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Bulimia Quotes

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Bulimia Quotes

“The starting point is recognizing that selection has shaped powerful mechanisms to protect against starvation. During a famine, those mechanisms motivate animals to get food -any food- eat it quickly, and eat more than usual, because food supplies are obviously erratic. The system also adjusts the body weight set point upward because extra fat stores are valuable when food sources are unreliable. And, as noted already, weight loss slows down metabolism, which is appropriate when a person is starving but the opposite of what is needed when trying to lose weight. Also, intermittent access to food signals unreliable access to food supplies, so it increases food intake and bingeing, even in rats.”

WomenEating DisordersAnorexiaBulimiaPsychopathologyEvolutionary PsychiatryMismatchRegulation Mechanisms
Book:Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry
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“Female reproductive life history is linked to cardiovascular, metabolic, inflammatory and endocrine alterations to physiology in ways that have not only short-term but also long-term and, in some cases, permanent effects.”

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Book:Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health
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“Controlled mentalization, identification and understanding of emotional reactions, and emotional regulation are significant problems for eating-disordered patients. In general, bulimia nervosa patients show problems in emotional hyperarousal and flooding. The opposite, a dominance of detached and flattened effect, is typically seen in patients with anorexia nervosa.”

PsychologyFoodEatingDietEating DisorderBulimiaFatBingePsychopathologyPurging
Book:Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders
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“…interoceptive confusion and body image distortions are forms of impaired embodied mentalizing and expressions of pre-mentalistic thinking. For example, psychic equivalence demonstrates how patients’ painful self and affect states are expressed though extreme body hatred and the mistaken belief that being “skinny” will bring them self-acceptance, "confidence," and agency. The teleological stance explains the obsessive drive for thinness as a method to obtain self-acceptance and the approval of others. In short, subjugation of the body is a confused attempt to gain mastery and control over feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of self-worth.”

PsychologyFoodEatingDietEating DisorderBulimiaFatBingePsychopathologyPurging
Book:Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders
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“Hypermentalization, frequently seen in patients with bulimia nervosa, is when the patient is so outer-directed that she is prone to obsessively interpreting others' minds but not in an accurate way. Hypermentalized fantasies about another's mind is an effort to meet and satisfy that person's perceived desires and needs (Buhl, 2002; Skarderud, 2007), and based on inaccurate interpretations of self/other mental states because of attachment anxieties. Similarly, pseudo-mentalizing is when the patient appears to be expressing or talking about feelings and thoughts, but the narrative lacks emotional connection. instead, words and expressions are empty of meaning and serve to defend against feelings of worthlessness, insignificance, or desolation (Skarderud & Fonagy, 2012).”

PsychologyFoodEatingDietEating DisorderBulimiaFatBingePsychopathologyPurging
Book:Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders
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“Everyone knows that the environments we created to satisfy our wishes for sweets, salt, fat and leisure have resulted in epidemics of chronic disease. Obesity and eating disorders are prime examples, but alcoholism and drug addiction are also made possible by ready access to substances and means of administration that have only recently become available. Lack of selection until recent times against these often fatal disorders is an essential part of any evolutionary explanation.”

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Book:Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health
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“The sexual competition hypothesis suggests that women are vulnerable to eating disorders because modern media augment the natural motivation for having a desirable body in order to get better mates. This explains why so many women use extreme caloric restriction in intense efforts to be attractive, but it does not by itself explain anorexia nervosa and bulimia.”

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Book:Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health
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“The belief that one is unattractive can be as intractable as the belief that one has an undiagnosed disease. It's often present in people who are, to other people's perceptions, very attractive indeed. However, once the belief in one's unattractiveness gets established it can be used to account for all manner of experiences, such as being rejected by a date. The normal trait related to this disorder is wanting to be attractive. In the usual range, this is almost certainly useful.”

HealthEvolutionIllnessDisorderMentalAnorexiaBulimiaEvolutionary Psychiatry
Book:Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health
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“I’m sitting here with my salty tears fal ing onto my plate of spaghetti, watering down the marinara sauce. Je was right. Normalizing my eating and neutralizing food is hard emotional work. The crying gets heavier to where my chest starts heaving. I get mad at myself for crying. It makes me feel dramatic. Out of control. Tears fal onto my worksheet and blur the ink. Fuck. I try to blow on the wet spot to dry it, but snot drips out of my nose and fal s onto the page and makes it worse. I crumple the worksheet into a bal and throw it across the room toward the trash can. It doesn’t land anywhere close. Jesus Christ.”

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Author:Jennette McCurdy
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“Emma cites the structure of the [Eating Disorder] Unit as being important to her decision to disengage from her illness, and the fact that she felt safe in it, and cared for. 'It was the first time I'd been in an environment where I felt comfortabe with all the people around me. I felt "I can be here and I can talk to anybody" and that was something that had been missing from my life'.”

AnorexiaEating DisorderBulimiaMental HospitalPsychiatric HospitalsAnorexia RecoveryBulimia RecoveryFeeling SafeEating Disorder CausesPsychiatric Unit
Book:To Die For
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“Eating disorders are prevalent among women who were sexually abused as children. They seem to have components of other symptoms such as obsessions, compulsions, avoidance of food, and anxiety, and they primarily include a distorted body image and feelings of body shame. For some women, eating disorders are related to the loss of control over their bodies during the sexual abuse and serve as a means of feeling in control of their bodies now. Eating disorders can also be indicative of the developmental stage and age at which the sexual abuse began. Women with anorexia and bulimia report that they were sexually abused either at the age of puberty or during puberty, when their bodies were beginning to develop and they felt a great deal of body shame from the abuse. By contrast, women with compulsive eating report that the sexual abuse occurred before the age of puberty; they used food for comfort.”

HealingAbuseTraumaRecoverySexual AbuseBody ImageTriggersChild Sexual AbuseAnorexiaEating DisorderBulimiaComfort FoodChild RapeBinge EatingEating Disorder CausesBdd
Book:Healing from the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse: The Journey for Women
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“A bulimic person may be so disconnected from her experience that she does not even know what she needs or wants. If she does not know, needing something or someone only confirms her sense that she is weak and inadequate. She believes her needs are not legitimate, and therefore finds it difficult to seek care or engage with any care she does manage to seek. In fact, she is likely to greet others' expressions of concern with contempt, the very contempt with which she views herself".”

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Book:Sensing the Self: Women's Recovery from Bulimia
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“As she continually disregards and overrides her body's signals of hunger, fullness, and fatigue, a bulimic woman becomes increasingly disconnected from her subjective experience. Because she does not heed her own needs, desires, preferences, and limits, she grows ever more reliant upon external gauges to guide her life".”

Eating DisordersDisconnectedBulimiaSubjective Experience
Book:Sensing the Self: Women's Recovery from Bulimia
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“All those posters and PSAs and health class presentations on body image and the way you can burst blood vessels in your face and rupture your esophagus if you can’t stop ramming those sno balls down your throat every night, knowing they’ll have to come back up again, you sad weak girl. Because of all this, Coach surely can’t tell a girl, a sensitive, body-conscious teenage girl, to get rid of the tender little tuck around her waist, can she? She can. Coach can say anything. And there’s Emily, keening over the toilet bowl after practice, begging me to kick her in the gut so she can expel the rest, all that cookie dough and cool ranch, the smell making me roil. Emily, a girl made entirely of donut sticks, cheese powder, and haribo. I kick, I do. She would do the same for me.”

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Book:Dare Me
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“Find YOUR Balance.”

Mental HealthBody ImageEating DisordersNon FictionStarvationFastingBodybuildingAnorexiaDietingCleansingBulimiaPurgingRaw FoodEating Disorder RecoveryDetoxFruitarianBody PositiveBingeingClean EatingOrthorexiaDiets Don T WorkBikini ContestEat CleanEating CleanRaw VeganBikini CompetitionsFood Freedom
Book:DAMN THE DIETS: WHY "CLEAN EATING" FAILED YOU, HOW FAD DIETS DESTROY YOUR LIFE AND WHAT TO DO TO RECOVER
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“Starvation was the first indication of my self-discipline. I was devoted to anorexia. I went the distance of memorizing the calorie content within every bite of food while calculating the exact amount of exercise I needed to burn double my consumption. I was luckily young enough to mask my excessive exercise with juvenile hyperactivity. Nobody thought twice about the fact that I was constantly rollerblading, biking, and running for hours in stifling summer humidity. I learned to cut my food into tiny bites and move it around my plate. I read that standing burned more calories than sitting, so I refused to watch television without doing crunches, leg lifts, or at least walking in place. When socially forced to soldier through a movie, I tapped my foot in desperation to knock out about seventy-five extra calories. From age eleven to twelve, I dropped forty pounds and halted the one period I’d had.”

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Book:Just Another Number
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“My parents’ attempts to stop my habit were through guilt and force. They grounded me several times. Carl made cracks when he felt that I was eating too much and snide comments on my weight yo-yoing. They sent me to psychiatrists who tried to quick fix me by Paxil, Zoloft, and Effexor prescriptions. All were antidepressants with weight gain for side effects, which might as well have been rat poison for a bulimic.”

Eating DisordersBulimiaFeminist MemoirJust Another Number QuoteMaggie Young Quote
Book:Just Another Number
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“That was when I realized I had no control over my actions anymore. All I knew was that though no one knew what hell felt like, my life had become a version of fire and brimstone. My restrictive anorexia was completely and inexorably interfering with my ability to live like a normal human being.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“Soon, everyone around me had come to terms with my peculiar eating habits and started accepting me for who I was. It felt peculiar at first, but when someone said things like, “I wish I could resist eating all that,” in whatever parallel universe I existed, I felt powerful.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“He helped me sit up on my bed and tried to force-feed me glucose dissolved in water and a biscuit he’d grabbed from my roommate’s bedside. But I spat it right out, still thinking about calories and numbers. “That’s enough, Amira. I’m literally trying to feed you water. It’s not going to hurt you!” he screamed.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“The better question is: Do you want to recover?” I didn’t have an answer; I wasn’t sure. Recovery sounded great on paper and in the calm and casual way he said it. But why did the very thought of recovery seem like the most excruciating and difficult thing? What if I started hating myself after a few months of making conscious efforts to be a healthy person again? What if recovery meant being fat all over again? What if I wasn’t ready? “I’m not sure,” I said.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“It was haunting to be entangled in this obnoxious cycle. I want to get out of this viciousness. That pizza is staring at me. I think that slice of pie might hurt me. Thirty-five calories for an Oreo cookie; 75caloriesfor a slice of bread; 285 for a slice of pizza; 350for a plate of pasta. You know, maybe I’ll just study the digits of eggs, wheat, vegetables, apples, oranges. Ugh! Stop. It all hurts so much. That’s it. Make it stop. Please, I beg you. Just make it stop. I felt like the walking and living encyclopedia of numbers and digits.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“The scars of my anorexia, perfectly hand-drawn in red, immaculately colouring one-fourth of my left arm. It had hurt like hell, but it still wasn’t as painful as the last two years of my life. The mental, excruciating pain within the depths of my brain had managed to surpass the aching pain of the pointed edge of the object I’d used on my arm. I’d thought that overshadowing the pain I already felt with a much harsher form and intensity would make the emotional pain disappear. I was wrong. The latter pain always remains stronger; that is something I realized.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“Days and weeks passed by with changes in seasons and the phases of the moon. But the one thing that remained unmoved and constant was something I told myself every single day, "Amira Kashyap, you are fat!”

Mental HealthTherapyEating DisordersAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingRestrictive AnorexiaDisordered Eating Patterns
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“My life was now determined by the number on the scale or the digits behind food containers. But I was completely okay with it as long as my 24” waist size never felt even a tad tighter. But if it ever did, hell would freeze over, resulting in 21-day fasts until I felt thin enough.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“I remembered all those times when the people around me believed that I had spent the last two years of my life faking an eating disorder for the sole purpose of attention. For that reason, every day I would read a thousand articles and watch a hundred videos on real survivors who’d battled anorexia. Then I would question myself. My ribs aren’t popping out of my stomach, so maybe it’s actually just in my mind. Then after a few days of surviving on nothing at all, I would look at myself, see my ribs popping out and ask myself, Am I now?”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“I asked myself this question every single day: Is it possible to break free? To break free from myself? It wasn’t by choice that I became this awfully unhappy. Something, I don’t know what, came upon me and my happiness was snatched away from me in a jiffy. Everything started to feel different. Something didn’t feel right when I woke up every morning and went to bed every night. Something didn’t feel right when I looked at myself in the mirror every 15minutes.Something didn’t feel right when my favourite doughnut became my worst enemy. Something didn’t feel right when all my mind was surrounded by was the pathetic, established standards of bikini bodies and skinny models.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Author:Insha Juneja
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“It wasn’t like I had started magically eating two entire meals in a day. I would still survive the day with black coffee and apples, but it just seemed like I’d taken one step heavenwards. The mirror felt a little less frightening with each passing day. It was refreshing to talk to someone who was fully convinced that my eating disorder was as real as I thought.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“Everything was going perfectly well until Dr. Roy paused for a long minute to stare at me with utter shock and revelation. I knew I had messed up. I should have just worn my black, full-sleeved dress instead. But again, I thought that the scars had lightened to an unnoticeable extent. But I guess I was wrong. That was when I realized that scars never went away entirely. “Did you do that to yourself?” he asked.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“I wanted to be normal again. I wanted to be genuinely happy again and not just pretend. I didn’t want distorted mirror images to destroy and define my life any longer. I wished to breathe in the customary air, instead of the suffocating one people like me had accustomed themselves to breathe. I just wanted to break through these metal rods that I’d been caged behind for the last two years of my life. I wanted to feel plain, simple, genuine contentment again. I wanted to; I needed to.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“I looked at my reflection in the glass door at the entrance of the house. For the millionth time, I saw something entirely different from what I desperately wished to see. But to be fair, what I wished to see was a replica of the skeletons I had come to worship. I often wondered as to why my eyes couldn't see what the world around me could. Why did my eyes see differently than others?”

Mental HealthTherapyEating DisordersAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingRestrictive AnorexiaDisordered Eating Patterns
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“Every day, I saw this new distorted reflection of myself, and everyday, I despised it a little more than the day before. It was uncanny and delusional, my reflection, and I felt this urge to change everything about myself. 'What is happening to me', was a question that remained unanswered for a great amount of time because I was as unaware about it as every other person around me.”

Mental HealthTherapyEating DisordersAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingRestrictive AnorexiaDisordered Eating Patterns
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“Whenever I looked at myself in the mirror, I always saw a morbidly obese reflection, while in truth I was achingly underweight. My obsession of looking good corresponded to wanting to look the way skinny models looked in television ads and fashion magazines, the personification of being attractive as described by the world around me.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“So Amira Kashyap, what’s your story?” he asked as he set the big display stopwatch to a designated period of 59 minutes and 59 seconds. The perfectly tranquil way in which he asked me the question made me slightly nervous, even though I had spent the last few years of my life having imaginary conversations with an imaginary therapist. There were a lot of things I wished to tell him. From wanting to tell him about my first triggers to the very thought of me standing in front of a mirror haunting the living daylights out of me.These were just a couple out of the many thoughts in the archives of my brain. However, my mind went completely blank. I stammered and hesitated and managed to utter a total of seven words.“I don’t know where to start.” “Just say the first thing that crosses your mind,” he said. “I’m scared of food,” I blurted.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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“But although my body constantly reminded me that it was starving, the voices inside my mind never gave me permission to satisfy my hunger. At times, I would get affected when people passed statements like, “Why can’t you just eat?” However, I convinced myself that the only person who could understand anorexia was someone who had been through the eating disorder. I chose to remain quiet.”

Mental HealthTherapyAnorexiaBulimiaImperfect MortalsMirror Mirror On The WallMental Well BeingDisordered EatingRestrictive Anorexia
Book:Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
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