From Ruin to Recovery – A Bulimia Story

Part One

By: Jean Johnson for Body1

“I remember when I was in third or forth grade riding my bike and a carload of boys came by and call me a fat, ugly pig,” said 51 year-old Alice Clark who today is a petite size six at a little over five feet with deep delphinium blue eyes. Clark is using an assumed name for this story.

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Facts about Bulimia The eating disorder bulimia nervosa is marked by bingeing and purging. Purging often takes the form of making oneself throw up, as in the case of Alice Clark, although some bulimics use laxatives. There are also bulimics who do extreme exercise after a binge episode in order to control their weight. Bulimics generally have chaotic lives over which they are trying to exert more control. Thus, empowerment issues generally figure prominently in the disease. Helplessness, stressful events, major life changes can all be precursors related to bulimia. People are more likely to develop bulimia if a mother or sister suffers from the problem. Bulimics are often depressed and tend to isolate themselves from others.

“I knew the boys were right on, and I remember distinctly getting off my bike and going up to my room and just crying and crying and crying. That was the start. I don’t think I was overly chubby and probably carried 20 to 25 more pounds than I do now, at least until high school when I really started doing the bulimia. My older sister was always real thin and I couldn’t wear her clothes – only my brother’s – it was pretty humiliating.”

Clark had some episodes of binging and self-induced vomiting as early as eighth grade she recalls. “There was this picture of me in this dress, and I remember hating myself. It was a plaid jumper dress with a little Peter Pan white collar, and I wore a blue headband to match and had one of those short haircuts,” Clark said. “I just remember how much I hated myself and my body. I must have been fat then – but I fixed all that. By the time I was a senior in high school I was skinny from taking tons of speed and drinking Tab and smoking Newport cigarettes.

“Yes, it was in high school that my disease really set in. I’ve had 15 years of recovery now, so counting back that means I was practicing bulimia for at least 20 years on and off. As I got older during the sixties I added in alcohol and drugs – cocaine, downers like Quaaludes – that kind of stuff – and oh, yeah – acid and pot.” Clearly Clark had a desire to create a different reality for herself. Still food – bingeing and purging – was always her drug of choice to which she returned time and again.

It’s a coolish summer evening in a Portland café. Clark’s shoulder-length brown hair picks up chestnut highlights from last long rays of the summer sun. The pair of moon and stars earrings she wears look like she purchased them first hand from the craftsman at an outdoor market, and to see her in her Bermuda hiking shorts you’d never suspect she had a body image problem, much less a food addiction.

“My mom said I used to go to the refrigerator when I was little and chew on a stick of butter. And there’s a picture of me eating a giant turkey leg when I was five or six. I used to eat the fat off the meat instead of the meat. I mean, that’s kind of bizarre!” said Clark. “I remember eating off plates, too. When I was 12 or 10, my friends and I got into all the alcohol and ate everything left on the plates from a party – the hors d’oeuvres, cheese and crackers, deviled eggs – not the celery, though. You wouldn’t want to waste your binge on celery.

“Also in grade school, I’d come home and do my homework and watch TV until dinner. That’s when I ate a lot of salty, chippy kind of things – it was probably a lonely time when mom didn’t need to see me,” Clark said. “Then I’d eat dinner and always wanted more – always wanting more. I must have thrown up every night after dinner by the end. I remember thinking I’m not going to do this again, and then there I’d be. It was a secret, though. I had to be by myself and never told any of my friends. Of course, I thought I was the only one who did it.

“And we always had packs of cereal that came in the mail, and I used to snarf those up as soon as they’d come. I remember seeing something on a movie on TV one day that triggered me to eat, and I started going through the kitchen cabinets and opening up all the doors in a panic over what I could have,” Clark recalled. “Mainly I used to go for the sugary cereals – Sugar Smacks, Frosted Flakes. Nothing good like Special K, and why waste your time on granola?”

“So it was tons and tons of cereal and ice cream to help me throw it back up. And tons of water – that’s why I couldn’t stand to drink water in my first three years of recovery.”

Continued in Part Two

Last updated: 16-Mar-06