Bulimia: an addiction as any otherA mong the personalities that compensate with addiction, bulimics are more motivated to seek psychological help. (But bulimia provides less secondary benefits than alcohol or drug addiction.
Although its roots are in the earliest years of life, bulimia often appears in adolescence, following a first attempt to lose weight by dieting. But it can also appear at any age, following a triggering event: a break-up, divorce, loss of a loved one… at a moment when one doesn’t feel capable being alone with himself.
To purge or not to purge, having 10 crises a day or one a week, snacking all day or keeping yourself from snacking, being skinny, well-proportioned, or very overweight, bulimia is above all an obsession that completely traps a person. A bulimic episode can just as easily involve three apples and four yogurts as a mountain of food that makes one’s stomach feel like exploding. It’s not the quantity that defines a bulimic episode, but the eating behavior: in secret, with urgency, no matter the cost, shamefully, and unwillingly… even just guilty snacking. But above all, mental characteristics are what define whether a person will be bulimic. One feels like they are not in their own body, they are overly sensitive emotionally, they feel out of touch with the world, and they are overwhelmed with fear. Certain people are completely reclusive, incapable of working, and suffer from social phobia. Others are sure that they could be happy if bulimia didn’t ruin their lives. Most of them don’t doubt their intelligence, but they persuade themselves that they are unlovable. They have no urges except to eat. They feel lost, empty, and often, deathly bored. This is not the kind of boredom that most are familiar with, but an unbearable feeling of intense oppression.
Addiction specialists understand that even though bulimia can be fatal, it is not a form of self-destruction. It is a mental survival reflex. It serves to ease deep anxiety: you eat because you feel empty, incomplete, and nonexistent, despite sometimes being socially successful. Bulimia resists classic psychotherapy, even when it takes the form of multiple approaches, as long as the problem of being oneself among others remains untreated. But fortunately, it can easily go away through intensive group therapy centered on the present. Interpersonal interactions provide the means to answering simple, but essential questions: Who am I? Where am I going? How will I get there (without hurting or burdening others)? |
