This is the story of my Bulimia which started back 21 years ago – after the time when I could still recall the freedom and joy I felt being in my own body as a very young child; still recall the way I was running, jumping and just playing. It was after the time when I remembered wearing clothes I really liked and the feeling of the texture on my skin.
It was after the time when there was an ease and playfulness, an acceptance, as I expected nothing from my body, which at the time felt lovely and open and where there were no thoughts of “you’re not up to scratch”.
For whatever reason, this started to change and this is where the story of my bulimia began…
 Age 3 |
 Age 4 |
 Age 6 |
Not Being Good Enough
Very early in life the thoughts of ‘not being good enough’ started coming in, becoming more frequent and intense from the age of nine. I experienced learning difficulties with Math at school, which I found a constant struggle: these were accompanied by emotional issues and the persistent thoughts of ‘not being good enough’ continued into my teenage years.
By the end of High School my boyfriend, with whom I had been in a committed relationship for 2 years, broke up with me before leaving for University. I could feel how he was freeing himself up to check out what else was ‘out there’. I was devastated as I had always felt this was the man I would be with forever, and the thoughts of not being good enough again came to the fore.
Not long after he left I remember driving to work one day and a thought came into my head – “Right, instead of feeling hurt and rejected this is your goal: go make yourself, no matter what it takes, into the best woman, daughter, sister, friend, girlfriend material, granddaughter, niece, employee…” the list went on. “And while you’re at it, focus on getting into the Police Academy”.
I remember breathing a sigh of relief and saying “Right, let’s get to it, something to focus my energy on”. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was really creating my very own self-imposed reinforced fortress.
 Age 12 |
 Age 17 |
 Age 18 |
Mastering How ‘to do’ Bulimia……
Without ever remembering seeing anything on how ‘to do’ bulimia, or knowing anyone who was bulimic or who had any kind of eating disorder that I was aware of, somehow all the information was there for me in my thoughts – go here, buy this and do it this way.
Purging by regurgitating was unsuccessful for me from the start, leading to feelings of failure, so I turned to laxatives. At the time I didn’t realise my body had always suffered from dairy and gluten intolerance and had no need to ever take a laxative, but this I decided was the easiest and most definite way to rid myself of food and achieve my goal of being the best I could be.
Food was constantly on my mind; it did not matter if I was out with friends or playing sport, the thought of food and when to eat would be there always. I would go to a different chemist or grocery store each time to buy more laxatives so as to not be found out. This was my big secret. I would hide food to eat later. I felt completely in control of this aspect of my life. Because my family was so used to my having irritable bowel, no one ever suspected anything.
From the outside it looked like I had it all together. I worked a 10-12 hour day, starting and finishing with hours of relentless exercise; taking aerobics classes and pumping iron at the gym, playing all kinds of competitive sport and then after all this, running kilometres a day. I could keep going like this for 17 hours a day, never showing how exhausted I really was. On the inside I felt scared, hurt and lonely.
Unfortunately at my workplace there was one toilet, not outside away from everyone, but right in the middle of where everyone worked. I would be in excruciating pain after taking up to 30 laxatives at a time, popping even more after each visit to the toilet, all the time holding on for as long as I could so that the other employees didn’t suspect anything.
The drive to purge myself of food and to be successful in every facet of my life far outweighed the pain.
If a workmate made a comment like “Gee, you go to your bag a lot”, I would just say I was getting chewing gum to hide the fact that I was actually grabbing whatever laxative relief I had.
This behaviour continued for a year as I learned to master how to do bulimia by pretending I had eaten on my way home from sport so that my family wouldn’t expect me to eat dinner. I would sometimes buy takeaway and hide it so that if I did feel hungry during the night, I could control how much I ate or didn’t eat, and could do it in secret without anyone watching. I didn’t like eating home cooked meals as I then felt guilty if I purged afterwards because it was ‘real’ food compared to what I would buy for myself.
I didn’t gorge myself on ice cream, junk food, chocolates or lollies, but I mainly ate what I perceived to be more ‘healthier’ options at the time, like packet noodles, rice crackers and sultanas.
As my obsession with bulimia intensified, my family started to get suspicious. With the lack of food being absorbed by my system I was getting little nutrition and I was becoming very vague and irresponsible, particularly when driving. I would drive really fast, preoccupied with my obsessions with food and what I needed to do to be successful that day.
As a result, one day I pulled out in front of a car and we had a collision at the end of my street. This gave me a fright and I felt bad that I had caused injury to the other woman and damaged her car, but it really didn’t bring me to a stop.
Not long after this accident, my obsessive way of living in order to cover up my bulimic behaviour finally got exposed. I was taken twice to a counsellor for bulimia – which did not help at all, as all the focus was on my family’s feelings and not truly about what was going on for me. There was no criticism or judgment, as my family was genuinely concerned and did their best to support me, but they struggled to understand (as did I) how I could do what I was doing to myself.
So as to relieve my family of the worry, I swept my problems under the carpet and for a short time stopped my obsessive behaviour with bulimia and over-exercising.
 Age 30 | 2 Years BEFORE Universal Medicine |
 Age 30 | 2 Years BEFORE Universal Medicine |
Self-worth Issues and the Return of my Bulimia
In time, as my self-worth issues had never been addressed, the bulimia returned and to my great relief this time I found myself able to purge by making myself vomit, which meant that I could cut down on the laxatives and could bring the food up before it even had the chance to be digested. This became a highly sophisticated and organised process as there were so many things to take into account. I would organise the toilet or shower like you would set out your dressing table to paint your nails. I would take into consideration how quiet I would need to be in the process of throwing up in relation to who was around and how much in proximity they were.
I was never truly present with anyone as I was continually obsessed with my bulimia and what I would eat and when and where I would be able to throw it all up again.
I felt like a big fake and was so ashamed of what I was doing, and how much food and money I was wasting. But still I could not see any way of stopping – I honestly thought this would be my life forever.
This continued off and on for six or seven years. There were times when I would go for months without feeling this way but then something would happen, something that I did not want to feel or talk about and I would go back to the perceived relief of purging – something that was just mine that I could do to myself, no-one else could. Looking back I can see that my bulimia, and so much of what I felt, related to the self-worth issues that I continued to ignore.
The behaviours and symptoms of my bulimia eating disorder at the time were:
- Withdrawal from close friends, family and intimate gatherings
- Overdoing and pushing myself in all areas of life including exercise, sport, work and study
- Long bouts of time spent alone in my room, bathroom, toilet or outside away from others
- Avoidance of family mealtimes
- Drinking copious amounts of water in order to fill myself up and to help with bringing up the food
- The frequent consumption of laxatives, mints or chewing gum
- The shedding of weight, red eyes and flushed face.
Over the years (during which time I got married and had two sons), those intense feelings that drove me to my bulimia eased and changed to a so called ‘milder’ version of not feeling good enough as a wife and mother, along with the juggling of everything that goes with work and family life.
However, even though I had an adoring and devoted husband who has always been there for me, I kept pushing him away as I could not love myself – and as such, although some of my behaviour was less intense, my self-worth issues regardless were never far from the surface.
Universal Medicine – The Turning Point in My Life With Bulimia
Over the years I had looked into many different healing modalities such as Kinesiology, Reiki, tarot card reading, psychics and Aura-Soma colour healing, as well as having deep tissue and lomi lomi massages and seeing various chiropractors in order to deal with my bulimia and the underlying feelings of never being good enough etc. However, no matter what therapy I tried or which practitioner I saw, all of them made me feel like I could never do this on my own and I always needed something outside of me to change.
After years of seeking support, with changes that were at best temporary or providing momentary relief, the true change and turning point in my life came when I attended a Heart Chakra 1 workshop with Universal Medicine, presented by Serge Benhayon.
The difference with this, relative to all the other therapies I had tried, was that Serge Benhayon was presenting another way of being, based on his own livingness, a self-caring, self-loving way of living, all presented in a gentle non-imposing way.
I started to consider that the true healing for my bulimia and self-worth issues was not about fixing anything outside of myself, but looking within.
I left feeling: “Wow, could it be that I am not just capable of healing my own hurts, but also that I am already everything I have thought I needed to strive to be?”
In his presentations, Serge Benhayon shared simple tools which helped me reconnect with my body – simple techniques like feeling my toes in my shoes, doing the gentle breath meditation and being present with myself throughout my day.
Putting what was presented into practice gave me an opportunity to stop and arrest the momentum I was in – the relentless and punishing drive to ‘improve’ myself based on my belief that I was never good enough. These simple techniques allowed me the space to make different, more loving choices for myself and begin to mark a true end to the cycle of my bulimic behaviour.
Learning to be Self-Loving
Six years after being introduced to the teachings of Universal Medicine, the effects of my bulimia eating disorder and the thoughts that so totally dominated and controlled my life are no longer there. I now take care of and appreciate my body and am able to tune into the tenderness that I now know is innately within us all.
This means I am now eating and exercising in a way that honours my body instead of punishing and pushing it – fully accepting how I am feeling and what my limitations are.
Breaking the cycle of my bulimia, the self-harm and not feeling good enough and dealing with my underlying self-worth issues, has allowed me to love myself and therefore be able to let others in.
I now know that I am the amazing, beautiful and precious woman that I have always been but had lost sight of. And that true beauty comes from within.
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AFTER 7 Years with Universal Medicine | Aimee Edmonds (Age 39)
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This new love of self has allowed me to blossom, unfold and open and be able to share my feelings and myself with my husband, children, friends, family, clients and society. People around me have noticed and commented on how much more of me I am and what a joy I am to have around.
This turning point in my life and this turnaround is nothing short of a miracle. A miracle that Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon made possible through the teachings of the importance of self-care that then allows us to be self-loving.
By Aimee Edmonds, Burnaby, Vancouver
You may also be interested in:
Bulimia and Laxative Dependence: Healing my Old Ways
Before and After: Kylie Connors On Finding Her True Weight
Universal Medicine Helped to Heal Bulimia
654 Comments
Brilliant article Aimee, and one that offers guidance and inspiration to others that may be experiencing the same. The willingness to heal and the support that was offered. The spark in you could always be seen.
Aimee, this wholly transparent and honest blog is stupendous and offers such great insight into not only the common issues that many of us do face growing up, and in life about how we look, our weight, body size/shape, desirability, sexuality and so on, but equally also the deeper ingrained issues of self-worth, value and importance whether as a woman or indeed as a man too. Your blog is simply an education well worth the study.
Thank you Zofia, reading it again now feels like another life which is amazing to feel. I can see how when we are not connected to our essence we look outside for everything and anything else instead. Our essence is magnificent and the same as everyone else so there can be no comparison, yet if we dis-connect, then the flood gates of everything that is not us are wide open and the beliefs, ideals and comparison come flooding in.
Thank you for writing about this Aimee, I can understand how the feelings of ‘Fake’ and shame further impact self worth. It is a remarkable story of healing what is generally a tricky illness to heal. Yet you’re proof it can begin with those loving steps, and continue to show that these can only deepen and bring out more of you, to love and live life.
Could it be we all have our way of denying the truth of our divinity so that we are perceiving a lesser version of our self and thus by default are purging the love and light that is available to us, which means we are thus bulimic or inflicted with innate hunger for the divine love we all are?
“I left feeling: “Wow, could it be that I am not just capable of healing my own hurts, but also that I am already everything I have thought I needed to strive to be?” – what an awesome foundation from which to bring about true change – reconnecting with all that you already are in essence and living from that completeness rather than from a sense of not being good enough…
You have definitely gone through an incredible transformation Aimee. I would say just like a butterfly with wings wide open now! It certainly shows in the ‘after’ photos with your playful light emanating. I really appreciated the incredible honesty and courage to tell your story about bulimia and how it owned you for awhile. Something that occurred to me while reading it was how we tend to judge more unique disorders like bulimia and anorexia as being severe and serious than other methods of not feeling our deeper issues and hurts. But the reality is that using alcohol, over-working, going fishing all the time, picking up 5 new hobbies, and zoning out on YouTube for hours are actually just as damaging and serious as something like bulimia, yet we tend to accept many of those things as being the norm or even being a good thing!
You make a very important point Michael and it is exactly what happens. When it has come up in conversations with others that I once used bulimia, it’s interesting how they then treat me differently, and that it was a disease doing it to me. But, it was a choice, and yes it was a dis-ease, but it is in many ways no different to staying up late and looking at social media or racing around at work and finishing the day exhausted and hard. It’s not to beat ourselves up about our choices but being open and aware of how damaging some choices are that we see as more socially acceptable, or considered normal.
It is easy to see how it can take years to come out of these eating disorders, and it also makes me wonder what sort of help there is out there and if it is effective or not.
I found for me Julie, the intensity changed over time but the pull or desire to use bulimia was still there when times got tough or I didn’t want to feel something. I pursued many different modalities and tried a few counselling sessions but nothing truly changed in any great sustaining way until I met Serge Benhayon and started having sessions with Universal Medicine practitioners. Once I started connecting with myself, my essence and my body, the destructive and negative choices became less and less and loving choices were more normal and simple to make.
There is a lot of tiredness around the eyes at age 30 but it is very different with the latest picture!
I agree Christoph, a tiredness from giving up on myself and toeing the imaginary line in life, making sure not to upset anyone or rock any boats. Fortunately I’ve learnt and realised that rocking boats isn’t the terrible thing I thought it was, and is actually loving and supportive.
So True Aimee, Love brings a deepening quality that is felt as a ripple affect by the simple reflection it brings to others, so if this rocks the boat so be it.
An awesome story. A continual deepening of self care slowly erodes away the unloving attitudes we have held about ourselves and the unloving behaviours also. I can see that having the support from a Universal Medicine practitioner was also integral to your healing. I know for myself that having this support can lighten our way, keep us on track and strengthen our commitment to our own wellbeing.
It’s amazing how different we can feel by just talking honestly and openly with each other. I find even a ten minute chat with someone who is there only with love and support can change how I feel in an instant.
A-mazing story Aimee, “could it be that I am not just capable of healing my own hurts, but also that I am already everything I have thought I needed to strive to be?” often life can feel so complicated when we are in so deep that there seems like no way out or back, yet the irony is the way back is very simple – just as you were shown by Serge Benhayon.
Thank you Rosanna, I feel every time we choose simplicity, we choose brotherhood because we are not making it all about ourselves. And I find when we choose simplicity it reveals how and where we and others have used complication to get through life.