What Are The Psychological Consequences Of Bulimia?
Bulimia is a disorder with very serious effects on health. However, the fact is often overlooked that beyond its impact on the body in the form of malnutrition and rapid weight changes, it also gives rise to harmful psychological phenomena.
That’s why, In this article we will focus on the psychological consequences of bulimia to see globally how it affects mental health.
Bulimia is a psychopathology that is part of Eating Disorders, a set of alterations characterized by the fact that they give rise to harmful and maladaptive behavior patterns in the relationship that the sufferer establishes with food. Specifically, people with bulimia go through over and over again the experience of binge eating in a virtually uncontrolled and impulsive manner to mitigate the discomfort, and then immediately feel psychologically bad when they realize what they have done and try to “compensate” for this intake by burning calories as quickly as possible, sometimes resorting to induced vomiting.
There are two main types of bulimia: purgative and non-purgative. The first, as its name suggests, occurs when the person tries to get rid of what he or she has just ingested during the binge as soon as possible, either through vomiting or through diuretics and laxatives. In the second, on the other hand, other strategies are chosen that the person believes are effective to immediately counteract the accumulation of calories, such as going for a run or doing very extreme fasts.
In both cases, both the fact of overeating in very short periods and the attempts to compensate for these binges generate health problems (the clearest of which are the injuries suffered in the teeth, in the upper digestive tract and in the fingers due to the acid). that comes out with vomit). Although it is not common for death to occur due to malnutrition as it can occur with anorexia nervosa, the malnutrition caused by bulimia can also occur. can trigger other serious diseases capable of ending a person’s life in the medium and long term.
On the other hand, Bulimia is one of the most common Behavioral Disorders ; It mainly affects women, and it is estimated that in Western societies approximately 1.5% of women will develop this disorder at some point in their lives.
The main psychological consequences of bulimia
As we have seen, one of the characteristics that make bulimia a very serious pathology is its ability to physically exhaust the person who suffers from it, to the point that malnutrition and the weight fluctuations it triggers put their life at risk. . However, beyond these medical problems, Bulimia gives rise to other harmful phenomena that are psychological in nature and they have to do with the way in which the person interacts with their environment and with their own thoughts and feelings.
So, let’s see what are the psychological consequences of bulimia that should not be overlooked when facing this disorder (keeping in mind that they do not always appear all at the same time in the same person with bulimia).
Emotional hunger is the fact confuse a form of psychologically-rooted discomfort, on the one hand, with real hunger, for the other. It is common for those who suffer from bulimia to be unable to properly identify the true nature of what they are suffering from, and end up thinking almost automatically that it is a sign that they need to eat.
2. Obsessive thoughts focused on trying to maintain your figure or get in shape
The dynamics of binge eating and compensatory behaviors makes the person increasingly obsessed with counting calories and not gaining weight. That is, it predisposes the person to be alert to possible signs of having been eating too much.
3. Feelings of guilt that undermine self-esteem
People with bulimia feel very bad when they realize that they fall into the trap of binge eating again and again, and they often see it as a sign of “mental weakness.” a moral defect. This damages their self-esteem and makes them even more interested in not noticing what is happening to them, something that gives them more complexes about their own body.
4. Excess anxiety
As they anticipate that binge eating can manifest at any time, these people often develop anxiety problems maintained by the fact that they try to control the calories consumed at all times.
5. In extreme cases, suicidal ideation
Finally, the most developed and extreme cases, The occasions in which suicidal ideation appears are not rare ; That is, the tendency to repeatedly think about the possibility of ending one’s own life and often consider it as an apparent way out of the discomfort one feels.
Do you want to have professional psychotherapeutic support?
If you are interested in having the help of a team of expert mental health professionals to overcome bulimia or any other Eating Disorder, contact us.
In Psychology For We have been offering our services in this sector for more than two decades, and we serve both adults and children and adolescents. In addition to providing individualized psychotherapy, we intervene through family therapy, couples therapy, speech therapy, sexology, neuropsychology and psychiatry. We can help you through face-to-face sessions at our center in Madrid (in the Goya neighborhood) or online by video call.
