My secret life with Bulimia, was just that, secret. I could now carry on with life on the outside looking quite normal. I maintained a healthy weight, was socially active, and did well in school. My parents were elated. Elated and Oblivious!
Keeping it secret was pretty much a full time job because as my disorder progressed, I could have episodes of it once, twice, or sometimes three times a day. I had to binge in secret and I had to purge in secret.
The next part of the story is the hardest to tell (at least one of the hardest).
I started stealing money from my parents to buy some of the food I ate. They always had cash handy because they owned their own business and took money from the till home. Also, I had to find places to purge. Sometimes I went out into the woods next to our house, sometimes I drove to woods, but if I could not get out of the house, I had to find ways to do it in my home without anyone knowing. Many times I did it in the shower while the water was running. Many times I purged in my room in a container. This is how my parents finally found out what I was doing. They found that container before I could flush the contents.
Once again, bulimia is not a known term in 1977. My parents can not figure me out. First they think that maybe I’m having trouble with alcohol and got sick. But self-induced vomiting? They had never heard of such a thing. Their response? Anger.
This was how my teenage bulimia looked like. Unfortunatly, it did not end there.