Bulimia Help

Hello all... I'm new to the site so I wanted to tell my story and how I got to the place I am today. Let's see, I'm 21 now and my first binge/purge was at the end of 2006 (I definitely crashed and yo yo dieted before... but nothing lasted longer than a week or two). It all started with my mom's homemade chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Let me tell you something, they are delicious. She sent about a dozen back with me after I had visited home for a day (it was my first semester at college). I stared at the plate of cookies and decided to have one. I felt guilty. I ate another... I felt even more guilty. How was I going to fix this? I thought to myself, "What the hell... I'll just eat all of them and try to throw it up." At cookie #6 or 7, I started to feel very sick. I pushed through the sickness and devoured the rest of the cookies. Then I searched through the kitchen utensils to find something to gag myself with. I settled on a spatula and headed for the toilet. As I hovered over the toilet, shoving the end of a spatula down my throat, I started to get frustrated because food was not coming up easily. It was then that I learned my first binge mistake: I hadn't drank any fluid. So... I headed to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I finished and tried again. This time I just threw up water and no food. Now THIS was frustrating. I went to my bedroom feeling defeated that I had eaten 12 cookies and now had to deal with the consequences.
Over the next couple of months I experimented more binging and purging, crash diets and whatnot; I never really got it right. I was eating too much food and not throwing enough of it up, so my weight went up to the highest it's ever been at 142 (I'm 5'4 and naturally settle at around 127-133). I felt disgusting. I was so ashamed of myself, I didn't want anyone to see me.

My room mate joined a gym and convinced me to start with her, so I did. I learned all the proper techniques and how to get a really effective workout, and because I had never consistently lifted weights before I started to show muscle definition very quickly. I remember seeing all the lean, toned girls in the gym and thinking, "I want to be like that," so I started working out even harder and eating right too. I became so obsessed with food labels that I wouldn't eat ANYTHING with sugar or modified corn/food starch. I remember eating low fat cottage cheese one day, the same brand that I had always gotten from Wal-Mart, and thinking it tasted different. I re-checked the label, saw that they had changed the recipe and added modified food starch, and literally spit it out into the kitchen sink.

I don't really remember when my binging and purging became consistent, but I definitely learned how to refine my technique to make it effective. I realized that when I paired my food with milk or ice cream, it neutralized the acid in my stomach and it came up a lot easier. It didn't take long for it to progress to the point where I didn't even have to gag myself... the food just started to come up automatically. I lost weight. My body settled around 119 to 122. I do have to say, I looked awesome. Because I was still working out, I looked slim but still had muscle mass. I've always been a busty girl, so guys still thought I looked curvy because I still had boobs. I would go out and get hit on and stared at, and I could fit into a size 0 or 2, and I could wear what I wanted . I felt very empowered. I've never been an unattractive or "fat" girl, but I'd always aspired to be one of those girls that turns heads. People would say to me, "You look so great! You must work out all the time!" I had NEVER gotten compliments on how healthy I looked in my entire life. Oh, the irony; people telling me how healthy and great I looked as I was doing the most unhealthy and disgusting things to myself.

Binging and purging started to take over my life. I spent all of my money on food. I ate when I was happy, sad, bored, anxious, depressed... rain, shine. I ate. I quit school after my spring semester of freshman year. I ended up with a 2.3 GPA and lost my scholarship (had to have at least a 3.0). I didn't apply myself at all, but I blamed it on "not knowing what I wanted to do" and being unmotivated to work towards a degree I might want to change. I started working as a waitress because my parents cut me off for losing my scholarship, and I refused to move back home, so I had to have some sort of income. I stayed in that college town watching everyone go to school and pursue their careers while I worked as a waitress and ate. I was so embarrassed that I wasn't going to school that I would lie to people when they would ask me "So what are you studying?" (because it was a college town, any young person was assumed to be going to the university). I would tell them I was a public relations of journalism major. I even went as far as telling my boyfriend and his parents my class schedule and major, when I hadn't been in school for almost 2 years at that point. I became a compulsive liar. I've always been a very honest person, but I think I started lying so much because I was so ashamed of what my life had become that I chose to lie to conceal my pain and embarrassment.

I eventually came clean to my boyfriend (and begged him not to say a word to his family), and he forgave me, thankfully. After he graduated, we moved in together in a nearby city. I was happy to get out of the college town and get a "fresh start" (I got a job as a waitress at a different restaurant... again). My boyfriend has known about the bulimia since we got together, but I don't think he understands how serious it is. I am a different person when he's around... he makes me better. I'm happy when he's around. But then he leaves... and I think, "now I can eat and throw up." I've tried to get him to jump on the boat to recovery with me, but he's been tricked by me a lot in the past saying, "Oh, I've got it under control. I'm not bulimic anymore. Don't worry about it." He also thinks I'm lazy and just don't want to make the effort to eat right and work out. In a way, he's right. Binging and purging is fun for me sometimes. But, it's also a very unhealthy obsession. He doesn't understand what it's like to think about food all the time... or to hate yourself because you're not perfect. I do admire him and respect his opinion because he's got a great job, very well off, already has his MBA, and has great head on his shoulders. But those are also the reasons I feel inadequate around him. Sometimes I wonder if he's embarrassed to tell his friends that I'm a waitress right now, not going to school... not really doing anything with my life. I know I always try to avoid those conversations (they live far away, thank God).

So this is where I am right now: Three and a half years into my eating disorder, working about 20 hours a week at a restaurant, hanging out with my boyfriend when he gets home from work, and binging and purging when he's not around (usually around three times a day). Sometimes I look at pictures of my friends online, they're excited and about to graduate from college, and I wonder, "am I going to waste my life away eating?" I really, really want to get better. I want to accomplish goals, I want to repair my body from all the crap I've put it through, I want to be proud of myself. I want to enjoy life instead of watching it pass me by. I'm just trying to find the strength and will to get started.