The Silent Hunger: Bulemia Nervosa And The Bulimic

Reflection 4

Topic: Bulimia Nervosa and the Bulimic

Why did you choose this topic? What were your specific learning goals for this reflection and why? I chose the topic of Bulimia Nervosa because it seemed like the disorder I could best wrap my head around in the substance-abuse/addictive section. I had brought this up to my mother and she mentioned that she still struggles with bulimia and has for 25+ years. I found this interesting because I had zero clue about her nearly fatal battle with the disorder and because she did not belong to the skinny, teenage girl stereotype of bulimia. It turns out that my stereotype was like any other stereotype—hardly the truth.

While researching the disorder and casually interviewing my mother,

It is a nagging pressure to release anger, frustration, helplessness, and any other troubling emotion. The documentary The Silent Hunger: Anorexia and Bulimia was full of resonating quotes including one by a recovering bulimic named Justine: “Once I found that there was this comfort for myself to relieve my pain… fears, insecurities-- I didn 't want to let go of that”. After a few other individuals explain their same feelings towards bulimia helping them expel emotions, the documentary goes into a section that highlights the similarity between all of the individuals—the concept of control. Bulimia is a way for the patient/individual to have control in their life. They may not have control over their job, personal life, or other stress in life but they think of bulimia as something they can control. As stated in the documentary, as soon as the bulimic gets sucked into the bulimia, they lose the control and are “at its mercy”. My mother confirmed this and mentioned that she would be upset with anyone who tried to take her habit of binging and purging—her control— away from

This gave me a better connection with bulimia nervosa that will affect both my future career in psychology/therapy as well as my future with mother. I hope that I will pass down better cognitive thinking to my children before they develop the maladaptive cognitive behaviors that is evident in my family.

What new questions do you now have about the topic and why? One question I still have is how can we better discover and diagnose bulimia while it is in the early stages? Should we be putting more time and resources into programs like Bring Change 2 Mind and ABA (Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous)? Maybe the first step is to spread awareness in schools and media. Before this semester, I thought bulimia was simply vomiting when you feel fat and I guarantee most Americans have the same concept. Although changing society’s view of mental illness is not and will not be