By Amrit Dhillon
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, April 12, 1999; Page

I remember my first time. It was during the beginning of my sophomore year at the University of Maryland. We had been drinking and it had gotten late, so we stopped to get fast food just off campus and took it back to the dorm.

As we sat in one of the lounges on the south side of the building, I looked at the remnants of food scattered around us, the grease stains on the paper wrappers and the bits of shredded cheddar cheese that had fallen to the ground. Although I had eaten just one chicken fajita and a small bag of nachos, I felt like I had gained weight immediately. I didn't want that food inside of me. So I walked across the hall to the bathroom and made myself throw up.

I laughed about it to my friend still sitting in the lounge, who had consumed exactly what I did. But then I started doing it regularly, purging myself of whatever I had eaten that day, usually carrots or pretzels or cold broccoli from the salad bar. Three months later, it was not funny anymore, but I didn't think I had a problem. Every now and then the word bulimia would creep into my head, but I felt ridiculous for even thinking it was that serious; after all, by no means did I look skinny or malnourished, the way people with eating disorders were supposed to look.

I had been a big girl growing up, taller than everyone until eighth grade and heavy, too. In high school, a lot of the fat turned into muscle because of sports, but I thought I was still overweight. It never seemed unusual to be preoccupied with my size or what I ate or how much I exercised. Wasn't that what girls were supposed to do?

In high school I counted calories to the point where I had memorized the nutrition labels on many foods. I would spend hours working out at the gym after lacrosse or soccer practice. Still, I didn't think there was anything wrong. I was a 5-foot, 5-inch, 130-pound muscular girl, so what harm could watching what I ate and exercising do?

My freshman year of college I gained 15 pounds, so it was obvious excessive weight loss wasn't my problem. When I went home for winter break I began exercising and lost most of the extra pounds. I was back to being healthy.

I'm not sure what happened my sophomore year. Nothing consciously changed; I purged what little I ate but still thought I was fine.But friends would ask if anything was wrong when they noticed that I had become withdrawn. I would sit in a corner at a party – an onlooker. That was not like me.

During high school, I had watched a friend deal with anorexia nervosa. She was the kind of thin where people don't find you attractive anymore. The veins stick out of your neck and your skin always has a pale blue tinge. But I never looked like that. I thought I was fine.

That Friday night in September, the first night I leaned over a cold porcelain toilet in a dark dormitory bathroom, the first night I was literally and figuratively sick about the way I looked, everything changed.

I became preoccupied with weight and anything related to it. Imagine spending every other minute thinking about the last thing you ate, or how many calories the Stairmaster said you burned, or if a roll of fat could be seen beneath your sweater. It makes time stand still. My head felt heavy and actually hurt from thinking and analyzing my body so much.

My notebooks were covered in calculations of various calorie combinations. I couldn't concentrate and by the end of the semester my grade average had dropped by an entire point. Each time I went out of the dorm I stared into space; friends kept asking if I was okay. I still didn't think I had a problem.

I lived in my own room on the fourth floor of a high-rise dormitory. The other girls on my floor were nice, but there was always one of them around who might hear any sounds coming from the large bathroom down the hall we all shared. Unfortunately, I also knew most of the people who lived on the fifth floor, so that bathroom was off-limits, too. After eating a piece of bread or a handful of pretzels, I'd run up two flights of stairs and hope there wasn't anybody in the sixth-floor bathroom. If there was, I'd try the seventh floor, and then the eighth. Sometimes the halls were so busy it was easier to lock my door, turn up the stereo and improvise by using a plastic bag.

By the winter break, I had become tired of living on campus and moved home. Although I get along well with my parents and my brother, I have always been an independent person, never letting them into my head. I make my decisions, motivate myself. I also keep all the painful things inside. I am very manipulative (words of my mother!) and people don't know what I don't want them to know about me.

I was in a period of withdrawal when I came home to live, and my parents were concerned. My father wondered why I was spending so much time in my room.

My mother finally made me go to our family physician, who diagnosed me with bulimia nervosa and referred me to a therapist. I wasn't surprised. No matter how much I denied to myself and others that there was a problem, I knew I was bulimic. I was reluctant to seek therapy, but agreed when I saw my mother cry over my mood changes.

The specialist recommended extensive treatment. But she was abrasive so I stopped going to her. My mom found out, but she said nothing. My parents realize they are unable to get me to do anything I don't want to do.

With my family at work or school all day I had the house to myself during the break. The clinical definition of bulimia nervosa says one must purge at least twice a week. I did it three times a day.

I had never regularly binged and purged while at school. I sustained myself with pretzels or carrots or other vegetables and purged whenever I had a moment of weakness. It was different at home; there was a kitchen full of food. I couldn't eat fast enough, my heart pounding. It beat with the same intensity as I attempted to rid my system of everything I'd just consumed.

Sometimes it would be late at night and my parents would be sleeping. I'd gorge myself with chips, leftover pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It was like I couldn't chew fast enough. Then I'd go into the garage and line a paper grocery bag with a plastic one and use that as my toilet. I'd hide the bag until I could dispose of it.

I began to cry a lot.

It's difficult to gauge moodiness, one of the symptoms of an eating disorder, but even I knew my emotions were fluctuating more than usual. The slightest thing would set me off. One day, reading a magazine while riding a recumbent bike at the gym, I came across one woman's story about her battle with bulimia. I couldn't hold back the tears, so I sat there crying in the middle of a crowded room, legs spinning around on the bike.

I continued to spend hours at the gym, riding the Stairmaster up and down until the three little beeps finally signaled the end of an hour, or running laps around the small wooden track, but I still thought I was fat. I went to get my nails done one afternoon in January and couldn't believe how big and round my fingers appeared. It made me sick to look in a mirror, but that was all I wanted to do.

One day, my mom threatened to remove all mirrors from the house. But it wouldn't have mattered because I could still see my reflection in the microwave, the sliding glass door, or in the dark screen of the television. I don't know what I spent more time doing, staring at myself and obsessing over every inch of my body, or standing on a scale measuring each weight fluctuation.

The therapist had explained that bulimics don't lose weight, they just jeopardize their health. This explained why I wasn't skinny, why I didn't look like all those girls in the magazines. I thought the fact that I was doing this to lose weight and had failed would make me stop bingeing and purging, but it didn't.

I'm now 21 and am about to graduate from college. I live in apartment at school, but spend a lot of time at home. I am still caught in the cycle of bingeing and purging and avoiding treatment.

I also continue to exercise compulsively. I'm frustrated and irritable if I don't. I've also used diet pills, but they were expensive and I stopped. I can't say I'm happy with the way I look and I wonder if I will ever be completely satisfied.

I'm lucky because I don't believe I've caused my body irreparable harm. I passed a recent physical and have no obvious health problems. My family doctor and the therapist probably wouldn't agree, but I have come a long way. My thoughts about food and my body are more rational today, and I don't binge and purge as regularly. I can go a month or so without doing it.

My throat hurts a lot, my nose always runs and my stomach can't digest what would be normal amounts of food for others.

I've come to realize that an eating disorder is like being caught in a hunter's trap. You know you're stuck, but you can't get out of it. I know it won't go away. Maybe it is time to return to the therapist.