CREDOS : Gratitude — I

In my song “The Way Clouds Do”, there’s a line that says, “Back in Fairfax, Virginia, me and the girls grew up in homes they built on battlefields. In ponytails and panic, we were bad, bored and bulimic. We longed for something real.” It wasn’t just alliteration, I really was all three. Some of my friends who have had or still have eating disorders are shocked that I’m essentially admitting to thousands of people that I had been bulimic. Bulimia has lots of shame attached to it.

Recovering bulimics do not talk about the night they ordered three pizzas from Domino’s, devoured two of them with a litre of Coke, followed by a bag of Doritos, another bag of Cheetos, another one of Oreos, finishing with a half gallon of Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough all while watching “Pretty Woman” in a basement apartment, slept till too late in the morning

and got up and pretended everything was okay. So, yes, I was bulimic for about ten years of my life.

I’m no longer bulimic. When I committed myself to healing, I was required over time not only to reconcile my relationship with my own body and with food, but with other people and with my emotional take on life.

These other elements were essential to the process, and the expansion and learning have been powerful. I’m convinced that commitment to anything reveals everything. But it reveals it in very tiny doses and steps. The exact doses you are able to handle at the time. — Beliefnet.com