The Battle with Food and Control
In high school, I tried to control myself like the anorexics I knew. But I always gave in.
After days—or even a week—of being “good,” I’d break. I’d eat cake that I had to put in the freezer so I wouldn’t eat it or down pounds of peanut butter cups until I was numb and furious with myself all over again.
I envied the magic of bulimia: eat, eat, eat—then erase it. Instead, I’d punish myself by waking up at 5 AM to stair-master for an hour. But that was getting harder.
One summer, I discovered Ipecac. I learned in health class that if you drink poison, you should take Ipecac to throw it up. So, at 15, I rode my bike to the drugstore, bought a tiny bottle of it, and a gallon of ice cream.
I figured for my first time, I should throw up something soft—like ice cream. Not steak or Chex Mix.
I ate a whole bunch. Took the recommended dose. Waited ten minutes. Nothing. So I took a little more.
And then, something beyond description happened.
Throwing up is awful, but this was different. If regular vomiting is like putting a car in reverse, this was like slamming it into reverse at 100 miles an hour.
I threw up for hours. My body turned into a fire hose, tossing me around like a doll. It was gross. It was painful. And once it was over, I cleaned up for hours.
Then, I did it again.
You’d think the horror of it would stop me. That I’d see the sickness in my ways. But no. I did it a few more times. Each time, it felt like a cosmic battle—as if I might vomit out my soul. But I also felt powerful.
After a while, though, I got scared and returned to “tamer” methods: eating only at night, living on fat-free Cool Whip and mandarin orange Diet Rite.
It never occurred to me that I could live in my body without shame and abuse.
It felt like my responsibility to punish it. If I let up, I believed my body would expand like rising dough—spilling over, uncontrollable.
The Moment I Found Peace
What I wanted more than anything was to not have a body.
For years, my body had betrayed me by being fat. I hated it with the venom you reserve for someone who was supposed to be on your side—but wasn’t.
I saw myself as a good product in bad packaging—misrepresented.
Then, after two decades of frustration and shame, something changed.
Slowly—through small and large miracles—I stopped hating my body. I even started treating it like a friend.
