Over the 15 years I was actively bulimic, my body came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. None of them was satisfactory and none of them moved the needle toward trying to stop. How can you stop something you don’t acknowledge is happening?
Friends and family were never the wiser. It’s not like I wanted to trick those closest to me. But I got good at figuring out when and where I had the best chance to get away with it. Even though I considered myself to be a smooth operator, my bathroom frequency must have still read as odd at times. I’m sure some folks privately thought I had to take a lot of number twos, others must have thought it might be drugs. Being perceived as someone with bowel issues who used drugs I could handle – both of those assumptions seemed preferable to the truth.
It would have been a real mental leap for someone to connect the dots. People have their own lives and troubles and don’t have the bandwidth to play detective. There’s also the baked-in fact that I’m a man. Society doesn’t necessarily condition people to expect a guy to have an eating disorder, largely because not enough of us talk openly about it. I know there are others like me out there, suffering in silence. It’s not like eating disorders are picky about who they control.
There’s also this inane notion of “macho” masculinity present in today’s society. I fear that mode of thinking will prevent more men from being honest with themselves about eating disorders, but I hope I’m wrong. To put it mildly, keeping it to yourself, or pretending it doesn’t exist, is not the way to go.
Like a lot of people with an eating disorder, I have also had a host of concurrent mental-health conditions. Many years before acknowledging the deeply serious nature of my bulimia, I started to get help for anxiety and depression. This was a good thing, but because I was tackling one set of sicknesses, I gave myself a hall pass to continue ignoring another.
I was able to compartmentalize – it was anxiety and depression I had to figure out, not the other thing, leave me alone! I didn’t realize that they’re called co-morbidities for a reason; everything works together, informing one another. When one thrives, they all do.
Eventually I got to a point where I felt it was time to be honest, both with myself and others. My therapist was one of those people I copped to, and she helped me get on the road to recovery. It took time and I still need to be mindful when I get full and my mind starts to switch to auto-pilot. But I have to say, it’s nice to not be a trickster.
Johnny Lee Mitchell lives in Grey County, Ont.