Bulimia

Bulemia tends to be more attention-driven than anorexia. From your description, and the way she has been open to answering your questions, it sounds to me like what she really needed was your attention, and as long as she gets it, she probably won't purge.

But I also think you should take her off the meds. She doesn't need them and they're going to f*** her up in the long term. Just figure out what need it is that she has that you guys were fulfilling and take that approach to solving the problem.

The counseling is very important and you and your wife should be getting counseling too. I'm not sure if maybe having all three of you together would also be good or not, but something to consider. There needs to be a goal weight and getting to and maintaining that, I would think.

I don't know much about parenting, because I have never been a parent before, but I do know about the pressures of competition, depression and body image. I have been bulimic before, about 14 years ago, and it's not something that's any fun at all.

The only thing that I can add, Mr. Paul, is that I wish that my parents had spent more time with me during this problem period in my life.

Jason Mayeroff

The most important thing to watch for is binging, not regular eating. I had a good friend in college who would actually organize little "pig out " parties with the idea that you could just puke afterwards. It was a temporary thing, because once word got around she stopped. that was many years before bulimia was really on the radar (late 70's), but many of the women on my team (and even many not competing)had eating issues at one time or another, myself included.. I think bulimia is much easier to overcome than anorexia...make sure she knows the potential harm she can be doing to herself. Your daughter needs to take responsibility for healthy eating habits. You can't force it on her, otherwise you can get into an anorexia situation where it becomes something of a power struggle.. Keep up the positive reinforcements, be vigilant, but not controlling. If it sounds like you are on a tightrope, yes, you are. If it is any help, I set more PR's at 108 than I did at 98.

and a note to Jason, Sweetie, here's a big hug for you! i think eating disorders in young guys are unfortunately , the next frontier. I have seen signs of it in a couple of my kids over the years and it worries me that it might be something that a lot of coaches overlook in guys.

I really appreciate the advice!

-- Paul

My wife was treated for anorexia when she was 12-13. She has suffered from eating related issues off-and-on ever since. She is now in her mid/late 30s. Not surprisingly, she also suffers from depression. Her eating related issues with ebb and flow depending on how other aspects of her life are going. Last year I walked in on her throwing up in the shower. We have been married for over 13 years and this was the first time I was aware that bulimia had been an issue for her. She confided that it had gotten worse right before I caught her in the act.

Although she had been going to counseling for her depression, we both started going to couples counseling to help us both deal with the issue. For me, it was an issue of trust. I felt hurt that she could not confide in me that this was a problem for so long. For her, it was an issue of control and dealing with low self-esteem.

I feel that dealing with the underlying issues through counseling and medication (if prescribed by her doctor/counselor) are key. When you stated that you would watch her eat and then make sure she did not leave for 30-45 minutes, it reminded me of what my wife said her parents (and grandparents) used to do. For her, I think this just made things worse, because it was no longer her in control. Meals became an issue. They were no longer family time, but a "let's all watch Suzy eat her dinner" event. I think it certainly increases the anxiety for everyone.

I am not a counselor, so I do not know if this is standard recommended therapy or not. At the same time, I know personally that the personal trust issue makes it hard not to psycho-analyze every action that my wife makes regarding food choices. I see her eating disorder in so many things from the way she eats her food, to the types of food she buys, to the anxiety caused when we enter a fast food restaurant.

I don't know what the secret to beating this is. My wife continues to battle. I know that I must be supportive, which is not always easy. I want to do everything I can to protect her, but often, what I really need to do is just back away and let her know that I love her.

Good luck. The journey is not always an easy one, but hopefully your daughter can quickly move beyond this and put it behind her.

while it is important to make sure your daughter is eating, you do need to make sure not to be overbearing while watching over her. make family time after dinner....maybe a movie, go out for ice cream, go mini golfing, something, anything to distract her from trying to throw up. hope all ends well for your family, and i wish you and your daughter the best of luck

i have never been bulimic, but was severly anorexic before I started to run. I was depressed and it was much more complicated than thinking i was too fat. it was more of a control thing that went out of control and turned into a disease. It is very hard for the people to understand what its like unless you get into it yourself. It becomes this sort of self satisfaction even though you know its horrible for you.

What helped me to overcome this was turning to sport, and how i used all that energy of my disorder into my passion to run. I've been running 7 years now, put on over 40 pounds (still am considered very thin but healthy) and continue to get faster each year, with my goal being in the olympic trials (which i have the b standard for my event).

I would encourage the wife to look at something else such as running to change her way of life.. and to the original person asking the question - look for some serious counseling. What originally really got me to change and snap into reality was when my parents threw me in the mental hospital. Its a serious thing and if you can stop it sooner - the better! Good luck.

You have received some excellent feedback and advice here. I agree with those who have suggested counseling for all of you as an attempt to help work through some of the more complicated issues underlying the bulemia. At the same time, I think that continuing to provide her with positive support will make a huge difference. I do think it is possible for her to just quit after someone has brought the problem out into the open.

I was pretty seriously anorexic early in my high school life. (I'm now nearly 40 and though I do not ever let it affect my eating habits to a dangerous degree, I cannot shake the mindset.) I won't go into the whys, etc. I'll just say that when my parents finally took me to a ob-gyn (I'd lost my period) and she told me that I had two choices - gain weight or go to the hospital for treatment - that was all it took for me to change my habits. I think that in my case, and it sounds like this might be true for your daughter as well, I didn't enjoy the anorexia and knew that it was bad for me. At the same time, I couldn't seem to give it up without someone other than my parents telling me that I was doing serious damage and it had to stop. It's as if that was the excuse I needed to eat again. I think I have always been very self-conscious about eating and don't want people to think I'm a pig. But once a physician had ordered me to eat, I could tell people that was why I was stuffing my face.

I share that snippet just in case it helps. In general, I'd say that you are all headed in the right direction. Just keep providing her with support, information, encouragement, etc., without making her feel as though her every move is being scrutinized. I'd also say that as someone who still struggles with these issues at times, it is important to acknowledge that she may (will) still feel fat or ugly or whatever at times and that she needs to be able to voice those feelings without fear that it will send you into a panic. My husband knows about my one-time ED and if I even mention wanting to moderate my eating (like when I am injured), he tends to be very pedantic and dismissive, which does not help how I feel.

Hope this is of some use.

You are giving her such a low dose of Zoloft, not to worry. The body metabolizes it very quickly so it does not stay in the system and will not cause future harm. Do not take her off the meds without medical supervision.

I'd agree with the sentiment above that the thing to watch out for is signs of binging. I was bulimic in high school (and I'll be honest, it's been 10 years and it never totally goes away, but it's under control and I know triggers and such). Bulimia is all about control, and the fact that you're putting together a reasonable amount of food for her for each meal is allowing her to feel in control. The danger is, however, that it's not HER exerting control over her eating right now, it's you. So I'd say the critical time is when you back off a little from the tight monitoring and she has to start making food choices on her own. That's when there's potential to get "out of control" again and enter a binge-purge cycle.

And FYI-- to "binge" is a relative thing for each person. I was never a binger as it's often portrayed. I didn't consume thousands of calories at a sitting. My "binges" were merely larger meals than ordinary. This departure from what I was comfortable with wouldn't raise any eyebrows with people eating with me, but were enough over normal that I felt "out of control" and needed to purge.

And yes, it is possible that she just decided to stop purging. It's not a pleasant sensation. No one likes to do it. It's absolutely miserable, but feels necessary in some sense. So if she's feeling in control of her eating, it's totally normal that she'd be fine not throwing up. Every time I've stopped the bulimic behavior (and when I stop, I'm usually good for at least a couple years), it's been a conscious decision to just STOP. It's only when other things in my life seemed out of control that it gradually came back.

sorry for the novel. Good luck....your daughter is terribly lucky to have such an involved, caring, and helpful father.

I sure would love for my daughter to see that last line.

You guys and gals have all been wonderful.

Thanks!

While your daughter may appear to be on the road to recovery, she is not out of the woods yet. I would be on the look out for other types of purging behaviors (such as exercise). I was on the road to developing full-blown anorexia my freshman year of college before I transferred to another school. Even though my weight stabilized to a low-normal level at this new school, I engaged in compulsive exercise for the remainder of my college career. I was extremely secretive about this, but I think that a few people probably suspected it. My goal in college was to always keep my weight below 110 pounds. When the team physician told me that my ideal weight range was 110-115 pounds, I thought he was crazy. Because of my disordered eating and compulsive exercise, I was always injured and fatigued. I ran like crap in races. In summary, I had fallen far from where I was in high school. Since graduating from college, I have pursued other interests besides running (like becoming a physician), and my desire to engage in compulsive exercise has diminished. I no longer run to burn calories, I do so because of the endorphin rush. I completed my first marathon this past February in 2:56 and was awarded 1000 dollars. My weight a day after that race: 115 pounds Granted, I will never be a Shalane Flanagan or a Deena Kastor, that race was an eye-opening experience for me. Once I stopped fixating on numbers (and just put in the work), my performances took care of themselves. I notice that a lot of the women on here are afraid to list their weight as more than 110 pounds. Well, I'm proud to say that I currently weigh 113 pounds at 5'4. This gives me a BMI of 19, which is normal. Distance runners need to get out of the mindset that they must be in the underweight category in order to be at race-weight. Enough of my rant.

i don't have any experience with this and maybe it's too rational a question for an irrational disease. but how would she respond if you asked what her goals are with the bulimia? are bulimics and anorexias able to really look at the end result of what they are trying to acheive with their behavior?

This is an excellent question. I would say for my daughter, and I would guess many people with bulimia, they want to get ride of the full feeling they have and to purge gives them a sense of relief, yet in many cases, a great about of guilt as well.

Last Post Ever on this Site:

My Dick is Bulimic all over Malmo's face.

Thank you.

-Traxor