At age 12, Monqueescha didn’t know what having an eating disorder meant. She only knew that binging on her favorite comfort foods and purging immediately afterwards made her feel good.
She got the idea after watching the 1996 drama, Dying to Be Perfect: The Ellen Hart Pena Story, a film about a world-class runner who let bulimia and anorexia threaten her Olympic dreams and marriage.
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“In junior high, of course, you start developing and I was not happy about it,” says Monqueescha, 44, reminiscing on her pre-teen tomboyish figure. As she watched Pena get thinner and thinner in the movie, Monqueescha thought her method was worth a try.
“At lunch time, I was at school. So really the binging and purging happened at night during dinner time,” Monqueescha recalls. “I would eat as much as they thought was appropriate for me to eat and then I would go to the restroom, turn on the water faucet and I would purge.”
Bulimia is a life-threatening eating disorder that involves regular binging. Then, to prevent weight gain, a bulimia patient will over-exercise and purge through vomiting or using laxatives.
The psychiatric illness is usually associated with depression, which Monqueescha was diagnosed with at an early age.
“I was always thin and just getting that woman body, growing into that woman body, it depressed me,” Monqueescha says. “I didn’t want to have that figure. I still wanted to be skinny.”
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According to the National Eating Disorders Association, bulimia affects 1 to 2 percent of adolescent and young adult women. About 80 percent of bulimia patients are female.
Eating disorders, for the most part, have always been thought of as an upper to middle-class, white, Judeo-Christian, female disease, according to Pam Cleland of Eating Recovery Center (ERC). But that’s far from the truth. People of different genders and ethnicities are suffering from the illness.
“It’s happening all over,” Cleland says. “It used to be 1 in 10 men. Now it’s about 1.5 to 2 men. It’s really pervasive. It is really a pervasive problem.”
Since age 12, Monqueescha’s mind would trigger this need to maintain her weight every three years. So, she’d eat, purge and drink water or Gatorade – to replace the electrolytes lost through vomiting.
“I know this is probably not what anybody wants to hear but, with me, it was like a rush,” she remembers. “It made me feel like I was in control. It made me feel that I had this power and only I could be over this power and, also, it relieves stress.”
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During her bulimic episodes, Monqueescha could lose up to 60 pounds in three months. It wasn’t until she entered a three-month, in-patient program at Eating Recovery Center in Denver, Colorado in 2008 that Monqueescha finally got the help she needed to turn her life around.
“The realization of seeing other people struggling, the group therapy that we had where there were thoughts that I could relate to, it really helped me out,” she says.
Though Monqueescha experienced a couple of relapses after her treatment, today, she is proud to say she hasn’t engaged in any bulimic behavior in the last two years thanks to continued therapy and work with ERC.
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She credits her adopted daughter, who is 8 years old, for giving her one reason to stay healthy.
“I don’t want her to grow up with an eating disorder and I don’t want to be that example that [binge eating] is OK,” Monqueescha says. “I know I’m doing it for myself but I’m also doing it for her so she doesn’t slip into that mode.”
If you or a loved one needs support or help for an eating disorder, contact the National Eating Disorders Association Helpline at 800-931-2237.
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