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
694 Comments
These teachings of the importance of self-care truly supported me to make the necessary changes I had always wanted to make but couldn’t because of how deeply ingrained my patterns were. The Esoteric Healing Modalities are an amazing support for our bodies to clear those long stored emotions and hurts.
I had bulimia for many, many years, for the first 5 of these years it was very intense and then the amount of times I stuffed my face and vomited a day lessened. Looking back I can see it was my way of avoiding healing my hurts and taking responsibility for my life, instead I remained a victim to my bulimia.
This is an incredible turn around from the momentum you were in Aimee, and shows that something as extreme as you were experiencing can be rebalanced and restored bringing you back to your natural self through applying the teachings of Serge Benhayon. And your photo says it all, beautiful.
Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon have been the utmost of inspirations for so many, bringing an understanding of healing that has changed hundreds and hundreds of lives. Your blog, Aimee is true testimony to the truth that Serge Benhayon brings and how we can transform our lives through living a different way.
I can relate to what you have shared and have gone through moments in my life where food has always been the focus. It is an obsession I go into when I am not dealing with things. Most of the time I don’t even stop to notice what it is that I am not dealing with, the anxiety kicks in and the momentum is so strong that I am searching for food and its like I can’t stop it. The only thing that has worked has been asking for support, connecting with others, talking things through, not holding onto things and really looking after myself.
It’s when I try and push away the anxiety that’s come up in my body instead of being okay with it and listening, that I use food to self soothe. The thing is is the anxiety maybe pushed down but it’ll come out again at a later date if I don’t pay attention to it. I’ve been choosing not to go for the food or the distraction for the last week and it’s amazing how much lighter I feel to deal with it.
Each time I read this blog I am humbled by the power of what has been offered to the world through the work of Universal Medicine.
I totally agree Nattalija when I read of peoples lives completely changing through being inspired by the teachings of Universal Medicine. Each real-life blog story I read on here stops me in my tracks to appreciate all we have been given and reminded of and in turn offers another reflection of who we all are in the world.
Just adore and love the way you have your hand over your heart in your photo age 3 Aimee, .. how we know from natural born instinct the way of life is through connection to this part of us that is to be our guide through our life.
Beautiful Zofia, yes just observe a young child at play and being with themselves and we are reminded of where we are from in an instant.
What stood out for me reading this blog is that all the things you shared about bulimia like the excessive drive in exercise, work, study and obsession with eating are things that I see in many many people around me of course in milder forms I can see it in myself too. Always feeling it can be better. The thing is that that is seen as normal because it is not the extreme of bulimia or anorexia. Even though should a lack of self worth not already be a worry for us all? Do we really find it ok that most people feel they are not good enough?
Questions that we need to be asking ourselves Lieke, especially in a time that most children in school are struggling with perfectionism, anxiety, worry and bludgeoning themselves to be the best from such a young age. These are not small things, yet as you say, we aren’t alarmed until there is a name for the condition. Recently I heard of a little girl in grade 1 who couldn’t sleep at night because she was so worried about what others thought of her. The thing is as a society we see it that it is not our place to talk with or support anyone else other than our own children, family etc. which supports a lack of care and attention to what people are really going through.
Aimee this is such a power read wow, so fresh, so raw, so honest. I just love the photos too.. and the shine that was there as a toddler girl is back in recent photos.. you even have the same manner/style!! How gorgeous it is to feel this expansion of beauty and love in you.
The world is lacking in self love, self acceptance and self appreciation, to break these pattens of disregard can feel like a mountain to climb but with baby steps we can start to break it down.
You are an awesome example of revising the trend Aimee,
I have been eating a lot more recently and I realise from reading your blog that not feeling good enough has a lot to do with it and that I am being asked to come to a deeper level of love and appreciation for myself, have been resisting it, and turning to food not to feel the space that is being offered.
And isn’t it interesting, with more love and awareness available to us all constantly, the more ‘new’ junk food or even so called ‘healthy’ foods and the myriad of drinks for every occasion are being advertised and promoted even more. As you share Elaine, if we are in resistance of what we are being offered to evolve then we open ourselves up to all kinds of temptations and influence.
I am still in an old pattern that when I am eating, I eat rather quickly almost stuffing it in. I am aware of it and still do it…. but it now feels yucky and not honouring of my body. It is like I give my power away to food, and food becomes the master. Time to re-imprint this.
The not being good enough thoughts. I guess we have all had them at various points in our lives if not constantly, but the thing to grasp is that they are not our thoughts, they are being fed to us to keep us from finding our true selves and a very successful strategy it is, but once we discover that we have an essence and what it is like to live from this essence, these thoughts have no power over us.
Beautiful Doug, imagine if this was discussed at the dinner table from when we were young or talked about at school. There would be no ‘not good enough’ issues because we would know our essence through and through and have a relationship with our being that these lesser than thoughts could not enter. Never too late anyway.
It never ceases to amaze me what self love and self acceptance can heal and your story Aimee is one of those amazing journey’s returning to your true self.
There is such a playfulness and joy that emanates from your eyes and cheeks Aimee that can only be there when one has reconnected in self love and appreciation, very inspiring.
Sometimes I find that accepting the grandness and the greatness of who I am is the most challenging aspect of life, which makes all these other difficulties seem very small when the greatest challenge is in appreciating the stupendousness that lives within.
I always admired Princess Diana for coming out and admitting she had bulimia, when we talk about it like you have Aimee it allows others to also heal.
Absolutely Samantha. I remember when she shared her experience with bulimia which would have inspired many females and males going through something similar. What I see though is a shame or embarrassment in many, hence why it is said ‘coming out’. Really it is a part that does not belong to us but something we have used to cope, hide etc. so it could be said that it is a discarding or letting go of what we are not and again living who we truly are.
“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.” . . . Gorgeous sharing Aimee . This is all very true and may I add that it is lovely to see you emanate all that is and always was you in these beautiful photos.
Thank you Kathleen, this is beautiful. There is nothing like seeing someone know who they are and allow that to shine through on the outside!
Our undermining thoughts of not being good enough provides a very rocky and dysfunctional foundation for many behaviours that are not only unloving for ourselves but can play out with catastrophic effect in our daily life and bodies.
It could all be stopped if we remembered or were reminded by those that live who they are, who we are and that the qualities we hold are so needed to be expressed and lived.
There is nothing wrong with us and so we have to work very hard at pretending that there is. With all the effort that goes into feeding the patterns and cycles of abuse, imagine what else we could be doing..!
Yes Rachael, I can only imagine what we could all do together if we stopped wasting time and an enormous amount of energy trying to deny who we are.
What we ingest and how we ingest it exposes the direct relationship we have with ourselves, if we are abusive with negative thoughts towards ourselves it makes sense we will feed ourselves food and eat in a way that confirms those negative feelings.
Aimee, oh my gosh…. the gorgeousness of you as a 3, 4 and 6 year old is just sublimely beautiful. Your light, joy and openness is completely transparent and how beautiful to see it all restored now back to your former glory!
Thank you Rachel, I had a gorgeous photo session with a friend this year and when I first got the photos back I felt a little funny when I saw myself, but when I looked into my eyes and saw what was there I could whole heartedly say ‘wow, you are so gorgeous, sweet and beautiful!’ and really mean it. That is what I call a 360 degree turn around!
“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.” The presentations of Universal Medicine offer the choice to take responsibility for being who we naturally are.
It all balls down to expression time and time again. The bottling up of what we feel to say and the ways in which we choose to carry this tension in other parts of our lives. Thank you for sharing how eating disorder are just one of the many areas that are bringing us more awareness of what is not being discussed and shared in our communities
Absolutely Natallija, something I was sharing with a colleague this week about bottling up what we know and feel to say. Bulimia is a behaviour like any other behaviour we use to not be who we are or we think deal with not being who we are which hurts us just the same. We are not our behaviours but an outsider that we have taken in and made a home for, given it a name, and allowed it to snuggle in and then believe it is us. Bringing awareness to why we use this or behave like this is empowering, and allows us to see what is truly going on. Then there is no breaking up with the behaviour but letting it go with ease as it is simply not us.
Your pictures really say it all Aimee, being able to see in your face the difference from when you were young to when you started to honour yourself is truly remarkable.
Aimee, thank you so much for sharing your story with such openness and honesty. Until I read a few accounts like yours on Bulimia I had no idea of the intensity that comes with it. The change in you is truly miraculous… your photos speak volumes. (Oh my! What a gorgeous child you were and the most beautiful women you are now). You are an inspiration for all who want to deal with and heal their self-worth issues.
So many of our young teenagers world wide have an eating disorder of some sort, it is a sad that so many have a deep lack of acceptance for themselves. Without acceptance the only way to go is to spiral downwards.
I haven’t had close contact with anyone suffering from Bulimia so to read your story was very eye opening. I can feel what an exhausting life it must have been for you always feeling like you were not good enough and having to hide the techniques that you developed for purging yourself of this debilitating feeling. It must have been so liberating for you when you came across the presentations of Serge Benhayon and were finally able to “arrest the momentum” you had been in for such a very long time. So incredibly inspirational!
Thank you Aimee Edmonds its so wonderful to read the truth of the illness bulimia. And its so wonderfull to see how your present day photo at 39 years shows the joy and fullness of life in you that is also present in the photo when you were 4 years old, wonderful.
The before and after photos just speak for themselves, they are amazing. Along with your transformational story.
There is so much more I could share about what supported me to stop ‘wanting’ to use bulimia to not deal with my life. Serge Benhayon and other Universal Medicine practitioners supported me to feel that so much of what I was feeling and picking up on in life was real and true. For most my life I tried to push what I saw and felt down and made myself wrong to keep the peace. Giving expression to what I was sensing around me was a huge healing… it didn’t make me wrong or any other person wrong, it was just saying or even acknowledging what was there.
This is a very powerful story, Aimee. Thank you for sharing your journey of self-acceptance and re-discovery of the joy and freedom you felt as a child.
When we shape ourselves to avoid being hurt again by a situation – we block ourselves from feeling a level of our sensitivity – that never actually goes away, but requires constant upkeep in order to quell and supress.
Spot on Kylie, and the “constant upkeep in order to quell and suppress” continues to hurt us… yet we can believe we are doing the opposite.
Having bulimia was no different to when I took loads of drugs, both highly addictive and expensive habits. I did not want to feel a thing nor take responsibility for my life, so avoided being in my body by either indulging in drugs and/or bulimia… both cost me a fortune!!!
What an amazing transformation Aimee, from a life of self abuse and lacking in such self worth, to a life of being deeply self honouring and loving. Very beautiful.
Thank you Raegan, it shows that we don’t ever need to be owned by anything that is not love and truly supportive to us. The grip of abuse losses its hold when we see it for what it is which is definitely not who we really are.
As I teach in schools , I can see this ..”I’m not good enough’ syndrome take hold, in fact in one school in Europe as I was introducing the song “whoops is one of my favourite words” the principle said this is whats needed as this drive for perfection ( not good enough unless perfect … therefore NEVER good enough) had a big grip… and not from the teachers.
I was presenting to a small group at a workshop today about the affect words have on children which is then carried, unbeknownst to them, for sometimes years and years or even a whole life. When we are honest there are many words, comments and looks that we were given as children at school or at home, that were designed to cut us down and hence the birth place of many ‘not good enough’ behaviours start. That’s why anything that reminds a child or adult of the spark they are needs to be shared. For me that was Universal Medicine, presenting on energy and how to read energy which we so innocently and precisely do as children. Seeing that grip loose it’s hold as someone remembers that they have always been ‘good enough’ or more accurately divine and amazing, is beautiful. Just like your song would have offered the children you were singing to.
This story is such a great example about the hugeness the work of Universal Medicine brings if one is ready.
All I can say is thank God for Universal Medicine, never holding back and offering a continual reflection of the fact we are never broken and our essence can be connected to even if there is layers of ‘stuff’ over top.
A beautiful sharing Aimee, congratulations with the big change you made, which is felt by all of us.
I loved seeing the pics of you when you were very young Aimee – so sweet and lovely and open… I remember feeling the same as a young girl and I remember I wanted to lead a simple life where I didn’t see much need in going to school and doing homework that much! I wanted to be outdoors around nature and friends most of the time… but those feelings of not being good enough sooner or later crept in round school age and it led me to strive to ‘do better’ and in doing so I started to loose that sweetness and sensitivity. How amazing to feel that sweetness return after much healing through Universal Medicine modalities.
Yes, and it is amazing how that beauty is back and now combined with understanding – and wisdom.
It is incredible how desperate we are to pose eating disorders on our body like bulimia. In my own experience, there is so much time wasted in something totally senseless and harming. I had anorexia for a certain time and also was obsessed not to eat too much. I wanted to hide this fact but this was not possible as I got very thin. There is no sense doing such things to our body. Great how you found your way out again.
Yes there is no sense and anyone looking on would say ‘why?’ but when you get underneath any abusive behaviour you see that it all comes from hurt. Bringing understanding to why we are choosing whatever we are choosing can bring more healing then shaking our heads and condemning ourselves.
It’s amazing how clever we can be. So calculated, so driven, and so completely taken by an idea that is so far removed from who we are. I could really feel just how hooking the bulimia was and how easily it was able to control your life. Thank god, you came across something that reminded you of who you truly are and that you were prepared to feel and allow the truth to finally set you free.
That’s the thing Elodie, when we think with the consciousness that the bulimia or drug addiction or anxiousness is who we truly are, we are then pulled along by everything that comes with that and continue to walk in that energy. Being reminded that we are not that and we have never been that, by watching others who are not owned by that consciousness, is what supports us to then choose to let go.