Actresses with Eating Disorders: How to Survive in Hollywood

I have first-hand experience with this not-so-rare phenomenon. It’s hard enough wanting to look good in front of others and feel good about yourself and feel attractive enough to attract a partner, but take a look at the scrutiny of the camera and the five or ten pounds it adds to your frame and it’s a safe path. to disaster if you have an eating disorder.

I started bingeing and purging when I was in high school. It wasn’t just a way to deal with my “baby fat”, it was a coping mechanism. I thought I had it all under control. Six months later he was still doing it. Six years later, I realized that I really had a problem. Twelve years later I finally found help. Today, I am bulimia free.

There is no single way to free yourself from an eating disorder, each person has their own path. I never thought I would see the end of my very dark tunnel to hell which was my eating disorder. I want others to know that there is hope. If I can do it, you can too.

I found a therapist who graciously guided me back to myself. I was a lost soul. I couldn’t look into my eyes in the mirror because I was so disgusted with myself. I was so nervous and stressed out before an acting job that I was lulling myself to binge and purge all the time, trying to be careful that my eyes didn’t bulge too much for the next few days of on-camera work. I wanted to do a good job for the director and the other actors. I wanted to look good in front of the camera. I never felt thin enough. I look back at the movies I made and just shake my head in disbelief. I was not fat. He had a totally different perspective, a totally distorted perspective of how he thought he was and what the reality was.

I’ll tell you what worked for me. My therapist gently asked me to call him when I felt like I was going to binge and purge. I couldn’t do that. It was too invasive for me. I was not strong enough. Then he asked me to call him and leave him a message when I was going to binge and purge. I couldn’t do that either. So he asked me to write it down and email it when I was going to binge and purge. It took me a while, but I was finally able to do that. This is what I wrote:

Well, I can get into that. I may not. I am fighting in the middle. Today I was very good … according to my caloric intake and exercise standards.

I am chewing on Baked Lays and they are generally okay, however I have a few other things in here to chew on and if I go there I don’t think I will like myself for eating it. Right now it feels like a calorie issue … sometimes it’s like that, sometimes it’s not. I’ve been with a lot of people lately. Sometimes that’s so stressful that I resort to bingeing and purging. I don’t know yet if it’s about not having done it in a couple of days or trying to escape being around people and being so affected by them. Now I’m eating some of the ham and cheese sandwich I bought at Circle K. I took off the bread to make myself feel better but I don’t think it will last … now I feel even worse because I’m eating the other half, without most of it. of bread. But, I’m almost daring myself to do this just so I can do this (write about it and dig into it) … before I think I wanted to eat and not think about it and run away … from me. .. then I thought better of it, that I was afraid of not wanting to have to write about it. Now I’m sad because I’m writing about it … while taking another bite … this sucks. I want more. I don’t want to want more. This has been a lazy click. (I call it “clicking” because that’s how it felt, like a switch was suddenly flipped and there was no going back from bingeing and purging.) More thought processes going … not so suddenly click just because that can’t happen if I’m writing about it. I don’t feel good about it and it slows me down, but I don’t think it’s bad enough to stop me just yet. I hate this though. I hate this. Another pair of Baked Lays … is adding up. I hate this. Now I feel like I need to go out and get something cheap to get mugged … I hate sharing this. I feel exposed. I have already said before. I feel like I have disappointed … me / you / the world. I’m a good person without this … I know it’s not true but I felt it just now. I feel bad. Tears run down my face without even crying. I hate this. My throat feels like it’s bursting with pressure. I don’t want to go there but I feel like I already have … I eat another potato to check it out. Hand to mouth. Convenience when grinding. That sounds so silly. It is 10:49 PM. I think, logically, I have until 4:00 p.m. M. In the morning for my next call for this movie that I am working on and I can sleep late and be fine to have my eyes a little puffy because I have time for them to puff up.

Three more Baked Lays … I don’t even feel that guilty about Baked Lays … I feel guilty about my life. Now, that came out of nowhere, but I don’t know exactly what I mean by that, but I had to write it down just in case I found out later to figure it out … why should I feel guilty about my life? Logically and even spiritually I can grasp some of that, but I don’t understand it. I don’t want to ignore it exactly, but I don’t know what it means, if it means anything. It just popped up in my head. Well, now that I have tried to think that everything is so logical and beautiful … let’s go back to this … I don’t want to go back to this. It’s so much easier not … ham and cheese, Baked Lays. I have egg whites and … what else … I don’t want to think about it … I want to go to a fast food place and order a lot of bad, bad food and bring it in and eat it. everybody. That makes me cry. I don’t want to try it and feel the process of taking it off. GOD, I HATE THIS. I’m doing it to help me. I hate it. I still don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to leave here because then I’ll go do this and feel so gross that I did this and that I’m not such a good person because I’m doing this … I don’t want to look at this.

Now that I’m looking at myself, I don’t want to look at myself going to a fast food place and buying food. I feel stagnant. Stuck with food inside me … stuck. I’m counting … I’m counting Can’t I purge myself and feel good? Can’t purge and not weigh 150 pounds tomorrow morning? I know it’s unreal, however I want to LOSE weight for this next movie. I feel like I’m failing at that. I do not know how to get there. I dont know. I just know that I would have to have help and that doesn’t feel too good to know because I don’t have anyone to help me. It would be a 24/7 job and I don’t know anyone with that time, much less … me. What should I do? I dont know. I dont know. I want to get rid of what is inside of me. That makes me cry a lot. I want it not to be part of me. It’s separate from me … food can’t even be a part of me. I hate digestion. It means that food has become part of me. During the day this is not a factor in my life … as healthy and I know that I need nutrition in my life and food to nourish me … proteins every three hours, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, exercise, etc. etc … at night I want them to feel separated from me. The food. Leave me alone. Leave. I eat food and I don’t want to go to bed without having something in my stomach, yet I really want to be separated from it. I want it to come out of my body. I don’t want to have to throw up. I just want him to go away. I don’t know of any other way to get rid of it.

I’m going to post this now so I don’t go over it too much and think about it. These are my thoughts, organically now.

Writing about my episode changed something in me. He gently guided me into having to feel what I was trying so desperately to escape from. It is as if I had a camera in my head recording what was happening so that I could later find out what could help me stop my behavior. I started to write more and more and it helped me, as a kind of therapy of my own. I turned what I wrote into a book, which in itself was also very therapeutic. I want to help others find their way out of their own eating disorder hell. My book is: “Wasted, from the inside, not just another woman with bulimia.”