Binge eating disorder recovery

Binge eating disorder – the road to recovery

Living with binge eating disorder can feel like food completely controls your life - rather than being in control of yourself, you are controlled by food and constant streams of thought about food. It takes up a ridiculous amount of brain space.

Moving to university

It all began 11 years ago when I started university.

I moved to a new city an hour and half away from home. I found the transition to University very difficult: becoming much more independent, being surrounded by extremely intelligent people, a lot of socialising (for an introvert), a lot of drinking (for someone who doesn't drink much) and often feeling lonely and not sure who to talk to about it.

I don't remember exactly when it first began, but I know it was at some stage pretty early on in my first year. I struggled with very low self-esteem and body image issues. I would look in the mirror and dislike everything I saw, specifically around my size. I thought if I could just lose weight I would be happier. I was terrified of weight gain and would often ‘body check’ ten or more times a day, especially after eating. I would start each day with the intention of trying to 'be good' and 'healthy'.

Constantly analysing

I would intend to achieve this by following all sorts of 'food/diet rules' during the day, such as, greatly restricting the amount I ate, calorie counting, avoiding carbohydrates, avoiding what I considered to be 'bad foods' and trying to have a drink when I felt hungry to see if that filled me up instead of food.

Throughout the day I would have a voice in my head constantly analysing what I was eating (telling me what I should and shouldn't have), criticising myself, comparing myself to others and generally making myself not feel good enough. This was not only mentally exhausting but extremely debilitating. There are conversations, situations and periods of my life that I literally don’t remember because I was so consumed by the internal talk.

Throughout the day I would have a voice in my head constantly analysing what I was eating (telling me what I should and shouldn't have), criticising myself, comparing myself to others and generally making myself not feel good enough.

The evenings are when the binges would happen. When I was at my worst, the cycles of restricting and then binging occurred daily and at my very worst I was even binging multiple times a day.

Planning

The key thing about a binge is that they always happen in secret. There might be various triggers - emotion, tiredness, physical hunger (due to so much restriction) or loneliness. I would plan binges for when no one was around and imagine what foods I would binge. They were most often foods I had restricted myself from having when I was trying to be 'good', like crisps, bread, cereal from the box, Nutella from the jar, ice cream, biscuits and cake.

The only way I can think to describe a binge is going into a trance-like state of eating and eating and eating, even if I wasn't hungry, until I felt physically ill and couldn't fit another single thing in. It's like something had taken over my mind and body and was moving my arm to shovel food into my mouth with absolutely no control over it. I just knew I couldn't stop - in those moments I would feel completely addicted to food.

During and after a binge, the voice in my head gets extremely loud - the self-loathing, the shame, the guilt, the disgust in myself, the upset - often crying afterwards because of what I had done. It was mentally distressing and I would feel extremely low. I would then usually fall asleep, exhausted from the emotions, to have a break from the head talk and also naturally from a sugar crash!

In the morning the emotions would come flooding back and the voice in my head started shouting at me again. I would hide any evidence of the events of last night and restart the cycle with 'today must be different'!

Fluctuations

This has been ongoing for 11 years, with time between binges fluctuating depending on what was going on in my life (and how stressful life felt), causing my weight to fluctuate. When the binges were worse and more frequent I would gain weight and when the restriction was worse I lost weight. However, even long periods of restriction (like the months before my wedding), would always revert back to binging in the long run. There were, however, also calmer periods in my life when the eating problem seemed quieter and more under control. At one point I thought it had even gone away - only for it to come back with a crash.

I felt so trapped in the restriction-binge cycle and scared that it would never go away - I just wanted to feel normal around food! I felt very depressed and that I would rather not be here anymore than have to live with this for the rest of my life.

Being in a better place

Recovery is definitely a slow process and one you have to be patient with.

On a positive note, at present, I'm happy to say I feel like I'm on my road to recovery. Recovery is definitely a slow process and one you have to be patient with (so much easier said than done!).

My eating problem definitely still hasn't 'gone away', but I would say I'm in the best place I have been in the last 11 years as I understand the disorder and myself so much better. Through coaching and an online course related to body image, binge eating disorder and relationship with food, I am learning so much: understanding my triggers, learning to eat intuitively to break the restrict-binge cycle; and prioritising myself, my own time and my recovery. The binges are now happening less frequently and I have more control over them - I try to be more accepting of them when they do happen, and kinder to myself, so they aren't as distressing and I can usually stop them earlier than before. So, I still have progress to make, but I'm in a much better place than I was.

Telling people, getting help

To this day, no one has ever seen one of my binges happen and for a long time only my husband knew about my eating problem. However, in October 2023 I asked for help - I went to the GP and started coaching and the online course - and in November 2023 I told my parents and closest friends. Although it felt scary, like my big secret in life was being revealed, I know it was the right decision to start getting help and work towards beating this. It’s so important to talk and from my own experience everyone has been incredibly supportive.

It's such a lonely mental health problem; statistics suggest that it is the most common eating disorder, yet the least spoken about. I believe there are two main factors causing this, which contributed to the 11 years of my own silence. The first is the internal shame and embarrassment, and the second is the perceived external stigma; 'You just have no self-control or will power', 'Oh everyone binges every so often when you're feeling sad', 'You don't look too underweight/overweight - you're fine' etc. This causes a feeling of having no one to talk to and that no one truly understands.

It's such a lonely mental health problem; statistics suggest that it is the most common eating disorder, yet the least spoken about.

I really don't want others to go through this or feel the way I have done and so I have decided to push past the shame and embarrassment and talk about it, so those struggling can hopefully feel less lonely. Since joining the Trust, I have felt empowered to open up and want to talk and help others due to the supportive nature of the charity.

We’re extremely grateful to Beth for sharing her story. Finding out about others’ experience can often be the first step towards feeling less lonely and seeking help. If you, or someone you know, may need help with an eating problem, you can find more information on our website.