I wrote this the night I started writing the book, "It's all about a Brownie." I didn't know then that I was embarking on the most important project of my life nor did I expect for the healing process to be as long and as hard or as beautifully rewarding as it was. I was stressed out, sick and undereducated. If you are reading this you are probably stressed out and sick as well, but hopefully this will give you some of the education I was lacking that night. I have put together what I feel to be the most important pieces to the puzzle of Bulimia and comfort eating that helped me heal.

Preface to, "It's all about a Brownie."

July 31
I'm at the end of my rope. I feel my life slipping away from me. I am alone, in LA and miserable. I've run as far away from myself as I can, I ran out of land, literally, now I have to turn back around and face myself. That's what I wanted to do, right? That's why I'm here, isn't it? To find out who I am?

…then why is it so damn hard?

Here I am, 11:54pm, eating a peanut butter sandwich, trying everything I can think of not to write down any of my feelings. Why is that? I'll tell you why, because if you write it down, it makes it real. Isn't that why all the Dr.'s, counselors and therapists tell us to journal? Journal, journal, journal. It makes us actually face what we are feeling and then we have to take some responsibility for it and feel it. But what if we don't want to FEEL anything? What if actually feeling our feelings is one of the scariest things in the world?

Before I go any further, let me go back to the peanut butter sandwich. If it was 11:54pm and I was eating a peanut butter sandwich because I was bored or stressed then it would just be another night of midnight comfort eating before bed. God knows I've had enough of those nights in my life. But it isn't JUST another nightly emotional eat-a-thon.

I'm eating because somewhere throughout the years I read that it's good to eat bread after you've thrown up. I don't even know if it's accurate but it's a great excuse to eat some more. I'm also eating because I feel guilty after completely emptying my stomach…again…so I sometimes put a little something back in there, as if perhaps by some magical peanut-butter-sandwich-transformation it will undo some of the damage caused by yet another night of purging.

What happened to make me throw up this time? That's the 20 million dollar question; I don't even know. I don't have that "good reason" I usually do. No one made me mad or sad or hurt me. I wasn't anxious or stressed or feeling any of my normal causes that lead me to binge and purge, I don't think so anyway. I think that's what hit me the hardest, I couldn't identify my trigger this time, I couldn't find my excuse and that means I am even more out of touch with my feelings than I realize, and that's a wake up call.

After visiting with friends tonight I went straight to a fast food place to get cheeseburgers, fries, poppers, cookies and a shake, all of which I couldn't eat fast enough to stuff down and obliterate whatever emotion I was feeling at the time (which I still haven't been able to figure out). I came home and threw up as soon as I got into the bathroom, vowing, as always, that I would never do it again, that this was the last time. After all, I hate throwing up, it hurts, it's disgusting, it's messy, it makes me feel guilty and tired and gives me a sore throat. I promptly brushed my teeth, to try to avoid enamel erosion I read about, curled up on the couch and started to leaf through a magazine to try to take my mind off the fact that I just threw up…out of control…again.

As I was reading there was one article that caught my attention. It was about a woman who was a recovering anorectic. At that moment two things hit me like a ton of bricks: one was a quote from her book she said, "My boyfriend said I was beautiful, and I ached to believe him." That was what I had been feeling for years. How many times had I wished I'd believed someone who gave me a compliment? How many times had I wished I could see myself the way someone else did, or at least a glimmer of the person they saw?

The other was the fact that she had written a book about recovery after she had recovered. How many self-help-recovery books start at the beginning? Right here, right now, the night you hit rock bottom? At the moment when you are at the lowest point, the time when you feel the most hopeless, the ugliest, the fattest, the most un-loveable, because I'll be honest that's how I feel right now.

I also feel that if I don't do something about my eating disorder, if I don't get it under control, that it will, without a doubt, control me for the rest of my life. I feel like it will kill me if I can't beat it, but at the same time, I don't know how. I don't have the skills to do this, so I'm going to find them, because I am, without a doubt, bulimic.

That's an easy thing for me to say and a terrifying thing for me to write. But here I am, writing it, for you and me and all of the rest of the world to see. The Truth. Why am I finally writing the truth? Because I am sick. Not only am I sick with an eating disorder that is controlling me, but I'm sick of feeling sick and tired. I'm tired of feeling out of control of my life, out of control of my feelings, out of control of my eating.

That's what this is all about, my journey to the other side of bulimia and emotional eating. And I hope I get there. If you're reading this then I have gotten there, but this is the first night and I don't know the outcome. I want to write a book of healing and inspiration. I want to write a book that helps me and others like me heal.

I will read, write and go to meetings. I will learn about the scientific reasons why we are what we are and the coping skills to handle it. I will learn the ways to move forward in life. I'll do it for me and for all the people out there like me; I can't be the only one who has failed Eating Disorder Therapy 101 or who has tried to read the Get-Well books just to find them dry and clinical or condescending. If we could just do what our counselors or those books say to do, we wouldn't be here, would we?

I want this book to be different, I want to touch lives with my openness and willingness to share my pain and grief and day-to-day struggles. I want to leave in the everyday pain I go through, the grief the insecurity the anger the hopelessness. I want to be able to bring my readers with me, day after day, chapter after chapter. I don't want to do this alone so I'm depending on my readers, and then they can depend on me. Hang on, here I go.