I was bulimic. It then took me another ten years of my life to recover. Now I’m recovered. This is not necessarily a good thing. #NEDawareness story time.

Addiction. In that timespan I gained and lost around XXXlbs. Food intake and hunger is essential to life. I have self hatred and fear and anger and a desire to be in control of the only concretely defining element of my existence- my body. How to be in control.

When you make yourself throw up you feel good mentally. Calories aren’t entering your gut but the serotonin leaves through your mouth. That hurts but that’s how you know you deserve to exist.

When you starve you feel your body getting purer and purer. You’re hungry but you want control, need to look thinner. Don’t. Put. Anything. In. Your. Mouth. Spit it out. You will exist and by virtue of your will you can Starve Me. Starve your body. Starve Yourself. The less you consume the more whole you are. Your moment, the singular opportunity to avoid eating or to expel. The rise to power.

Get rid of the flesh. Your flesh is you. You try to remove. It’s a brown-black woolen thread of self-loathing ugliness writhing like a worm inside your skin. 1oz of worm is cut out with 20oz of life. Hate a little harder for hurting yourself. Feel proud for enduring and persisting. The wave of hunger swells and shallows and it is the curse you ride on. Your reaction is potential salvation.

But you’ve recovered. You’re ok, you haven’t made yourself puke for over a year. You’re fucking fat but you’re healthy. It’s been two years now. Your teeth aren’t hurting as much. The constant heartburn after you eat is diminishing. You’re on the elliptical at level 10 for 6 hours a week. I’m looking good. I’m moving on. You side eye whisper to yourself, “This is great! I’ve found a new way to hurt myself and people are chill with it”. All my neighbors and hot coworkers do it. I look at them as they sweat and in their fluid I can smell that they hate themselves. But this way is ok.

I up my sessions to 90 minutes. I am better than you. I work out harder. I am fitter. Sexier. I have controlled my mind, my body, my mouth. I am healthy. Shh. I am still floating on the wave though. You see, I believe that my flesh is my soul. The only times I have loved my soul has been in long prior years of eating and body control.

I associate pain with attractiveness. If I look in the mirror and am not turned on I think I am lazy. I deserve to suffer, I have to suffer. I must be sexy and I want to touch myself and not feel that I am coated in a layer of buttered filth. I had the illusion that there was soul, mind, and body. There is just my body though. Between you and me: I hate who I am, I hate who I was, and I hate how I have grown.

I remember my favorite moments in my body. My favorite moment of my life?—— I am 6’ and 112lbs. It is winter and it is 8*F. I wait outside for the bus without a coat, just wearing a button down gray silk long sleeved shirt. I feel the wind press my shirt press against my skin. I don’t shiver. I breath deeply, meditatively, I am chilled, I have no fat, but the chill does not matter. I know my scant body and I know myself. I am in control of my body. I am in control of my existence. I feel amazing. I don’t feel sick. I have puked and ran and starved myself down to something scary. I am so good at being sick that I have become fucking amazing. Something better than you.

Do you need to eat? See, I -chose- if I ate. I was better. I write this and I currently want to lose 20lbs. I haven’t made myself puke for over 10 years though. At my unhealthiest though, that was when I was at my best. I controlled my food, I controlled my body, I controlled my existence.

Today, in my life, I aim to nourish myself in many ways. But with food, that which my body- that which I am made of, I do not have control. Now, I diet and work out delicately. I don’t want to be obsessed again. I want to look in the mirror and feel that my mind and behavioral choices are sexy. At the cost of the sexiness of my body. Which is me. And the only way I am absolutely sure that I can lose 20lbs is to hurt myself. But I can’t like it too much. Or be too good at it.

I’m a biological male. In writing all of the above I feel stings of shame. Stigma because males are taught to be apathetic about their bodily appearance. It’s not even suggested in media that men might hurt themselves or have eating issues. My wacked out behavior is socially misaligned. I am not attempting to diminish or understate the experience of women. As an awkward personal example I am sharing that men also have eating disorders.

I want to make my physique beautiful without self harm. That will never happen. To feel attractive I have to make myself hurt more than I hate myself. Everyone that I have talked to who has suffered from eating disorders has expressed similar sentiments.

“There is no out.” “I can’t escape.” “It’s warped me.”

I am alone in my house. I whisper to myself, “use me, while you can.” “While I am still around for you to abuse”. I count my calories for the day. 900. I feel good. It’s day 17. I look in the mirror. Hipbones. Ribs. Collarbones. Wrists. Cheekbones. Waist. Hips. That bone under the mound of fat in my pubic area. I see the bones. I am in control. My mind, mouth, and body are tunneling into the sun. It’s infinitely bright and I am strong. Now. Now I’m starting to feel beautiful.

Why shouldn’t I do this?