I think the reason I stopped bingeing and purging had less to do with feeling emotionally better, and more to do with the fact it made me feel dirty. Bulimia is a ridiculously dirty and gross disease. It is a disease of want and desire. You constantly crave food, think about food, plan when you're going to eat next, what you're going to eat, when you're going to throw it up, how you're going to get rid of it, how you're going to hide it. It's sneaky, underhanded. My anorexic periods preceding and after lasted far longer. It's a disease that has always been glorified. It is ultimately a prolonged exercise in self-control, will. Women are told not to want, not to desire, there is some sense of holiness or cleanliness. The high I got from going a day off half a banana was beyond anything I can equal now. If I could just explain the dynamics between that bulimic urge to consume everything, to make everything a part of you, and the anorexic denial of bodily needs...I think that's probably a major pattern in my everyday life. I battle with that each and every time I walk to the kitchen to get something to eat. Every time I look at a menu. Every time I smell something cooking. I still stand there, paralyzed momentarily by the question of, "Should I to eat or not?"