Free Brain Over Binge by Kathryn Hansen

give, so I dropped out of my classes in March 2004, less than three months into the semester, feeling like a failure again for letting my eating disorder get in the way of my future plans.
    I felt lost when it came to my career direction. I had gone from wanting to be a publicist for a band to possibly wanting to be a teacher of world religions, and there were countless other ideas in between, none of which I felt capable of pursuing while bulimic. I had this pervasive idea in my head that once I recovered from bulimia, I'd figure everything out. Then I'd be able to choose and pursue a meaningful career, get married, and have children.
    A therapist had once suggested that I used the eating disorder as an excuse to stay stagnant and not pursue goals. The theory was that I was afraid to fail, so I used my binge eating and purging to avoid trying. If I could always blame my lack of success on my eating disorder, then I'd never have to bear the ego hit of failure. I don't believe this was true. I blamed my eating disorder for my failures, not to avoid feeling personally inadequate, but because my eating disorder made me feel personally inadequate.
    Around the time I dropped out of grad school, Greg proposed to me. After work one day, he told me to meet him on a nearby mountain we loved to hike. He brought a picnic so we could eat and watch the sunset. This would have been very enjoyable, but I had just finished binge eating. I felt bloated and uncomfortable and couldn't take pleasure in the dinner he'd prepared. I told Greg that I'd binged and that I was sorry I wasn't in a good mood. He reiterated what he'd been telling me all along: that he supported me and that he'd stand by me and help me in any way he could.
    Then, to my surprise, as the sun began to set, he got down on one knee at the top of the mountain and pulled out a ring. We'd talked about marriage before, but since we'd known each other for only eight months, it seemed a little premature. Greg is five years older than me, and he was ready for marriage at the time. I was unsure. If I hadn't binged that day, I truly believe I would have said yes. I loved him, and even though we hadn't known each other all that long and I was still young, it felt right. But that day, feeling bloated and worthless, I told him no—or more specifically, "not yet." In my mind, "not yet" meant I needed to wait until after I'd recovered, although I doubted recovery would come anytime soon.
    We talked more about marriage over the next month, and he made me realize that recovery wasn't a prerequisite; still, he'd wait until I was ready. To his surprise this time, I made my decision quickly, proposing to him only a month later. We had a civil marriage right away, then six months later, a very small church wedding with only our family present—me wearing dressy pants and a white blouse.
    There were practical reasons for our decision to have a nontraditional wedding; however, my eating disorder factored into it as well, as it had factored into most aspects of my life since high school. I didn't feel capable of making it through the traditional process—the pressure of fitting into the perfect dress, of being the center of attention, of all the work required to plan a big wedding.
    Shortly before our church ceremony in November 2004, we moved into a new house. As we unloaded boxes, I resolved that I'd change. I won't binge in this house, I thought. It wasn't a dorm or an apartment with access to vending machines or workout centers. It was our home, and I'd act like an adult, putting foolish ways behind me in our new life together. But as with all other major changes in my life, it brought the same pattern of binge eating and overexercising.
    I didn't understand it—I had everything I could have hoped for. I had even found a job close to our new house as a teacher's assistant in an elementary school special education classroom. The job fit my skills and personality; I found meaning in it; I liked