Learning To Be Me - My Twenty-Three Year Battle With Bulimia
by Jocelyn Golden
CONTENTS
Prologue
PART I: THE PROMISE
Chapter 1 The Devil in the Bushes
Chapter 2 My Blanket of Shadows
Chapter 3 A Thousand Shades of Black
Chapter 4 The Invisible Child
Chapter 5 House of Shadows
Chapter 6 From a Whisper to a Silent Scream
Chapter 7 Unseen in Plain Sight
PART II: THE BETRAYAL
Chapter 8 My Demon Makes Its Home
Chapter 9 Diet Slave
Chapter 10 The Dying Game
Chapter 11 Backwards into Hell
Chapter 12 Home Sweet Hurt
Chapter 13 The Fog Around the Sun
Chapter 14 The Bitterest End
Chapter 15 Paying the Price
PART III: THE REDEMPTION
Chapter 16 Out from the Shadows
Chapter 17 Finding a Therapist
Chapter 18 Through the Looking Glass
Chapter 19 The Greatest Gift
Chapter 20 Missing Pieces
Chapter 21 A Husband’s Story
Epilogue The Beginning of the Beginning
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What follows is the true story of my twenty-three-year battle with bulimia. From its innocuous beginnings when I was thirteen, it took me on a journey of violent self-abuse that brought me to the edge of complete self-destruction. It left me so physically damaged that I required two life-altering surgeries and, as a result, I am reminded every day of the road I have traveled. Along the way my cries for help went unheard or were misunderstood and my utter reliance on and immersion in my disease eclipsed and overshadowed everything else. It was not until nearly a quarter of a century of living every aspect of my life through this disease that I found the strength, inspiration, and support to seek the help that finally brought me into recovery and enabled me to live without my most enduring companion, bulimia.
Today I am sharing this story with you, whoever you are — sufferer, friend, family member, spouse — in the hope you can spare yourself or someone you love from taking a journey similar to mine. If I can give you or your loved one the gift of self-kindness and resisting the false promises bulimia or other eating disorders offer, then my journey will not have been in vain.
© Copyright Jocelyn Golden 2005 – all rights reserved
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