If you didn't read Part 1, it's right here....
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In one way, moving to Toronto was the worst thing for me and in a whole other way, it was the very best thing that could have ever possibly happened because it brought on the worst of my eating disorder and then introduced me to my husband.
I moved to Toronto because I was in a relationship and his company had transferred him here. We had been dating for three years so I took the plunge even though I had doubts. I felt it was the next grown-up move to make, whether it was right or not was inconsequential, in my head there was no choice – this is what you do when you’re in a committed relationship – you move forward.
So I moved and found myself in Toronto with no job, no friends and in a relationship I was doubting would last.
Welcome to the point that bulimia and anorexia really started to take hold. Because what does one do when their life is spiralling and they feel they have no control? For me, I took control of my eating and when I couldn’t control it, I ate and ate and ate, then vomited it all down the toilet. I also started in with large amounts of laxatives.
Let me just say this here and now. There is nothing glamourous about having an eating disorder. As I lost weight, my muscles atrophied, my knuckles were scarred from shoving them down my throat, my throat burned most of the time from the acid that was coming up from my stomach when I threw up, and I sometimes took so many laxatives I would be doubled over in pain from the cramps. There were times I didn’t make it to the washroom.
Shitting your pants is the polar opposite of glamourous. Taking so many laxatives that you've lost control of your bowels is you saying to yourself I've hit rock bottom and then deciding you want to continue going down.
And I did.
I started having panic attacks. The first time it happened, I thought I was dying. I was sitting on the couch watching t.v, my boyfriend at work and me home by myself (the whole no job, no friends thing) and out of nowhere, my heart started racing like I had just run a 100 m sprint full out. I broke out in a sweat and the feeling that I was going to die right then and there was overwhelming. Ironically, I had been eating at the time and thought maybe I was having an allergic reaction to something so I injected myself with an epi-pen and called an ambulance. And I’m just going to put it out there....what you don’t want to do when you’re in the midst of an adrenal filled (fight or flight) panic attack is inject yourself with adrenaline.
The ambulance came and took me to the hospital, but by the time I got there everything was back to normal so of course the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me. It was the first of hundreds of panic attacks I would have. The panic attacks took me to an even darker place - the thought of being alone made me fearful and stressed, which in turn brought on panic attacks and because I didn’t have a job yet, most of my time was spent alone. It was a vicious cycle, one I couldn’t get out of even when I finally became employed.
And through it all, the vomiting and shitting, the panic attacks, the specialists I went to see for my irregular heartbeats, the lies I told those doctors, I hid it all – lying to everyone, including the person I was living with. Nobody ever knew.
Finally a few months in, I became employed. It was at my new job I met my best friend and the man I would eventually marry.
Paul was the first one who noticed my weight. He was the first one to ever say to me, what the hell are you doing and he was the first one to ever call me on my bullshit, not taking my excuses for an answer. He totally pissed me off and he saved my life in the process.
I had been working at the company for a few months when Paul was hired. I remember him walking in and thinking to myself “Thank GAWD they hired somebody good looking (note: my husband is totally hot).
Paul and I hit it off from the beginning, he had a girlfriend and I was living with someone, but it didn’t stop us from developing a friendship. We would sometimes go for lunch and spent many an afternoon clogging up our work computer system with emails flying back and forth. It was courtship by email.
Summer approached and I went back to Winnipeg with my live-in to visit our families for a vacay. I came back 10 pounds lighter, my size 2 pants hanging off my frame.
My first day back at work, I made my way to the diet coke machine for my breakfast – at that point my diet consisted mostly of diet coke - and walked by Paul’s desk. He said hi, looked me up and down and was silent. By the time I got back to my desk, an email was waiting.
How much weight did you lose while you were away?
It was right there in black and white – someone had noticed.
Fuck.
Nothing really came of it, I gave him some bullshit I can’t remember. In the meantime, our friendship continued to grow and I knew I was missing something in my life. I ended the relationship I was in and moved out on my own.
Eventually Paul and I started dating and that was when the shit hit the fan. For the first time ever, I told someone about my eating disorder. What happened next was beyond the scope of what I could have ever imagined happening.
One day over lunch hour, instead of eating with me, he walked down the street to a local doctor went in and told him he was dating someone with an eating disorder and asked what he should do.
I know. The guy has balls – that’s why I married him. Blew me out of the water when I found out too.
The doctor’s response? The fact that you’re here and she isn’t should tell you everything you need. You should run, not walk, away from this relationship. Fortunately, Paul didn’t run in the opposite direction. What he did was call me on my crap. Then gave me an ultimatum. The eating disorder or him. He sat by me while I called my doctor, came with me to the appointment and walked into her office holding my hand while I told her I had an eating disorder.
Just like that I was on the waiting list for a reputable eating disorder clinic.
The details of what I went through in the eating disorder clinic aren’t important because everyone will have a different experience. I will say it was therapy combined with anti-depressants that helped me start to climb out of the dark hole I was in. And even though I was getting help, I was still having heart problems and panic attacks. It wasn’t an easy road, especially with Paul and I. He had taken away my crutch and I was angry.
I’ll be completely honest.....if I had known when I told him I had an eating disorder he would act on it, I wouldn’t have. Stuffing my feelings down with food and controlling what did or didn’t go in my body was my way of coping. He took that away from me. It wasn’t an easy time for us. The day he came in and took away my scale, I thought I might kill him. Or when he stood outside the bathroom door anytime I went to the washroom to make sure I wasn't vomiting? Same thing.
It might sound like he was controlling, but Paul is the least controlling person I know. Think about it for a second. I write about our lives on the internet and he has never....never....once told me what I should or shouldn’t write. He’s beyond supportive of everything I do...I’ve never been shy about saying it and I’ll say it here today, when we got married, I’m pretty sure I got the better end of the deal.
I know and understand it was me who did all the work – and I DID do it, proud of myself to the core for being able to get myself out of a very deep and dark place. But I’m a tough love sort of gal and I needed him to be tough on me. I never would have been able to do it on my own.
But I hated him for it at the same time.
I don’t know how to end this but to say I still struggle. When you have an addiction, I don’t think you ever get over it – you learn to deal, to cope and to live with it. But it’s never gone. I weigh myself every day and can guess my weight within .2 pounds. I still see myself as larger than I am. I’ll probably always be harder on me than anyone ever will be. I’m a perfectionist at heart and not being able to fulfill that leaves me with a hole.
If you’re reading this and have an eating disorder or are still feeling the effects of one you thought you left behind many years ago, you CAN do this. You can get help and stop hurting your body. Because make no doubt, having an eating disorder is slowly killing you. You’re committing suicide on the slow track.
And you’re worth more than that. Having gone through what I went through, I know that. The people in your life who love you know that.
Now you need to know that.
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These two blogs were a progression of 12 years. There's no way I could fit everything that happened to me into this small space. If you have any questions...any at all, please ask me in the comments below or if it's private, email me at [email protected] - I promise to answer to the best of my ability and with all my honesty."
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