Bulimia

Bulimia or “Bulimia Nervosa” is an eating disorder often characterized by a repeating cycle of bingeing (eating large amounts of food) and purging (expelling food through vomiting or laxatives). Individuals suffering from Bulimia often experience shame around their body size and eating habits.

Explore common social, mental, and physical symptoms of Bulimia below. Please know that all people and eating disorders are unique, so you may observe many or none of these behaviors.

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Common Bulimia Symptoms

  • Discomfort eating around others

  • Eating uncontrollably or "bingeing"

  • Fear of gaining weight

  • Excessive exercise

  • Self-induced vomitting

  • Excessive use of laxatives

  • Stealing or hoarding food

  • Frequent trips to the bathroom after meals

  • Repeatedly gaining and losing weight

How can we help?

Our team at Empowered is here to help you address the emotional and trauma-related triggers contributing to the binge and purge cycle. We will develop emotional regulation and distress tolerance skills to help decrease reliance on your eating disorder behaviors. Our dietitian will also provide guidance to help with nutritional stabilization, as well as help challenge existing negative beliefs around food and the body that perpetuate eating disorder behaviors. As always, our goal is to help you reintegrate back into the world with a sense of body-neutrality, along with all of the necessary skills to move forward with passion and purpose.

Why Choose Empowered?

  • Locally-owned and operated

    Our program is locally-owned and operated, with clinicians, admissions, billing, operations, and marketing in-house. We pride ourselves on maintaining alignment between clinical integrity and the client experience.

  • "Real world" programming & mindset

    Our program focuses on helping you thrive in the world and at home, not just during controlled programming hours. By having clients prepare and bring their own food, we are able to observe and guide your actual food selections and patterns.

  • Inclusive & collaborative

    Our team is committed to helping those suffering from eating disorders, regardless of whether or not Empowered is the perfect fit. We are also flexible in the sense that we can collaborate with and support cultural foods and traditions, vegetarianism, and faith-based eating.

  • Trauma-forward

    We have designed our program around the assumption that trauma is part of most adult eating disorder presentations. We address this from intake on through our groups, individual therapy, and culture.

  • Adult-only programming

    With adult-only programming we are able to have open and direct conversations about the realities of living with an eating disorder. Groups can dive in to work, parenting and co-parenting, relationships and divorce, sex, finances, and long-standing and complex trauma.

  • Complexity-ready

    We understand that underlying traumas and attachment wounds often contribute to the development of eating disorders, and that the disorder itself is an active and on-going trauma. Our programming is built to thoughtfully treat co-occurring mental health disorders, along with a transparent plan on when we may need to refer out.