Anorexia/bulimia is tenacious and insidious. For Jade, anorexia/bulimia was with her around the clock "24/7," -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She says "so many women she knows at university are also struggling with anorexia/bulimia." Anorexia/bulimia stands strong against her every morsel of food and her every social and private action. Jade is convinced that she must have done something horribly wrong to be sentenced to this horrible life, that she is now being punished for. Negative thinking has taken over her thoughts about her past, present, and future. The anorexia/bulimia seems to have placed her in a horrible kind of suspended animation where she is convinced her past was all bad and that her future is destined to fail. What Jade holds onto in the present are the rules and regulations of the perfect anorexic/bulimic life. She recognizes the irony of this safety. She is caught in a horrible double bind; she is too afraid to let go of the anorexic/bulimic lifestyle and equally frightened that anorexia/bulimia will eventually take her life. An anorexic/bulimic lifestyle demands perfection and criticizes Jade at every step. It is a slippery slope. Often she describes anorexia/bulimia as a monster that overpowers her and yells bad thoughts at her. Jade's lifestyle of anorexia/bulimia confuses her with fear and nullifies her hopes for progress and a re-discovered life. She laments that she has lost most of her friends due to the anorexia/bulimia and when she meets up with her one remaining friend she is taken over with thoughts that negatively compare her and fill her with guilt. She feels that people meet her only because they feel sorry for her and wonders why they "bother with me at all." At this point, she wonders if everyone would be better off if she were dead. |
