A Woman of Wellness
by Malerie Bleich, LMHC M
any women suffer, unaware, that they are in the throes of the illness of an eating disorder.
There are many patterns that constitute an eating disorder which is why many do not realize their problem. Compulsive eating and dieting, binge eating and bu- limia, can be managed. Women can live free from self-obsession and compulsion. The following is a character collage
based on the lives of several women (all referred to as ‘she’) who have coura- geously faced their fears to create their own metamorphosis out of their small world of addiction. She loves her life… now. She didn’t realize, until she experienced freedom from food and self-obsessions, how enslaved she had been.
She remembers life on the dieting
rollercoaster. Seeing clearly from the vantage point of wellness, she remem- bers being immersed in the vicious spiral of mental and physical decline, recalling mostly her darkest night. It was the mo- ment before she let others guide her into the world of the living! She never wants to again be that depressed woman who seemed happy to her friends. No one knew about her secret life with food. It was her friend’s 40th birthday din-
ner. She ordered a salad while everyone else ordered full Italian dinners, sip- ping iced tea as others ate garlic rolls. She didn’t eat much in public. This
euphorically anticipating being alone with her all- consuming lover… food. She started her food
Every diet was followed by binging.
Every binge began with the promise to starve the next day. She weighed herself several times a day, after
vomiting and after the laxatives did their job. How she felt about herself depended upon whether the scale showed loss or gain.
night, she was about 20 pounds over her goal weight. Having been up and down 50 pounds over the years, never thin enough, she was on another diet. She laughed and made jokes, engaged in conversation while planning what to buy to eat when she left. She was
orgy in the car, finishing a box of donuts before getting home. She turned on the TV and mind- lessly continued eating cookies, chips, cake and candy. Without looking at what she was dig- ging her fingers into, she ate. Her stomach hurt… though nothing else; numb at last. There were no more laxatives in her secret place. Panicking at the thought of the food turning to fat and the scale showing a gain, she reached for her keys to go to the store for mag- nesium citrate and ice cream. Suddenly she was overcome with uncon- trollable crying, feeling crazy, broken, frightened. She was awakening from her nightmare. She rarely asked for help, but that night she called a recovering friend. So began her jour- ney into wellness. During the first therapy session she learned that she was
not weak but sick. Admitting that she could not control her eating was her first step into wellbeing. During therapy she created an historical account of her eat- ing behaviors, consisting of every diet, nutritional breakthrough program, detox
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