Bulimia is a hell of a lot easier than anorexia. You get to be thin, and you get to eat. It's extremely tempting to dismiss bulimics: chances are they'll maintain a normal weight, due to eating 'normally' in public and using inefficient methods of purging, such as laxative or diuretic abuse. This is a mistake. Bulimia is extremely serious, self-perpetuating and potentially fatal.
OK, here's the thing, please don't fucking do this.
But if you must, at least follow some steps to minimise the damage you will do to yourself.
- Non-purging bulimia (fasting the next day, excessive exercise) is probably safer than purging bulimia (vomiting, diuretic or laxative abuse), at least in terms of fucking up major organs. It's all a matter of degree, and neither is good, though.
- Use your fingers to induce vomiting, NOT an emetic such as Ipecac. Using Ipecac to regurgitate food is like using a chainsaw to file your nails. It is given in hospital when the patient has swallowed something extremely toxic and must puke or die. Someone on the bus mailing list described the attitude as "we'll use it now and worry about what it rips loose later". Ipecac itself is toxic, and if for some reason you don't puke you will poison yourself. In many states, you are meant to call poison control before you administer it, not wait until something goes wrong. (The divine dustfromamoth asked me to add that Ipecac can kill on first usage, and using it only a few times can do major damage to your heart.)
- And, in light of the above, for god's sake keep your nails short! Hitting the gag spot with long, jagged nails will hurt.
- After vomiting, don't immediately brush your teeth. Disgusting, I know, but many bulimics lose teeth due to the stomach acid going past them on a regular basis. Brushing your teeth rubs the acid in further. Instead, rinse your mouth out with water and then a fluoride mouthwash.
- Laxative or diuretic abuse is completely pointless. Calories are absorbed a long time before the food hits the colon/bladder. More to the point, they are addictive, can kill you and, in the case of laxatives, can seriously fuck up your intestines with long-term use.
- Take a vitamin and mineral pill at some point when you won't throw it up for several hours (such as last thing at night). Starve yourself if you must, but try to do it without heart failure (lack of potassium) or disintegrating bones (lack of calcium).
And above all,
SEE A FUCKING DOCTOR!
Bulimia is not good. It's actually more immediately
dangerous than
anorexia, if only because you are harming yourself in more ways than just
starvation. And as
Marya Hornbacher says, "The minute you stick your fingers down your throat you know something's wrong." Bulimia does not have the capacity for
denial that anorexia does.
You're
sick.
See a fucking
doctor.