I’m having an astoundingly hard time stomaching what I have become over time. I’ve never admitted this to anyone… and honestly I feel raw and vulnerable doing this so please no tough love. I have struggled with bulimia since I was 16 and alcoholism since about age 22. I look in the mirror and study myself, and I see the proof of what this has done to me. The enamel on my front teeth thinning, dry skin and occasional acne around the jaw, tired and hopeless looking eyes. My body no longer responds the same to what I’ve done to stave off the weight gain. It worked when I was younger of course, and I received the world because of it. My peers found me more attractive (those that wouldn’t have otherwise looked my way at all), I felt more comfort in my body and didn’t mind my appearance. For someone whose always struggled with insecurity and self esteem, this blurred my sense of reason.
Now as an adult, I’ve gained weight back and found myself collapsing under the stress of that and my job. I was doing okay (hadn’t drank for about six days, and started working to intentionally get away from it again) but ended up drinking and purging. I find myself in this trap of using one or the other for weight and stress management when in my head I know it’s not sustainable.
Is there anyone who has seen a professional about this and can offer some tactics or advice?
I badly want to get this off my chest but I don’t feel that I can discuss it with any friends or family. As it is, these addictions make me feel like a freak. So I sit and quietly struggle alone.
I feel desperate but have not yet found a therapist that has been a good fit for myself or my chaotic work schedule. I will take whatever helpful advice I can get. Thank you for reading and sorry about the long winded post.
Hi Amanda! I’m so sorry you are going thru this. I don’t have experience with eating disorders, but have been to rehab for alcoholism. There were also ladies struggling with Alcohol as well as an ED. You really do need to get help. That combination is so rough to deal with successfully without a lot of professional support. I would seek treatment if possible because you are absolutely worth it.
Hello, I’m sorry you’re going through so much internal struggle, I know it’s overwhelming.
There is hope and recovery with eating disorders… it just takes some time but you’re doing the right thing, you’re admitting you have a problem and now you can take baby steps to get better.
I’m sure talk therapy is a very good addition to your recovery and you should look into it! I haven’t done therapy before for an eating disorder, but I’ve had an ED in the past…I will recommend either deactivating all your social media or at least unfollowing any “perfect” accounts. I unfollowed every person that felt like a trigger to me. Everything is heavily filtered and edited, the ‘standards’ for those accounts are unachievable. I started following women with all body types, yes thin women as well, but women that I felt showed a more real side to themselves. There’s also a handful of IG accounts I follow that focus solely on recovering from eating disorders. They give a lot of tips and insight into how to over come this disorder…
I also read a lot of self help books. Creating positive thoughts as a habit vs negative thoughts is work. But the more you practice it, the less shitty you’ll feel and the less focused you’ll be about every detail of your appearance.
Congrats on your sobriety and I really hope you continue in your recovery, you are worth it.
Hi Amanda just wanted to say hi from a fellow young woman with body issues, disodered eating (did binge and purge some when I was younger) and alcoholism. What you’re doing is good, to reach out here and look into therapy! Definitely go with that. It’ll take a lot of work to get to the bottom of the ED, that kinda shit sits deep and you are giving yourself the best chances with a professional! My personal experience. Make this happen if possible in any way at all. Even if it means working less for a while. (Of course, I don’t know your circumstances.)
Pay attention to your emotions, and put a lot of work into your sobriety in the meantime before you find “your” therapist. Sobriety is the absolute baseline requirement to get better with the ED aswell and in therapy.
Show up a lot here and potentially hit some AA meetings.
Hope to read more from you! Glad you are back! 
Also: you’re not a freak, girl! No way!
I second to all the things that were said above. It was fairly easy to get rid of alcohol in my equation but now that I am stable with this I feel that my Ed and problematic view on my body is coming back or tries to. I have diabetes and not thinking about what I eat is impossible.
As @Faugxh said ED is omnipresent and hard to tackle but I won’t give up. It is worth the journey 
ED and alcoholism can be entwined for many. I binge ate and binge drank, while also abusing laxatives, then starved to get more drunk, and used the hangover to purge. You are not alone. I used aa to get the drinking under control, but for a while just binge ate. Finally, after several months and I’m sure helped by my step work, I am tackling the eating. In terms of eating, focusing holistically on health, eating fruits and veg, exercising, and not on numbers helped me stabilize eating habits.
Sadly my work is not particularly flexible. My days range from 5-7 days a week, with hours varied between 8-12. I also commute each day a total of about 3 hours and 20 minutes. But I’m still on the look out and am checking once more to see what options I have for professional help
I see a lot that those two go hand in hand for the people experiencing ED. Thank you though for the words of encouragement. I am going to keep trying and pressing onward to find the right help.
Hi, thank you for what you had to say. It’s given me a lot to think about. I’ve been online the last two days looking into using phone therapy since I’m having difficulties finding time for visits
Social media hasn’t actually been a trigger source for me surprisingly. I admire other people, but what seems to set me off is what I expect of myself. The problem is that I know how to be healthy, but these impulses run rampant and then all before I know it, I feel like I’m on auto pilot and something else is running the show. Once it’s all done with, all that’s left is the remorse because the logical side of my brain knows better than this. But either way, again thank you. I know this is just a grouping of strangers on the internet but when there’s no one close in my life to talk to about it, this kind of thing is meaningful.
Hello! I wasn’t notified of your response, I’m so sorry for the delay.
From what you described we sound very similar in our thinking. Maybe the trigger isn’t the same however. It’s weird for me, I never linked social media with inflaming my insecurities either because I don’t see other people’s bodies or lives and feel bitter or jealous. So the connection was greatly lost. But I do feel subconsciously I was comparing myself and would think “I’m not living up to my potential”, “I’m so lazy, I’m not outgoing enough, I don’t have a bubbly personality” “if I could just look a certain way, life would be easier, and I would find someone who really loves me for me”. For me it’s not exactly just the looks of other people that I think triggers me to have those self depreciating thoughts, it’s the perfect stories I subconsciously give other people. And that’s really when I create an unhealthy mindset.
Your job definitely might be something that is making you feel overwhelmed or out of control, which could trigger your desire to over eat and get an extra large dose of dopamine that is released when we binge… there’s a lot of science behind it… I’ll try to find some helpful bits of information from the accounts I follow and post them here.
