This is not something many people know about, in fact I can count on one hand the number of people who knew about this before this blog.
By now you are probably wondering what “B” word I am going to talk about…
The “B” word I am talking about is Bulimia.
Bulimis is when, after eating, someone makes themselves throw up on purpose by sticking their finger down their throat until they throw up.
I have struggled with body image issues for a long time and am not proud to say that I have made myself throw up on numerous occasions to try and make myself feel better about eating way more than I should have. Once I stopped cutting I began to try and control the amount of food I ate as a way to have a sense of control in my life… but I always ended up bingeing on food, because lets face it I LOVE food, but I was still unhappy and feeling out of control, so I turned to self induced throwing up as a way to control something in my life. I used to make myself throw up on average of once a day for about a month last year, but eventually realized that it wasn’t a healthy thing to be doing and I stopped and thought all was good…
but this year has been a lot of stress with Student Teaching and my online coursework… and when I get stressed I want to control things in my life!
Thankfully I haven’t cut in almost 2 years, but recently I have been trying to control my eating habits by not eating a lot… and up until earlier the thought of making myself throw up hadn’t crossed my mind in a long time, but I found myself on the bathroom floor in front of the toilet making myself throw up.
As I am reading through a book called “Changes That Heal” by Dr Henry Cloud, I am beginning to realize that my need to control things comes from a lack of secure boundaries, not only with other but also boundaries with myself. When people fail to develop secure boundaries they can suffer from depression (I have), panic, passive-aggressive behavior, blaming (I used to blame others when things happened to me), eating disorders (I have, although they have never been officially diagnosed), procrastination (I feel like this should be my middle name). There are many things that can become a barrier to creating boundaries… Past Injury – physical or emotional; How we view ourselves – we might think that it is bad to have boundaries (LIE, boundaries are good!!), we might think what we want is not important (another LIE), I have to do what others want me to do (if you can’t say no, then you aren’t really saying yes); How we view others – people will hate me if I say no (if you can’t say no, then you aren’t really saying yes); How we view God -we think that God will give us everything we want (God may not give us everything, because he can see wether or not it will harm us.
Dr Henry Cloud offers some skills that are necessary for setting boundaries
- Gain Awareness – you need to become aware of your body, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, abilities, choices, wants, and limits
- Define who you are
- Define who you are NOT
- Learn to say “No” – so your yes can be a yes
- Stop placing blame where it doesn’t belong
- Persevere – learn to keep going when things get rough
- Set limits
- Be Honest – when you can be honest with yourself, you are able to begin the process of
I guess I ended up talking about boundaries anyways… funny how God does that.
Thanks for taking the time to read this… I know it was all over the place, but it;s how it came out.
Financial Update – I am currently 6% funded with $1,000 raised, but I need another $4,000 by May in order to be able to attend Training Camp and continue with launching with my Fam Bam for The World Race in August.
