I cried (and still am crying) when I read your post because it was me with one exception: I throw up after I binge. I am an obese bulimic.

I, too, would order a family meal for my "family" of one. I once bought all the trimmings for a "birthday party" so no one would think I was going to eat all that cake and ice cream by myself.

I too would eat in the dark. I lived in darkness and in my own solitary confinement.

I want this year to be [I]my[I] year. I've only binged and purged once in 11 days. I haven't engaged in that behavior since I've started my new life on January 5.

Thank you so much for your post. You are helping more people than you realize.

Thank you for posting this. I see myself in your story. I too have a big purse and know all the tricks to hide my addiction. I know how to hide food right under my husband's nose and he wouldn't find it. I'm a food hoarded and have my stashes everywhere. Everytime I leave the house for work, school, appointments, etc I have 2 places to go; the place I'm supposed to be going and the food joint before or afterwards. Everytime I have to go somewhere my mind immediately conjures up my favorite food places iin that area. I feel happy and peaceful knowing that there will be something for me to eat everywhere I go but get incredibly angry when there is not enough time to eat or they've run out of my favorite food, or anything else that disrupts my binge. There's an awful lot of planning that goes into a binge, when, where, how much, how will I dspose of the evidence etc. One binge may entail several trips; whoppers, chicken strips and fries at burger king, dunkin donuts for dessert, 7-eleven for chips and soda and a candy bar are all one meal.

Sorry to go off, your post conjured up my own problem.

You have a very engaging way of writing - its impressive.

I'll keep an eye out for your other posts!

Excellent post, Forgotten Quill.

I wanted to add that there actually are many similarities when comparing food addiction to other addictions (drug addiction, etc.) insofar as society's perspective on these.

People truly do not understand addiction. They see it as a character flaw, a moral issue and an issue of simple will-power. They have NO idea how truly difficult it is.....as it is truly an obsessive-compulsive disorder....just like many other OCD disorders (hoarding, etc.). In addition, there is a significant physiologic component to these....it's not just all psychological.

I've spoken to many gambling addicts and they all tell me it is NOT about winning money. It's actually about the euphoria they experience WHILE gambling....and really has nothing to do with whether they win or lose. For a person who doesn't have this particular addiction....it is almost incomprehensible.....just like it is with other addictions.

A significant percentage of the population has one sort of addiction or another. There are just so many of them....shopping, drugs, food, gambling, cutting, etc. The best way for people to even remotely comprehend the true difficulty of how obsessive/compulsive a food addiction is would be to compare it to any other addiction they might also have personal experience with.

My brother was a really serious drug addict and my father could NOT comprehend why he couldn't just stop. My father, however, is a love addict....and the best luck I had trying to help him understand the obsessive-compulsive nature of it was to compare my brother's addiction to his own addiction.

IMO...the main problem is that 1) people do NOT understand addiction and then to compound this, they 2) may not understand over-eating and other eating disorders ARE actually an addiction. They simply have NO idea how truly difficult it is to overcome.

deena