Lauren Jung
Editor-in-Chief
Everything was perfect. Macee Bates had friends to hang out with, a good job at a local restaurant and a boyfriend she loved. But it all came crashing down one day and life was never the same.
“All on one day I lost my job and found out my boyfriend cheated on me,” said Bates. “I was in the bathroom crying, I looked over at the toilet and it was just all too much at once — I threw up. ”
That was the first time she vomited, but there were factors that had gradually led up to it, including the people who surrounded her.
“I guess you could say I hung out with the party crowd and popular people in high school,” said Bates. “I know I’m pretty and I know I’m not fat, but I would look at my friends while getting ready to go out, and I would compare myself to them. I had no self-confidence and no self-esteem, and I would feel ugly. Sometimes my friends would get competitive in the sense that one would say, ‘Oh, I’m fat. I’m going to lose some weight,’ and another would say, ‘Oh, well then I’ll lose more weight than you.’”
After that first time, she would continue self-induced vomiting for three years.
“A million things were running through my head,” said Bates. “I don’t know really why I did it, but at that moment, I realized I felt a little better. When you throw up you get a kind of high from it — it’s relieving and you feel really calm, peaceful. It’s a release of sorts, and it starts all over again.”
Bates began to purge more frequently, and she began to spiral out of control.
“I got to the point where I didn’t digest anything anymore, and I could throw up in five seconds,” said Bates. “It wasn’t that I wanted to throw up, but I had to do it. I did it so much, I didn’t even think about it.”
To support her routine of purging five to seven times a day, Bates settled into an out-of-control binging and purging cycle.
“I lost 35 pounds in a matter of a month and a half,” said Bates. “I became obsessed with food, and I would eat while I was in class, while I was driving. I would go to Taco Bell and buy everything on the menu. I would enjoy eating the food, and then I would throw it all up. It got to the point where I was no longer gaining or losing weight, but I would still eat and throw up because I was addicted.”
Bates’ lowest point came when she won homecoming queen in her senior year. At five feet and one inch tall, she only weighed 99 pounds.
“The week before homecoming, I really did not eat anything, and when I did eat, I would throw up,” said Bates. “I didn’t want people to look at me and say, ‘Ew, she looks fat.’ I look at pictures of myself from those times, and it’s hard to look at.”
Two weeks after homecoming, Bates’s mother caught her throwing up and took her to see a doctor, who diagnosed Bates with bulimia nervosa. Her parents sent her counseling, but it did not help.
“There was only one counselor in town and she didn’t have much experience with eating disorders,” said Bates. “She would ask me questions like ‘Did you throw up this week?’ and I would straight up lie to her because I didn’t want to be there, and out of everybody, she wasn’t going to fix me.”
The lack of nourishment and nutrition caused Bates’s hair to break off and not grow. Her nails wouldn’t grow either, and her face drained of all color. She always felt cold, and even on hot days, she wore a big sweatshirt. She had headaches and felt nauseous and light-headed.
“A couple times I would black out,” said Bates. “One time I was driving home from school — I don’t exactly remember what happened — but my vision started to get blurry, and then all of a sudden, I was surrounded by blackness. Next thing I knew, I woke up half-passed out and in the driveway of my house. I have no idea how I got there, but it was really scary.”
If she did not vomit when her body wanted to, she would suffer from panic and anxiety attacks.
“My mind would freak out and get me all worked up,” said Bates. “The feeling that I had a solid in my stomach felt horrible and I just had to get rid of it.”
Bulimics can strain muscles in their stomachs while purging, according to Bates.
“One time when I threw up, I pulled a muscle in my stomach, and there was something sticking out of my side,” said Bates. “I thought I had some kind of growth, but it was because I was throwing up so hard, my body couldn’t handle it.”
Bates’s parents gave her an ultimatum when she turned 18 — either go to rehab or live on the streets. In August of last year, she entered a rehab facility in Reno, Nevada.
“All I wanted to do was get out of there,” said Bates. “I didn’t try to get better, I didn’t want to learn about anything — I didn’t care. All I knew was that I hated being there, and I just wanted to do my 30 days, go home, and pick up right where I left off. I just wasn’t ready yet, and you have to be ready, because no one changes unless you want yourself to change.”
Bates lasted for three weeks after that rehab experience before she started purging again.
“I moved to Oregon to live with my aunt because I thought that if I got away, things would get better,” said Bates. “But it didn’t really help. I had no car, and I didn’t have a best friend or a person I could just talk to — I felt alone. I thought I could run away, but it just followed me. After a month, my aunt told me I couldn’t live there anymore until I got fixed.”
Bates was admitted to rehab for a second time on Nov. 11 at the Center for Discovery in Menlo Park.
“I think I just had grown up a little bit and it was the first time that I really and truly wanted to get better; it became all that I wanted,” said Bates. “I had missed the first semester of college because there was no way I could succeed or even pass my classes while I was dealing with bulimia.
I knew there was going to be a new semester in January, and I really wanted to go to college.”
While Bates was at the center, she met a counselor, Michelle, who had suffered from bulimia, and was in her seventh year of recovery.
“She changed my life,” said Bates. “I had never met someone who was in recovery for that long. She showed me that you could live through and survive an eating disorder. It was inspiring, and everything changed there. I stopped worrying about what my friends were doing. I didn’t want to live like I had been living anymore. It took a big toll on me and on my family, and I thought I was going to die, but I didn’t want that anymore.”
Bates went through intense one-on-one therapy, group sessions and classes covering subjects including body acceptance, health, nutrition and self-esteem. Bates also received medication for her severe Attention Deficit Disorder, which had never had been treated before.
Bates, now 19 years old, has been in recovery for five months and is in college studying to become a clinical eating disorder psychologist.
“I know that if someone tried to give me advice in the beginning, I would’ve said, ‘I don’t care’ or something,” said Bates. “But I know that an eating disorder is another person living inside of you — like an abusive boyfriend you can’t leave. I’ve been through three years of fighting this, and I know every cheat, every trick, every lie. I want to help people who are struggling.
“I tell everybody I can about what I’ve gone through because I feel it is something people should know about me. It’s a part of me, and if someone wants to be my friend, they have to know who I am.”