Zita, I did it for four decades.
Nearly my entire adult life.
Forty plus years.
Kindly, the answer is yes. At some point, if you want to, you quit. You just quit.
I was in Thailand, the town of Trat, sitting at my hotel desk, surrounded by packages of cookies. I wrote in my diary that I could be doing this at 95. I’d already lost all my teeth, had a heart attack and had damaged my organs. I survived, but not by much.
I stood up. Gathered my cookies. Took them downstairs to the hotel staff and the bartender. Walked back upstairs. That was the very last time I ever did it.
That was just before my 58th birthday, January 17, 2011.
I had been anorexic-bulimic almost my entire life by then.
Not since.
So yes. You can get over it. If you buy into the monumental, manipulative bullshit that you are always ONLY a recovering food addict, then the entire industry owns your ass. They make money off our misery.
The way I see it, Zita, we choose. These things are there to teach us how to recover our agency. Any counselor who tells you that you are forever recovering never set foot in my fucking house.
Why? Because they only make money if we are addicted to them, for their intervention. All we did was shift addictions, which puts cash in their bank, and we are tethered to them for life.
Fuck. You. is all I can say.
My body, my mistakes, my life. And my choice to get better. I did. Never once looked back. Never once had a lapse. Done for ever.
Yes you can. Your choice. Hard, but doable.
Today I am a pretty good athlete, I snack and chow down like normal folk, my body is in ridiculously good shape, my heart and lungs better than most twenty year olds. Wasn’t easy to get here. Donuts are part of my diet about once a month or so. I can chomp on a piece of chocolate without purchasing every single Cadbury bar in the store.
Eating disorders are nothing more than a symptom of pain, of a deep desire to disspate the anxiety. Like smoking or drinking or hand washing or any other OCD. Go to the source. You’re the only who can. If you get help, only get help from someone who never wants you back in their office. That’s a good counselor who is committed to you and not their bank account, their BMW or their Borneo vacation thanks to Zita.
Best of luck. You can do this.