THE BEGINNING . . . BULIMIA AND BECOMING ©

It began one evening, one cold winter evening in Wisconsin. She felt so empty and yet so full. The emptiness was for her future . . . and for her past, her present. Who was she? Where was she going in life? What of her relationships, past, present, and future? Did these fill her life with meaning and or fill her with fear. She was in her senior year at the University and knew that she had pursued a study that was not her passion, not her desired choice for a profession and yet, she intentionally had chosen this pursuit because the profession that was her truer passion would place her in a situation that was too scary to consider.

She was not competitive then and she still is not. She shuns and shies away from any such pursuit. The profession that she felt more passion for than the one she pursued was that of her parents. Thankfully, her parents never pushed her; they may have had no idea that she had not chosen her purest passion. For after all, she was passionate about learning. She loved all learning and so it appeared as though she was pursuing her passion, and she was. She was pursuing learning. Nonetheless, she knew and she felt empty. Beginning her senior year and knowing or believing that graduation was inevitable, she wondered, “What would she do?” “What would she become?” “Who is she?” and “What had she done?” Then there is the “Why?” of it all.

She had eaten too much, minutes and hours earlier. She was full, stuffed, and suffering. She needed to prepare for her evening class and yet she was so physically, or was it psychologically uncomfortable, in her clothes, in her commitment, and with her concerns. She did finally dress for the cold and drive to campus. She parked four blocks from her class and began walking the dark streets. She was destined to continue on this path, [or so it seemed.] Was this the path to class, to career, or was it the path to a calamity? Had she chosen this path, the one that she was creating? Had she consciously chosen this or that path?

She was not comfortable with all the feelings, the food in her now too full stomach, or was it that she was not comfortable with all the food that filled her thoughts. She stopped. She threw it up, the food. Yes, the action was voluntary. The stomach was not reacting to illness; throwing up the food was a totally conscious choice, a decision to eliminate what was bothering her, the feeling of fullness. Now, I ask, was she full of food, or full of fear, or both.
[Chapter One in a series]