Brain Over Binge (10 page)

13
: The End of My Bulimia

T
he night after reading
Rational Recovery
and successfully resisting a binge, I went to sleep with newfound confidence and hope. However, I woke up the next day feeling apprehensive. I knew what I had to do to recover, but I still feared that I would end up bingeing again. Furthermore, part of me felt anxious at the thought of giving up binge eating for good. I had been binge eating for so long that I wondered if I could live without it. I wondered what my life would be like if I quit, and part of me felt great sadness when I thought of completely giving up my bulimia, because, after all, part of me did relish every bite.

I reminded myself that the part of me that didn't want to quit was the animalistic part of my brain. Wasn't I more than that? My higher brain—my human brain—could certainly give up the pleasure, the feeling of delirium and numbness that came with being too full, the peaceful sleep that often overtook me after a binge. I had the ability to, as Trimpey put it, resume my life as someone who simply does not [binge eat].

I moved forward through my doubt, and for the next few days, I stayed vigilant. I recognized the many ways my urges to binge presented themselves and noticed the many thoughts, feelings, and moods that had led me to binge in the past, but I did not act on them. It was eye-opening to observe these thoughts as if they weren't coming from me, because they sounded absolutely ridiculous. Observing my own thoughts without connecting myself with them gave me a sense of dominance over my problem, and as I listened to my own brain, I wondered how I had ever taken it seriously.

I felt separate from my bulimia and capable of choosing a different path for the first time in many years. Now I wanted more for myself—I had dreams, goals, and ambitions, and I wanted nothing more than to be free from binge eating. I wanted to decide the course of my own life instead of blindly following my urges.

MY LAST BINGE

I did find it relatively easy to stop acting on my urges, but I did find it a bit tricky at first. My brain was often deceptive in trying to convince me to eat. It tried to tell me that it
was
really me who wanted to binge, that I couldn't quit without intense therapy, that I really did need to binge eat to cope with some inner need, and that I really did have a disease. Sometimes thoughts told me I was not separate from the part of me that wanted to binge. Sometimes I felt that it didn't matter what part of my brain generated my urges, because I wanted to binge nonetheless. However, I found that if I stayed detached from any thought or feeling that encouraged binge eating—no matter how reasonable or logical it sounded at the time—no thought or feeling could make me act.

I was not perfect at using my new thinking skills, and a few times during the first week, I did begin to relate to my thoughts and feelings, blurring the line between myself and the part of me that wanted to binge. I remembered the pleasure that certain foods brought me, and I began to think I was one and the same as my animal brain. Sometimes I believed I wanted what it wanted, and at the end of May—two weeks after reading
RR
—I acted on one of my urges to binge. I simply got swept away in the wave, and temptation took over. But this binge was different than any other, because during the binge and afterward, I saw clearly that it wasn't really me that wanted to eat.

I knew I wanted to quit; and I knew exactly what had gone wrong. I could trace the sequence of thoughts and feelings back to one point at which I stopped observing my thoughts from outside and figuratively stepped back inside my head, relating to my cravings. Instead of listening to my thoughts as an observer, as I had been doing, I began to react emotionally to them. I temporarily felt it really was me that wanted to binge, and I did.

I didn't view this binge as a setback, or as proof that I somehow needed to binge. Instead, I unmistakably saw that part of my brain had temporarily gotten the better of me, and now I was even more determined not to let it happen again. So the next time my brain provided a craving, I recognized it; I was able to listen to my thoughts and feelings without acting on them, and they dissipated quickly.

I was binge-free for the entire month of June 2005. I was pleased and rather amazed at my success, because prior to reading
RR,
I had been binge eating at least three times a week. I was intrigued at the way a simple thinking skill had changed my behavior so suddenly. Everything else in my life was the same and all my other problems remained—just as when I was on Topamax—but I no longer saw my other problems as related to my binge eating.

I binged only one more time—at the beginning of July—and then my binge eating was over for good. To this day, I don't even consider my last binge a true binge; in my mind, it was more of a test. When I got the familiar urge to binge on that July day, an interesting idea arose.

I am going to choose to binge,
I thought.
I know I am not trying to fulfill any emotional need. I know I am not out of control. I am going to choose to listen to these automatic thoughts from the lower part of my brain. I know it's not me that wants to binge, but I am going to do it nonetheless.

It was as if I had said,
OK, animal brain, let's go.

I went to the refrigerator and started eating, but something different happened. Eating wasn't exciting. The food wasn't all that good. I didn't eat quickly as I had in the past, and the process wasn't very pleasurable. I stopped eating long before I would have stopped on any previous binge, because it simply wasn't the same. I don't have a firm explanation as to why this was so, but I believe it was because "I"—my human brain—remained present and separate from my animal brain during the binge. This allowed me to experience the binge with volition; throughout the binge, I knew it was my choice and I never felt out of control.

This was different from all my previous binges, because during them, "I" had disappeared the moment I gave in to my urge. With the animal brain in control, I hadn't thought about what I was doing, but had eaten quickly and mindlessly, experiencing the temporary pleasure that went with eating large amounts of food and being indifferent to everything else. My last binge was different because my eating was not mindless. I knew that every bite I took was my own, and I found that I simply didn't want it. This last binge proved to me something that I had sensed for years: that I didn't want to binge, but I felt driven to do it by some force beyond my control. This time, with the choice back in my hands, I found it nearly impossible to binge.

For the next month, I got frequent urges to binge, but I recognized them and didn't react emotionally to them or act on them. I noticed that if I separated myself from my thoughts and feelings about binge eating before they turned into cravings and powerful urges, not bingeing was completely effortless. I noticed that the only times my thoughts and feelings turned into powerful urges was when I related to them and started believing them. Then it required a little more effort to step back and detach myself. Nonetheless, my desire to binge had decreased markedly by August 2005, and by September of that year, it was nearly nonexistent.

I no longer had cravings or urges to binge, only random thoughts and feelings that didn't require any effort to resist. These popped up from time to time for another five months or so, but they no longer bothered me or caused me any distress. As 2005 was coming to a close, I felt that my bulimia was becoming a distant memory.

NO MORE RESOLUTIONS

On December 31 of that year, I was visiting Greg's family for the holidays. It was around ten o'clock at night, and I was alone on the couch in the home of one of Greg's relatives. I was watching TV and babysitting Greg's young cousins, who were sleeping upstairs. As I lay on the couch, I heard a familiar voice in my head.
You're all alone, and you've done so well not bingeing for so long. There is so much good junk food in this house, and no one will even notice it's gone. Bingeing just one more time won't hurt. You deserve it,
the voice said.
New Year's Eve is a perfect time to binge because you can just make a new resolution tomorrow. Plus, you are feeling lonely and scared in this dark house, you've been stressed trying to fit in with Greg's family, and you're angry that you had to be the one to babysit tonight while everyone else went out. Eating will make you forget all that and help you sleep.

In reality, I chose to babysit and felt good about that decision. I wanted my husband to have a good time with his family, whom he is very close to yet doesn't get to see very much, living on the opposite side of the country. I'm not a fan of going out to bars, and I much preferred be home alone than in a crowded, loud place, even if it meant a little anxiety being in an unfamiliar house. I may have been a little stressed over the past several days socializing with Greg's family, but that was pretty typical for me and altogether manageable. However, when generating thoughts about binge eating, my brain had a way of turning any situation into a "poor me" story. My brain picked up on anything that would make me feel sorry for myself and tempt me to binge, even if it was blatantly false.

Although thoughts like these had led to cravings and urges and binges so many times before, I knew this time would be different. I knew I did not binge eat anymore, no matter what crazy reasons my brain generated; so I stayed on the couch, listening to the thoughts running through my brain. There was no need to argue with them, no need to stop them, no need to grab my journal and write about my feelings, no need to hurry to find other ways to cope with them.

I just lay there, relaxed, listening to my brain. Only a little over seven months earlier, my thoughts would have taken over, sending a cascade of reactions through my whole body until every part of my being felt it needed to binge. The most powerful urges had been like waves that started with a little swell of thoughts, growing into desire, then need, then desperation. The waves would sweep over my body—my heart speeding, my stomach feeling like a void, my mouth yearning for food, and my arms and legs feeling almost too paralyzed to do anything but head toward the refrigerator.

But lying on the couch in Greg's family's house, my body was unaffected. It amazed me that a simple thinking skill could stop the thoughts from taking over, stop them from becoming irresistible urges. Knowing that my thoughts were automatic allowed me to prevent the cascade of reactions in my body, stopped the wave from building. My thoughts remained just that—thoughts—and they didn't affect what I chose to do.

In the past, I might have curled up on the couch, gritting my teeth, trying to fight off my dangerous thoughts. But this time, I knew I didn't have to do that. My thoughts were not dangerous at all. I could easily choose to listen curiously but not react to or act on them. I knew my thoughts were not under my control, but my actions were. It was simple to control my actions that night, because I didn't identify with my thoughts or give them any power to affect my decisions. I knew it was not truly me who wanted to eat, but a lesser part of me acting up.

All I had to do that New Year's Eve was lie on the couch and let thoughts about binge eating run through my head like a tape recorder. All I had to do was listen with detachment until they fizzled out, which took only a matter of minutes. After my thoughts faded, I watched the New Year's Eve coverage on TV and thought about how I'd made a resolution to stop binge eating every New Year's Eve for the previous five years. But that night as the clock struck twelve, no resolution was necessary. I already knew I would never binge again.

PART II:
My Bulimia Redefined and Recovery Explained

14
: Investigating the True Story Behind My Bulimia and Recovery

I
t seemed that a simple change in thinking had completely changed my life. Still, I sometimes worried that it was too good to be true, that it wouldn't last, just like my experience with Topamax. I wondered if my spontaneous recovery was even real. Maybe my eating disorder was just lying dormant, waiting for an opportunity to pounce again. But as the days and months of 2006 went by without any desire to binge eat, I began to think my spontaneous recovery was indeed real. I didn't see how it would be possible for my urges to return, and even if they did, I was confident I'd recognize them and not feel compelled to act on them. I honestly didn't feel I had any risk of relapse. I felt my bulimia was just a memory, and I wondered how it had ever consumed my life. If I had known such an abrupt, complete recovery was possible from the moment I entered therapy, I would have saved much valuable time.

I began to wonder how I had managed such a simple recovery. How could I have stopped my bulimia so abruptly, without fixing all my emotional problems and flaws? How had it been possible for me to suddenly stop acting on my urges to binge? How had my urges to binge disappeared so quickly after I'd stopped acting on them? It didn't seem as though I'd done anything special, but I couldn't help but feel that there had to be something more to it.

I wasn't satisfied with just recovering and moving on with my life. I needed to know exactly how Trimpey's advice in
Rational Recovery
had helped me to quit so quickly. I thought that if I could understand how I was able to recover, maybe I could one day share my story and help other people recover from bulimia as well. So I set out to find some answers.

I decided that I needed to start by determining what my eating disorder had been all about, from its inception. If it had truly been about my personality, my upbringing, my emotional problems, or even genetics—as my therapists had said—then it didn't seem likely that I could have quit so easily.

Beginning in April 2006, I began redefining my eating disorder with a new perspective, as a recovered bulimic. I was able to look back on the whole experience and finally see (through my own insights and a little bit of research) exactly what had happened—why my eating disorder had developed and why I had maintained it for so long.

The answers I found turned out to be very different from those I'd sought in therapy. This time, my "whys" were answered in terms of my brain, not my supposed underlying psychological issues.

RR's
discussion of the brain and how it works in addiction had made me interested in determining how my brain worked in my eating disorder. As I learned a little about this, I discovered that I had simply been a victim of my
healthy
brain—a brain that was only doing its job—for all the years I was bulimic. In this part of the book, then, I'll describe how I redefined my bulimia in terms of my brain function, pinpointing the real reasons I began to binge and why I maintained my binge eating for so long. Then I'll explain how I used my brain to stop so quickly, easily, and permanently.

Throughout Part II, it's important to stress that I am not an expert on the brain. I am simply a recovered bulimic with an undergraduate liberal arts degree. Nevertheless, I have learned enough to completely free myself from bulimia. My discussion of the brain and how it functions in bulimia is meant to be useful, not overloaded with scientific or technical information. The way that bulimia develops in the brain is actually very simple, and it's completely fascinating how that same brain can wipe it away. I hope that by sharing some basic information, I can help many people overcome binge eating as quickly and easily as I did.