To: I think my roommate has bulimia. Since the first day we moved in, I sometimes heard her gagging in the shower.
Me: I won’t reply to your e.mail address, because that would give away who I am, where I live and my privacy.
This Confessions works as a watershed between me and you, so that you can’t get my details, unless I want that, which I don’t.
If we were dating – but we are not – so?
Your roommate has Anorexia.
It is an illness, just like a cold, for example, although this is an illness of her mind and she needs assistance from her doctor and a referral to a Psychiatrist or Psychologist, who will try and sort out the issues which she has, with her and get her eating regularly again and putting on weight, without chucking up, to, rightly as you said, avoid putting on weight and getting fat.
You should tell her that if she is going to chuck up, to do that in the toilet and clean up afterwards, because you feel physically squeamish and uncomfortable and yukh, seeing traces of it in the shower, which is never the place for her or anyone, to throw up.
Anorexia is a really bad illness and might eventually cause significant medical and physical problems and eventually death to this young woman.
If you live somewhere where it snows or it gets very cold, then she needs body fat to stay warm and if she starts getting cold, for whatever reason, she might not be easily able to get warm again, because her body does not have any fat cells or energy, to be able to do that.
Often, people with Anorexia don’t get well again, because like being a drug addict, with Anorexia their addiction is purging, to not get fat and they become powerless to resist the urge, so they don’t eat properly, they purge everything they need to keep their body healthy and running, just like your cars engine needs gas and if you run out of gas, your cars engine stops.
Regrettably, the few Anorexic I’ve known, did not last that long, a few years rather than a lifetime of memories.
If you can find alternative accommodation with someone else, I would recommend that, as quickly as you can.
It is not an illness which you can catch, however it would have a mental impact on you, over time and life is often too complicated, to have to deal with someone else’s Anorexia, on top of your own life and whatever issues you have to deal with, on a day to day basis.
It is after all, her problem and you should never allow yourself, to make it yours.
I guess you should apply the logic you would to most drug addicts. They did it to themselves and eventually their addiction will kill them, because they can’t stop taking the drugs which give them their high.
That’s tough, but nothing to do with you.
You did not make them take addictive drugs in the first place.
Heroin = instant addiction – and the same with Anorexia.
Same logic.
Same problem.
Same result eventually, more often than not.
It is how it is.
What your roommate has failed to realize is that it is never about body size or weight. There is someone for everyone. How you talk and express yourself is more important than anything else and how you meet people, which in turn leads to relationships, marriage and kids.
“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players, they have their exits and their entrances” and in truth, how we play our parts, determines what sort of life we have and who with.
You could prune my e-mail and give a shortened version to your roommate. Enough to scare.
Best Wishes………
