The Big Fat Bulimia Blog

About Mr. Tong

2011-01-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

Today I did something I wasn’t proud of. I had a knee-jerk reaction and acted out of self righteous anger that I quickly regretted. I signed a petition to have @mrkennethtong removed from Twitter.

You might be thinking, “Ummm, ok where’s the problem here?”. He does stand for everything that I stand against. Dangerously promoting anorexia as a way of life is something that makes my insides crawl. The backlash against him has been understandably severe. People have been writing essays, tweets and petitions denouncing Mr. Tong, and plenty of them have crossed the line from simply stating a contrary opinion, to being mean and hateful. I had an eating disorder, and some of the comments that Mr. Tong has made make my blood boil (and I part of me still cannot believe I am even defending him in the slightest), but there are a few reasons why I think that fellow tweeps should think before they rip Mr. Tong a new one:

It’s freedom of speech, baby. And before you start sending ME nasty comments, let me clarify: I realize that freedom of speech does not extend to Twitter (e.g. the Twitter brass can pull the plug whenever they choose, and in @mrkennethtong ‘s case that might not be such a bad idea). Basically my point is that we are free to have our own opinions (as dangerous and f**ked up as they may be). I realize that I say things on Twitter that other people may find offensive (my frequent use of the F-word for example), but they are just as free to unfollow me and never let our Twitter paths cross again. I find this my most tenuous argument, by the way, as my offensive speech does not incite unsafe acts. (So basically don’t send me nasty emails on this point!!!)
Mr. Tong has a problem. I didn’t have to read a single one of his tweets to know that. In his profile he states the he is, “Proudly supporting controlled anorexia”. There is no such thing as controlled anorexia. I would believe you more if you told me that the Toothfairy and Santa Claus had set up shop in the back of my local Wal Mart. But that’s the beauty, and curse, of having an eating disorder. It’s always “under our control”. Ask us to stop and we’ll tell you we could if we wanted to, we just don’t feel like it right now. We go along damaging our bodies beyond belief thinking that I’m in charge, I’m in control of all of this, nothing can go wrong as long as I don’t let go of my rigid grasp of this one aspect of my life. But then food becomes an all consuming focus; avoiding it, counting it, purging it; and that is something we cannot control. Then we have a mental illness. Hear that tweeples? A MENTAL ILLNESS…something that we cannot control. Granted most of us don’t go around preaching our disease; trying to get others to join us at our temple of sick, but that does not change the fact that what Mr. Tong really needs isn’t hateful Twitter posts, but a nice long stay in a treatment facility. The fact that he says that he “proudly” advocates anorexia just shows how deeply he is consumed by his disorder. A person suffering with an eating disorder should never feel ashamed, but they should never feel proud about being sick either. Mr. Tong’s tweets are the product of somebody who needs help, and clearly is suffering from some sort of pain. I do not know Mr. Tong (and quite frankly I do not care to) so I do not know what happened in his life to make him feel such a sense of not being good enough the way he is. Everybody deserves to feel like they are worthy of UNCONDITIONAL love, and I have no idea as to how Mr. Tong was so damaged as to not believe he too has this right; not just when he is skinny. When viewed in this context, his comments start becoming less offensive and more sick-sounding, and almost sad.
Perhaps the most upsetting part of this whole mess is that banning Mr. Tong from Twitter will not magically cure his nearly 19,000 followers (not a typo - depressing, huh?). The sad fact is that thinspo is everywhere online; even on Twitter. If Mr. Tong was to be removed his followers would get their encouragement from somebody else. Eating disorders are an unfortunate and f**ked up part of our world; eliminating one man from one website wont change that. I believe that one positive voice in the midst of a sea of thinspo can do wonders for starting others on a path to recovery, much more so than attempting the impossible task of trying to eliminate all of the negative influences present around us. That’s why I tweet, and I blog, and even on days when I feel like this positivity stuff is bullsh*t; I do it anyways, because you never know when a little light a the end of the tunnel might be all that one person needs to get them moving in the right direction.

Much love and health,

Melly

I HATE New Years Resolution Ads!!

2010-12-31T00:30:00.000-08:00

Last day of the decade. Woot...not so much. All of the weight loss commercials are kicking in to high gear; not really something I'm looking forward to being bombarded with for the next two months. Normally advertisements for weight loss products are not big triggers for me (I find negative talk about others, or a person's own body much more troubling), however the sheer number of the ads is what slowly wears at my healthy mindset. I'm gaining right now. I'm working on accepting it. But every time I see a commercial or a print ad for some weight loss quick fix, that nasty little disordered thought starts to worm it's way into my brain. "Well perhaps just this once," it reasons; "We can do it 'right' the first time and then we'll never have to worry about going on a diet again.", "Just think about how much more comfortable you'd feel in jeans that we just one size smaller."; "We just need to lose a little weight; no need to worry about going overboard."; "You don't want to feel the way you did when you graduated high school, right? I thought you promised that we would never get back to that weight. Let me help you keep that promise."; "It's FDA approved; you can't tell me that it's bad for us."; or my all time favorite: "We did this whole weight loss program thing before...and look how successful we were! We lost so much weight together." That last statement is laughable, but it lets me know when it's my eating disorder talking not me. I did lose a lot of weight on a diet program once; I lost a lot of other things too. A couple pant sizes (that was nice), any sense of my own hunger and satiety cues (not so great), a healthy perspective on the importance of ones weight (gone), and an already shaky self esteem (vamoosed). I did gain one thing though; an eating disorder. I gained an eating disorder trying to fix something that was never really broken to begin with. I still am struggling to undo the damage that my diet mentality wrecked on my life. I work every day now to accept myself lovingly for who I am now; not the person I will be 10 pounds lighter. When the those New Years Resolution commercials get that diet beast stirring in my brain; I breathe, and I remind myself: "Nothing to fix." This year I resolve to accept that a larger waistline does not mean that I am any less lovable or worthy of a human being....so shove it diet ads.

formspring.me

2010-12-25T01:01:00.001-08:00

Ask me anything, I can give info for those suffering with an eating disorder http://formspring.me/notapricklypear

Why Eating Disorders Are So Damn Easy (Kinda..)

2010-11-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

(Note to all you anal-retentives out there: I realize that the view of eating disorders as an “addiction” is still up for debate. I just couldn’t think of another suitable word. So sue me, it’s late and I’m not feeling that creative. Save the emails, or don’t, I am running low on toilet paper.)

This is the addiction that should have parents quaking in their boots: EATING DISORDERS; the “hidden” disease. What would most parents of teenagers notice more; food missing in the pantry, or alcohol missing from the liquor cabinet? Most would quickly answer the latter. Some of that is simply due to media attention. It seems that every other Dr. Phil episode/news cast/Dateline special is featuring teens sinking to new depths of alcohol or drug depravity, but little attention is paid to their ugly stepsister, the “ED’s”. And the attention that is paid is often highly dramatized. People with ED’s are depicted as emaciated skeletons. The truth is that not all of us look like war victims. We are your sisters, daughters, mothers, and sometimes brothers/sons. In many ways ED’s are the safest addictions around. There is no need to break the law; like with drug addictions or to go and purchase alcohol; read drunk driving, underage drinking and a plethora of other problems. No, with an ED even your parents can be your “drug” suppliers. You can “use” in public. Hell, you can “use” in front of your grandma, and if you are good, nobody will be the wiser. Try doing that with heroin. (You won’t be invited to many more holiday dinners, that’s for sure.) Another way in which eating disorders are uniquely accessible (or hellish, depending on where a person is in recovery) is that our “drug” of choice is uniquely accessible. An average American eats three meals a day. For a person in recovery or trying to fight their ED that equals three opportunities to go completely off the wagon. Imagine giving an alcoholic a glass of booze three times a day, then telling them that they can only take a sip each time. Or giving a drug addict their drug of choice, but telling them to only use half. Complete “abstinence” from food is not possible (read: anorexia). Ours is a unique drug in that it is one that every healthy person on the planet also consumes, and if we want to be healthy, we must too. What makes ED’s so easy in the beginning of our disease is what makes them so hard to recover from: accessibility. So pay attention, if we seem a little off to you parents, maybe we are. Sorry Dr. Phil, but we don’t have to be teen crack ho’s to have a problem (but if you’re a twin teen crack ho now THAT’S good tv apparently). Remember ED’s might be “easy”, but they might not be so easy to see from the outside.

Angry Letter to Some Body-Judgers

2010-10-14T22:52:00.000-07:00

This a letter to my BF's body-judging-so-called-friend-assholes. Yes it is bitchy and angry but I love my BF too much to say it to anybody's face. Just a few notes:

A) Don't think when I see you snickering in the corner and then looking my way that I don't know that you are talking about me...what are you? 12 year old girls?

B) You are the fakest mother-fuckers that I've ever seen. Just because your sweet to my face you don't think I'll give a shit about the crap that you said behind my back about how I look in my bathing suit? (FYI that shit got spread around)

C) I know that I'm fucking hot, some of you do too, try growing a spine and not being your friend's little whipping boy all the time.

D) Don't be jealous that the BF doesn't want to spend as much time with you assholes anymore...Let's just say that I'm WAY more entertaining than you.

E) Stop dating the doormats that you call girlfriends and maybe you'll learn a thing or two about a real woman.

F) You assholes can't even imagine how good of a lay I am (and I know you imagine it dickwads).

G) So how long does it take for a woman to get un-satisfied with a man's bedroom performance? I'd say about 3 months based on y'alls dating history. (FYI that shit got around tooo....I think they have pills for that, in case you were interested...)

P.S. Your insecurity is showing...you might want to check that shit.

Just Another Reason Why Insurance Companies Totally Suck

2010-10-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

I was recently moved to tears by the story of the very inspiring Sofia Benbahmed. She was forced to leave treatment for her eating disorder after her insurance company refused to continue to cover her stay. For somebody who has not suffered from an eating disorder, it might seem that any stay in a treatment facility should be some help. People who have sat on the other side of the eating disorder fence know differently. When I read Sofia's updates I hear how badly she wants to get better, but there is so much to recovery besides a desire to succeed. Treatment is a place that not only physically prevents us from acting out on unhealthy thoughts, creating a new behavior pattern, but also teaches us new ways of coping with our emotions. We can do that first bit on our own, for a while at least. But as soon as those pesky emotions and stresses in our daily lives start creeping up on us, we slip back into our familiar, destructive coping mechanisms. The longer we have been depending on our eating disorder for support, the harder it is for us to support ourselves in other ways on our own. I liken it to a CD that is stuck on repeat (Yes, a "CD" I am an old fart). The longer we have been listening to the same song, the harder it is for us to listen to a different song. We need a helpful treatment specialist to keep pushing that "FORWARD" button until we are healthy enough to do it on our own. It might take us a while to realize that there are other ways of coping (or songs on the CD) that we can use but for most of us it takes a while before we can use them consistently.
I too had my share of insurance woes when I decided to go to treatment. Despite having what my boyfriend jokingly calls "insurance worth it's weight in gold", (both of my parents are government employees in California, you cannot get better coverage than I had) getting my health insurance company to pay up when I need inpatient treatment was a nightmare. Treatment is expensive; that's no joke. I stayed in treatment for two weeks. With the amount of forms that I had to fill out, you would have thought I was trying to go on a space shuttle trip to the moon. The first week of treatment was paid for without incident. It wasn't until I received a bill for almost four thousand dollars a month later that I realized that my insurance had not covered my second week of treatment. When I called the company to question why they had not paid the bill yet, I was met with almost open hostility from a very rude customer service representative. He demanded to know "exactly what I was being treated for" and kept grumbling something "pre-authorization". At that point I refused to talk to him anymore and requested a supervisor. It might sound like a perfectly normal response, but it was an I'm-gonna-stand-up-for-myself-and-not-take-anymore-BS-from-you reaction that I never would have considered before I went to treatment. Without even knowing it, my insurance company's employee was giving me one of my first examples in why treatment was so vital in teaching me how to respect myself, not just stop purging.
Eventually my insurance company ponied up the cash, but the stress of being constantly reminded about treatment when I was doing my best to move on with my life was not particularly helpful. So in case you insurance peeps are out there, here's a clue: Finding the desire to get healthy should be the most difficult part of eating disorder recovery, not finding the access to help.

♥ Donate and help get Sofia back into treatment at: http://www.giveforward.org/sofias-eating-disorder-treatment-fund ♥

Be Positive!

2010-10-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes being positive can be hard. I love this video of a little girl giving herself a pep talk in the mirror. Check it out and just try not to smile :)

Talking Back to a Binge

2010-09-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Dear Binge Voice,

I know that you feel like being especially vocal today. I might have listened to you in the past, but you've been in charge for the last 4 years; it's my turn now. I recognize that when I first got out of treatment my way of dealing with you was by simply ignoring you. I realize now that you took care of me in the only way you knew how at the time. It wasn't healthy and I have much better ways of coping now. I know that these new strategies may be hard for you to accept at first; they were for me too. I trusted you to handle my emotions for years, it's time for you to trust me. In return I promise to listen when you speak. I accept that you are a part of me. The part that lets me know when I am stressed, when I have too much going on, when I'm not expressing myself enough. You mean well, but your "fixes" are not helpful anymore. You don't have to believe me right now; I know eventually you will come around and see that our new way of dealing with issues is better for both of us.

Love Always,

Melly

Seven Signs That Your Diet Might Not Be Healthy

2010-09-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to an old article in SHAPE magazine discussing how you can tell if your diet is healthy: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0846/is_1_22/ai_90528566/?tag=content;col1 I am not a fan of this particular magazine, but think that this article is very helpful in determining if your eating is nutritionally sound. I don't believe in diets. I think that they promote unhealthy eating and elevated food to a status that it really has no business being in (it's just fuel, nothing more, nothing less). None the less, I do believe that even a person who is eating "intuitively" needs to evaluate their food intake from time to time to make sure that all of their needs are being met. This checklist is very useful for evaluating symptoms that one might not normally associate with not eating the right amount or the right kinds of foods. Enjoy!

Love Your Tongue, Don't Destroy It!!

2010-09-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

The latest accessory in extreme dieting: a steel mesh implant for your tongue? A surgeon will implant the device in the tongue making it physically painful for a person to eat solid food. Um, gross. It begs the question; when does dieting turn into an eating disorder? I've done some pretty self-destructive things in my life, but even on my worst day would not have considered this procedure. The fact that medical doctors are performing this operation that basically amounts to forced anorexia quite frankly pisses me off. Check out the article: http://www.allure.com/beauty/blogs/reporter/2009/09/the-new-extreme-diet-1.html

Relapse...or Just a Bump in the Recovery Road

2010-09-27T01:17:00.000-07:00

I purged. AGAIN. I'm so tired of being in this in between state of kinda-recovered, kinda-still-fucked-up. After I got out of treatment, I went over a year without purging. I was rocking the intuitive eating thing and thought I was "recovered". Then the binging started happening. I was expecting that frankly. I've been overeating/binging my whole life, so I wasn't expecting 2 weeks of treatment to cure a lifetime's worth of food issues. But then the binging started happening more and more often. And then, about 6 months ago, I purged. I was really shaken up. I hate bulimia and the idea of relapse scared the crap out of me. I didn't purge for about three months. Now I've been binging and purging about once a week.
I really don't want to be bulimic again. I nearly lost everything; my job, my school, my wonderful BF. I cannot go back there; I know that. What I don't know is how I'm going to get myself out of this rut. Tomorrow I sit and I read and I recover and I reflect. I'm going to be healthy, I owe myself that much.

Dieting makes you dumb...no, seriously...DUMB!

2010-09-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

A study in Australia shows that dieting can reduce you ability to think. Yet another reason to ditch the diet and eat like a normal human. Check it out: http://www.allure.com/magazine/2007/08/Dieters_Brain

(and kudos to Allure magazine for printing the study)

Even Allure Admits Counting Calories Doesn't Work (Don't Worry, They'll Still Give you Diet Advice Though...)

2010-09-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to an article in Allure magazine about how counting calories can negatively affect weight loss. Ummm...duh.
Food News: Calorie Freedom: allure.com

How "Losing it for Good"™ Almost Made Me Lose It

2010-09-23T19:20:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Hudson's Weight Watchers commercials make me want to throw up... literally. I used to be just like her, a true Weight Watchers' success story. I did weigh less than when I was in high school. The pounds just seemed to fall off, much to the chagrin of the women in my meetings who had been on program on and off for decades.
That should have been a clue right there. Weight Watchers constantly proclaims that it is the only program that works, it's not a diet, it's a "lifestyle". But if that were really the case, why are so many meetings filled with women who have been attending for years; some since before I was even born? In the first meeting I ever attended, the woman sitting next to me (in an almost proud way) told me that she had made it to Lifetime™ status five times in the past 15 years. I should have run screaming from the building when I heard that, but I didn't. I was so vulnerable and desperate at the time; I saw Weight Watchers as my only chance for losing weight and gaining back my self confidence.
For the first three months, I religiously followed program, and I lost weight. I was the poster child of Weight Watchers compliance. I could look at any food and tell the points™ value from memory. I had more bookmarks, stickers, and keychains than any person could want. Everything was great and then I hit, as a fellow Weight Watcher aptly put it, The Wall. The Wall is when you realize that you can't keep counting points for the rest of your life, that this supposedly simple formula to solve all of your weight problems isn't so simple after all, that your food problem maybe doesn't have all that much to do with food. I've never known anybody who hasn't hit The Wall at some point in their Weight Watchers career. We all handle it in different ways: some sit grumpily at meetings, pissed because they feel that are not losing weight; others fall off the bandwagon, then back on, and off again for decades; and some, the healthy ones, leave and don't let the door hit their ass on the way out. As for me I stayed, I purged, I lost.
Of course Weight Watchers does not condone purging. The problem is that they don't condone natural eating either. Every food and measure of success can be reduced to a number. Did you lose weight this week? Congratulations, you're a success! You ate more points than you were supposed to this week? Failure! For somebody like me, whose brain was already a little twisted when it came to food, Weight Watchers was a very nurturing place for disordered thoughts to grow. Now I had a secret solution for every time I ate a few too many points: just throw those dang points up. It was simple math really; points in, points out.
After two years I left Weight Watchers for good. I had lost almost 90 pounds. Success! Not really. I also left with a full blown eating disorder that to this day I still struggle with. I'm not trying to say that Weight Watchers causes eating disorders, not at all. I do however think that it does not promote healthy long-term eating, or positive body image by focusing solely on the "numbers game". I don't believe in dieting anymore. After I left treatment for bulimia in 2009, I vowed to normalize my food through intuitive eating. It's a hard thing to do though, when you still know the point value of practically every food that you eat. There a days when I still catch myself trying to guess how many points™ I've had, instead of listening to my body's hunger/fullness cues. I hope that someday Weight Watchers will change their program; teach people to eat based on internal signals, not point values; teach people to love their bodies as they are now, not how they will be. I can't make them change, and based on the amount of advertising they are doing lately, it doesn't seem like they are hurting for business. I do know though, that I would gladly pay my two years of membership fees all over again if I could only get their propaganda out of my head.

I Believe in Fat Bulimics (WARNING: May be triggering)

2010-09-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

I'm a former fat bulimic. I know what you are probably thinking; yeah "fat", like how a 90-pound chick bitches about her "thunder thighs". No, I was genuine, Grade-A overweight. By the time I graduated high school I weighed over 270 pounds and had just begun purging daily. As I began purging more, sure I lost some weight, but at my lowest eating-disorder-low I still weighed 185 pounds. I was hardly the picture of skin and bones that most people associate with eating disorders. If you could take a picture of my insides, however, I would've mirrored any other bulimic. My heart would constantly race and skip beats; I had frequent headaches and nosebleeds as well as swollen glands. My hair was falling out, I was constipated, and had even had to be given IV fluids because a 4-day long purging incident had left me so dehydrated that I was passing out. The point that I want to make is that physical size has little to do with physical sickness - a message that even many people in the "eating disorder field" seem to miss.
I went to residential treatment in the spring of 2009. While residential treatment is never a comfortable situation, I was painfully aware of the fact that at 213 pounds I weighed more than the other three girls in group therapy combined. The general attitude of the staff was that my problem was simply with eating - not purging. I was put on an eating plan that resulted in me losing over 10 pounds in one week. The dietitian might have been happy, but I was not. The center director lauded my "progress" and I began to withdraw more and more from therapy.
The rapid change in my body and strict eating plan had left me feeling massively triggered. While I found the other girls (and two therapists) amazingly supportive, I left treatment two weeks early. The upside is that I found an amazing therapist who didn't raise her eyebrows, even a little, when I informed her that I had an eating disorder. I'm in recovery now, and I avoid scales like the plague. I have no idea if I'm "fat" anymore, and frankly I don't care. The problem I do have is with people who judge based on how a person looks, especially those who are here to help people with eating disorders. I was fat, I did have an eating disorder, and I did need help. If you suspect that someone you know has an eating disorder, don't let their weight be a determining factor in when you take action - there is much more to an eating disorder than meets the eye.

Ice Cream is the Enemy

2010-09-21T22:55:00.000-07:00

I'm intimately acquainted with ice cream. More than most people anyway. The way it slides down my throat, leaving its creamy residue on the back of my throat. Grainy texture coats the roof of my mouth as I frantically shovel more of the dessert down my throat. Most people view ice cream as sweet treat, a delicious end to any dinner. Not me. Ice cream is a tool, and sometimes a necessity. I don't even like the taste of ice cream anymore. And on the rare occasion that I keep it down it makes me bloat and fart uncontrollably. It's not exactly a pleasurable dining experience. So why eat it one might ask? Because the eating isn't how I 'enjoy' my ice cream. When ice cream hits my stomach it surrounds my previous food sins in a creamy, rich envelope of forgiveness. Each morsel slides back up my throat with ease. The normally acidic taste of a purge is replaced by the faintly sweet aftermath of ice cream-flavored puke. The normal scratching irritation of food that was only meant to be swallowed once is gone, traded for a slow, almost pleasant burn. But even ice cream can't stop the after effects. The guilt that starts to bubble up the second that my fingers leave my mouth. The wave of disgust that washes over me as I hit my knees for the umpteenth time to clean up after another binge episode. The frustration that my life is like a CD stuck on repeat and the only song that is on is "Bulimia". Ice cream can make the act easier, but I know now that it won't make my life easier. Ice cream can be my enabler but it will never be my cure.