Bullying drove Pat (29), in the bulimia: “I’m choking’ in purchase to”

In front of me, an attractive young man, slim, arms with colorful Tattoos on styled the hair perfectly. In his worst times he has passed up to five times of the day. Literally the soul from the body in vomit.

“I have taken to choking,” he says today. As Pat (29) from the low point of his bulimia told, he himself is shocked.

His greatest desire was to accept, finally, finally be thin. He pauses, looks thoughtfully at the wooden table where we sit with him at home, when I ask him, how could it come so far.

“I’m always become thicker and thicker”

Started to vomit his food, he with 14. In this time Pat between 115 and 118 pounds. At a size of maybe 1.70 metres. “I’ve always eaten a lot of sweets. My parents were not at all strict with me, what is the terms of. I’m always become thicker and thicker.“

In school, he was for many only the “fat Pig”, “buffing” or the “Blubber butt”. First it was just stupid sayings, you to beat. An outsider Pat was still never.

He always had friends. Better said, Friends. “The boys found funny. That alone has pushed me in a victim role. In the 7. Class then have to beat the first. Just because I was fat.“

In front of the school you have been waiting for him at the bus stop, intercepted, on the way home waiting. Especially an experience is remembered, Pat never. “I was sitting at a bus stop and a couple of the guys drove with the tram passed me, saw me, and then pulled out extra and come to me. Then you have to hit me so that I came to the hospital.“

His parents said Pat, it was a fight with other boys. You have believed it.

Last resort: lose weight quickly, no matter how

At some point, the 29-Year-old saw only one way out: lose weight quickly, no matter how. He thought: “If I get thin, then they stop to beat me, then you have no reason to. And since I had tried diets many times before, but never beat, because I was disciplined enough, I came somehow to the vomiting.“

The Scary part: Pat’s Plan worked. The more he took, the less the bullying was. Eventually, his classmates stopped to beat him. Pat: “Yeah, and I then threw up.”

Pat was caught in a dangerous vicious circle

Then the first of compliments: “a man came, you haven’t removed correctly”, “Oh, you’re getting leaner”. A Vicious Circle.

“Once I carved next to other stuff, also a whole bag of fries in the fryer and doused with Mayo and Ketchup. It was a Ketchup-Mayo-fries-soup. The hab' I stuffed everything inside me and after that, only broken, broken, broken. Until only stomach acid came up.

In the end it was a Finger, two fingers, then three, and then I tried to stick my whole Hand in the neck, so that my gag reflex comes back.“

His bulimia, he has spent years hiding

Pat took nearly four years to double. To hide his disease from the parents, he was always inventive.

If you were at home, he went voluntarily with the dog, to vomit in the woods. Prior to that, he put a toilet roll in my pants. A backpack would have been too suspicious, he says.

If out is not an Option to go, he passed in his room. In Garbage Bags. Pat had his room in the basement, with a private bath, but no toilet. The bags he has hoarded in the closet and only taken away if he was alone.

“Eventually, I came out, these bags away. So that came out of it. My mother has found you.“ Pat is 17 years old. After the initial shock, the two have decided together that Pat is in a clinic for eating disorders. However, he was later only a week.

“I schaff' the alone”

“I had to this time, my first real friend, make new friends. I just didn’t want to put six weeks. And I saw this anorexic girl, sitting in a wheelchair, not able to move, emaciated to the bone, on the head, because the whole lack of nutrition is everything your hair out. Hardly any teeth in the mouth, because you have not cleaned the teeth for fear of the toothpaste calories.“

A woman asked him a stamp for you anzulecken, because she was afraid of the calories of the stamp. Pat: “That was a Moment where I thought: Where have I landed here? So, I’m not. So bad, it’s not about me. I schaff' the also alone.“

Stable environment and love were his salvation

As Pat was now of full age, he dismissed himself. He was sure His place could have someone else who has it more. “They said to me, every Addict claims he can do it alone, only I knew exactly, I really can.” And he was right.

Pats lucky to be a stable environment. Today, he says: “It sounds totally trite and simplistic, but it really was my new friend who got me out of there. Above all, he has shown me what a valuable person I am. Bullying has played for the first Time, no longer in my life. No insult, nothing. Me has no more strange looks, my homosexuality was not in order, it was just all good.“

“I’m still essgestört”

Pat’s boyfriend at the time gave him his self-esteem back. “He has shown me that the little bit of fat on my hips and on the belly, what was once visible, is completely irrelevant.”

Although he has overcome the bulimia, long, white Pat: “I’m still essgestört and it will be in 20 years. I am always counting calories. In my daily life, 50 percent turning my thoughts to my figure.

Out of 365 days in the year, I watch maybe a week in the mirror and say: geile Sau! The Rest of the time I say, maybe, okay, I’m not ugly or I feel comfortable. But there is no day that I don’t have to be afraid, to be thick. The set itself, even after more than 10 years.“

Ess-seizures are usually only a valve

“The actual incidence of eating disorders in the General population is not well studied,” says Professor Dr. med. Christian Albus, since 2005 head of the clinic and polyclinic for psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy of the University hospital of Cologne.

“Typical disease in young adulthood”

“We don’t know how many people have eating disorders overcome alone.” What we do know: bulimia suffer most humans between the age of 17. 24. Years of age. Especially women. Bulimia is a typical disease in young adulthood.

Albus: “Since The release of the family, intimate relationships, which find their way in a world that is quite challenging.”

The bulimia is often accompanied by other mental illnesses such as depression or personality disorders. Disease different factors come together.

According to the Association of the Scientific Medical societies, in short, AWMF, “seem to be genetic factors, but also familial influences and psychological development in Childhood and adolescence to be significant”.

Self-esteem crises play a special role

Albus: “so The question is: What is the patient’s Problem, for which the eating disorder, the solution should be?”

Self-esteem crises play a special role. A Week, according to Albus, only one valve, “to reduce inner tension”. A mixture of cravings, for example, to the Hungry, and “I feel cruel bad.”

In the case of a Munchies food will be destroyed literally “”: “A real loss of control. In part, 6000, 8000 calories in one go.“ And the vicious circle begins.

Usually Bulimiker have normal weight

Afterwards, the Affected feel great shame and fear, to be thick. So he is doing something, the calories to get rid of. In addition to vomiting, the excessive Sport can be, Taking laxative tablets, etc.

A captive environment is therefore important. “Sometimes, it is also the dentist of a suspected diagnosis because the teeth are damaged by vomiting.” In General, you don’t see Bulimikern the disease, because it has a sleek mostly have “normal weight”.

This article was written by Julia Bauer