Comedy and Bulimia Battle in my Brain

Comedy and Bulimia Battle in my Brain:

I was bulimic for about two years of regular binges and purges. They have almost completely stopped and so I feel okay to use the past tense. The throwing up started when I was 18-years-old and continued fairly consistently until I was 20.

When I turned 18 and I realized that I didn't have any more time to wait and 'grow into a future person' and I totally freaked out…to put it lightly. I did not think that I was 'ready' for adult life. And by 'ready' I meant pretty enough for love, smart enough for success, or strong enough for social situations. And by 'enough' I meant perfectly, flawlessly, ideally, inhumanly fantastic.

I would look down my body and list a million inadequacies, as if it wasn't even my own body, but some one else's that I got stuck with because I'd drawn the short straw at some point. I thought that I could never be happy with such a flawed exterior, and that to be happy I had to be perfect. I was a marketing team's dream.

I became completely isolated. I hated myself for two reasons: the first was my body, and the second was my disorder. I knew in my heart of hearts, that I should have hated my disorder more. I called myself a feminist, I preached body-love and body-acceptance to my friends (none of them knew I was bulimic) and I hated the time that throwing up took away from doing fun things like not throwing up, and reading, and eating food with my friends.

And yet a part of me was always irrationally 'happy' when I would throw up, as if I was doing something right for a change. I remember in some moments when I would catch myself running to bulimia like a friend, I used to laugh at myself. Out loud, in my bathroom. As if I'd heard the funniest, darkest, inside joke ever. The joke was essentially that I was being ridiculous. That the only reason I was not beautiful was because I was dedicated to an impossible definition of beauty. In the name of happiness and perfection I was doing the most unpleasant thing I could think of. And all of those incongruities made me laugh.

My knowing that I was making a mistake, my being so detached, my inability to stop, made me laugh. In those moments of laughter, I reclaimed some control of my mind. Although my disorder could not simply be laughed away, I could laugh in spite of having it. Which diminished some of its power over my self-perception. It helped me to remember that I was at least somehow above all of this, even if I was not sure how to move on. Ultimately I had to seek help. But also, I had to self-examine. And one of the easiest ways for me to do that was not through tears but through laughter.

My favorite stand ups talk about their 'worst traits', their biggest failures, their awkward moments, and they talk about these things in pursuit of human connection. Which is a connection based on the common experience of not being ideal, but quite the opposite. I've never laughed when I thought that something was perfect. It's not fun or funny to believe that if you'd just try a little bit harder you could be perfect and that's what everyone wants you to do. That's not funny, that's awful.

It's fun and funny to make fun of how ridiculous mainstream standards can be. The moments when I realize that I am being flawed and ridiculous are the moments that make me laugh. Which is bizarre when I think that less than a year ago, any moment where I felt flawed or imperfect was a moment that I turned to self-harm. As I became more and more interested in stand up comedy I became more and more interested in celebrating my humanity and less interested in fearing it.

This relates to the notion of Gallows Humor, which suggests we are not defined by our bad experiences but we are defined in spite of them. And that humor never disappears even in the darkest moments. Humor can actually thrive in those moments and help us get through them.

For me, comedy has become a reminder that I do not need to be perfect to be amazing. And actually imperfection is far more amazing, because it can make people laugh. In those moments of laughter, especially if I can make someone laugh at my self-deprecating joke, the insecurities I have that may have seemed scary or horrible one year ago, become laughable and small.

After telling my mother that I struggle with bulimia 7 months ago, I have started regularly coming out to comedy audiences as a bulimic. I have a 5-minute 'bulimia shtick' in my stand up set. This 'bulimia shtick' is now as easy for me to get through as my bits on farting, my mother, and bar work. Using humor to talk about my experience has helped me to reduce the big scary stigmas about bulimia that I have in my mind and see bulimia as just another struggle that I have had to deal with, that I am strong enough to overcome.

I will be taking a show to the Edinburg Fringe this year and the first sentence of my press release says: 'Geneva Rust-Orta just turned 21, just finished university, and just got over an eating disorder'. When my aunt saw this first sentence online, I still had not told her that I struggle with bulimia. So she sent me a message saying: 'is this eating disorder something that you can tell me about? I am a bit freaked out'.

I replied: 'Yeah, I can if you want me to. Don't be freaked out, I am absolutely fine.'

Her reply has been my personal favorite response out of the many responses that I have had from family members I have told about my bulimia. She wrote: "Just so you know…my eating disorder is I can't stop saying, 'I will have dis order, and dat one over dere, and oh hell, another of dis order too.' Which may be why I don't always have dessert…no room left. I love you."

This response has been my favorite because the message is so clearly that she is there to make me feel better, not worse. That is what comedy is for me: a way of saying 'I am a human, and so are you, and so we understand just how hard it is for each other.' (I happen to have a very dark sense of humor.)

I cannot say that comedy has cured me of bulimia and removed all insecurities from my psyche. But I can say that comedy has helped me to come out as bulimic, to accept my bulimia, and to celebrate my insecurities not as reasons to self-harm but actually as reasons to celebrate and revel.