It was when I was 11 that I first realized that I have become a ‘budak gemok’, a tubby, a fattie, an ugly boy. Initially, being fat did not bother me - most probably because I was still a kid and appearance did not really matter much back then. However, when I entered ‘sekolah menengah rendah’ or middle school, I began to feel uneasy with my look. While I may look happy and carefree all the time, I was really emotionally depressed – I hated the way I look, I hated the way people look at me, I hated myself. No one knew or cared about the state of my mind at that time but honestly, I don’t blame them because I myself didn’t show any dissatisfaction about my body – most probably because I was ashamed that I was ashamed of myself.
It was after my 14th birthday that I decided to lose weight for real. I tried all the diet routines but I couldn’t really follow because I was always hungry - failure. I tried cardio-exercising but it became half-baked efforts since I was never into physical activities - failure. I even tried getting myself into sports but that was even more ridiculous and of course, to no avail - failure. At that point, I felt like a real sore LOSER – a BIG FAT UGLY LOSER who can’t do anything right. My self-esteem was zero. With additional ‘moral supports’ from people around me saying things like ‘gemok’, ‘tembon’, ‘tembam’ which all means fat, my self esteem dropped from 0 to -273.15.
“Salvation” came knocking when one day; I ate so much that I needed to vomit. Yes, I really needed to vomit. Don’t get me wrong; I always overate to the point that I felt like vomiting but this time, it was beyond only feeling like vomiting – I actually went to the toilet and vomited. After that incident, every time I felt the slightest need to vomit, I would force myself to vomit. It came to a point that feeling full became a reason for me to vomit. The decreasing reading on the weighing scale became a motivation for me to keep on doing the thing I felt right – my conscience was fooled; my foolish act was justified.
After a few weeks, the rate of my weight loss started to decrease and I was panicking. From around 1 or 2kg per week, the weight loss was becoming less than 1kg per week – and that was when I started starving myself. As far as I remembered, if there was no weight loss, I would eat so little until my weight really dropped – and when I say ‘eat so little’, I mean to a point where I would eat a piece of bread and some veggies a day; and starvation usually lasted 2 or 3 days. After some times, I couldn’t keep up anymore with all my ‘weight loss plans’ – I was always hungry, I was constantly tired and I was never satisfied with my weight loss.
Yet, I still keep myself strong and tried to find new supplements to my weight loss routine. The supplements include eating acidic food, cutting down carbohydrates and of course, abusing laxatives. Yes, I was also involved in the notorious act of laxative abuse – yeah! During the weekends, I would steal some of sister’s so-called herbal tea which acts exactly like laxatives and spend most of my time in the toilet. I was so happy that I found ways to make myself thinner that I never realized how stupid and dangerous all the things I was doing were, especially laxative abuse.
Eventually, one day, I got caught. I can’t really recall who saw me vomiting that day but that person told my brother what I was doing and he told me that I was having a psychological problem. Psychological problem? I didn’t believe him, or to be exact, I didn’t want to believe him but still, I looked up about the whole psycho thing and found out that he was right – I was bulimic. I wanted to believe that I was losing weight the right way but the evidences were too clear and hence, I had to admit my mistakes and change my ways.
Surprisingly, it was really easy. I found a new diet routine - high-protein diet. The diet was really easy to follow since I still get to eat my favourites. However, as time passes by, I slowly began to forget controlling my diet. I am now getting fatter and fatter and it really should stop! I will try to lose weight again and this time, I’ll practice the right way from the start. I really don’t want to be ‘budak gemok’ anymore.
I did not write this post so that more people will try what I did - I don't deny, it worked but it's dangerous people. I've written this post so that those who are practicing bulimic acts like I used to will know when to stop.
p/s: this picture is really 'xleh blah' :P
