Raising some awareness..

[Quail]

I do realise that this isn't an issue specific to women, but of the reported cases probably about 90% are women. I also know that problems like this are very common in LGBT people. I just wanted to share something that I wrote a while ago with the people of revleft because I think that a general understanding of mental health problems is very important. Personally, I have had people either make rude comments about my weight or not take me seriously, and I think that is largely due to ignorance. So I'm going to share an article type thing that I wrote about bulimia, because I want more people to understand the disorder and what it's like for someone suffering. It doesn't have a lot to do with politics, but I think it's important nonetheless.

[FONT=&quot]Bulimia Nervosa – The Truth[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]When people mention bulimia, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the thought of someone vomiting. You probably imagine them to be female, pretty and thin, if not underweight. Maybe you’ve joked about “going bulimic” for a bit to lose a few pounds. Oh, if only you knew. You’ve more than likely fallen prey to at least one misconception about eating disorders. Many doctors have.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]So allow me to enlighten you, and hopefully increase your understanding of the illness.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Firstly, if you thought that bulimia makes people thin, you’ve already fallen into a common trap. You see, vomiting is only half of the illness. The other half is the binging, which tends to involve eating rather a lot, and is the reason why a lot of people with bulimia are of a healthy weight, or even overweight. It might start off with a plate of chips or an unusually big bowl of cereal, but believe you me, it gets worse. A lot worse.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Food becomes an obsession. It’s all you can ever think about. You’re both terrified of eating, yet can’t wait to stuff your fat face with junk. “Fat,” because that’s how you’ll feel, whether you’re 100 lb or 200, you’ll feel disgusted with yourself, your body and everything you are. You’ll hate the sight of your own reflection, but by that time you’re already such a junk-food addict, you couldn’t stop eating to save your life.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You’ll find yourself running to the takeaway or shop at ungodly hours to satisfy your cravings. You’ll bring home a week’s shopping and eat half of it before you’ve even had the chance to put it away. You’ll be eating several times what everyone else does in a day, and it will be costing you an insane amount of money, not to mention your health and your social life. You’ll lock yourself away every night and just eat until you can’t move, and then spend some more quality time with the toilet bowl.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Yes, you will spend an awful lot of time with your toilet. Sometimes you’ll sit there hugging the bowl, tears and vomit all over your face, asking yourself why you put yourself through this again. It’s a shame the toilet can’t hug you back, since you’ll most likely have driven most of your friends away by now. Who needs friends when you’ve got pizza, ice cream and a finger to shove down your throat?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Of course, fun as the vomiting part is, that isn’t everything. Although perhaps I shouldn’t quite move on yet, because I haven’t told you how well acquainted you get with your own puke, or any of the degrading things vomiting makes you do. You’ll learn which foods taste okay on the way back up, and which taste terrible; which foods come up easily and which ones stick; which flush away well and which don’t – but in the end, you’ll still end up having to throw up the bad ones, so it doesn’t really make that much difference. You’ll discover what it’s like to have toilet water splash in your eyes and mouth, but what’s a bit of toilet water between friends (you and the toilet bowl)? At least that burger isn’t inside you anymore. You’ll spend twenty minutes locked in a disabled toilet so that nobody hears you, praying that there’s nobody who genuinely needs it outside. Or perhaps you’ve given up caring and you’re just bent over a public toilet puking, other people coming in and out who probably know what you’re doing. You’ll run out of the cubicle, tears in your eyes and sick in your hair to wash yourself off and people will give you funny looks.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Maybe you won’t throw up in a toilet at all. Maybe you’ll have to be more creative to hide it. You’ll take a walk around the block and puke in a bush, hoping that nobody will be out walking their dog and find you. You might use plastic bags in your room. You’ll leave them there for days and just puke in the same ones. When it’s come this far, the smell of sick doesn’t bother you anymore.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]As well as throwing up, you might decide to take laxatives. This part is really fun. You know that they don’t really work, but you feel so disgusting that even something that makes you look a bit thinner is worth it. It’ll start off with just the odd time. You’ll take the recommended dosage, empty your bowels and think, “That wasn’t much fun. I won’t do that again.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]But you will. You’ll up the dosage and spend the night glued to the toilet with stomach cramps so bad you actually cry, explosively shitting your guts out. Maybe you’ll tell yourself you won’t do it again, but by that time it’s too late – if you don’t take laxatives, you won’t be able to go to the toilet at all, and that makes you look fat. You’re dependent on them.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Another great thing about laxatives is that you can’t always predict when they’re going to kick in. So you could feel fine and go out, only to feel the cramps kicking in and have to run to the nearest public toilet to empty yourself. You can try not to feel disgusting, but you know that you are, because everybody else that is in that bathroom is disgusted that you’re in there emptying your bowels like that.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]If this isn’t bad enough yet, don’t worry – there’s more. There are loads of wonderful health complications.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Your nails will break and your hair will get dull and fall out. If you’re female, your periods will become irregular or even stop altogether. You’ll constantly have dark circles around your eyes, and if you’re lucky, burst blood vessels too. Isn’t that attractive? Retching puts a lot of strain on your body, you see. You’ll probably be throwing up blood too – but don’t worry; after the initial shock, you begin to care less and less until puking bloody vomit feels normal. I guess that’s unless you’re unlucky and rupture your oesophagus, in which case unless you get your ass to hospital you’ll be too dead to worry about a bit of blood.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You’ll be so dehydrated that you constantly feel weak and dizzy. The electrolyte imbalances will cause you to wake up in the night screaming in pain because your muscles are cramping up so badly. You might even find it difficult to walk normally because you’re weak and getting muscle spasms every time you try to move. Sometimes you’ll feel like you’re actually going to die, but you just won’t care anymore.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Just keep eating, purging, sleeping...[/FONT]