How Many of Us Have Eating Disorders?

This week’s essay contains lots of talk about eating disorders, and could be triggering/activating for some. If you enjoy the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber and/or sharing it in your networks.

On Thursday I baked buckwheat millet bread from my new cookbook and ate some for lunch with vegan cream cheese. I’ve started making my own nut milk; cashew and almond. I was recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and have removed dairy and gluten and sugar from my diet, except for the two pints of ice cream I ate and threw up on Thursday night.

Whenever this happens (every couple weeks or couple months or couple years, almost always in times of transition or stress) I always think to myself, I can’t be the only one suffering like this. I can’t be the only one who seems fine but sometimes throws up their food.

I can’t be a writer and a bulimic or a grown-up and a bulimic.

I was a teenager when I first started throwing up— thirteen. Adults (all women) told me about th…