“I ate as much as a family of 5 every day” – Andrea suffered from bulimia for 20 years

What exactly happened is that this story, her story, followed this course, that for 20 years she fluctuated between overeating and throwing up every day, that she led a double life and was able to bear two children during her eating disorder, so if you ask Andrea Ammann what exactly happened, her story begins as a six-year-old, sitting in her nursery. Her parents are arguing. She hides behind the door in fear. And she’s afraid her parents will kill each other. She says it so bluntly.

This scenario repeats itself several times. She doesn’t talk to anyone about her fears. As a child, Andrea learns to take care of herself. She gets good grades, excels in gymnastics. And becomes a lone fighter.

At the age of 16, her life was completely put on track. She experiences sexual violence from her environment. And her reflex repeats. Andrea doesn’t talk to anyone about what happened. She blames herself.

Then she stops eating.

This action is linked to a lot: her parents should just ask her how she’s doing. But the protest action is not fruitful. “Finally some food”, is all Andrea hears.

But the teenager loses a lot of weight in a short time. Her parents send her to a psychologist. It will not be a good experience. Andrea takes a seat in a dilapidated and chaotic office. Smoke pours into her face. Her skull feels like it’s about to burst. And she shudders at the unkempt man. So with this man she would have to do what she couldn’t do for years – talk about her trauma?

The visits become a nightmare. And Andrea hatches a plan to escape this:

She must arrive, and as soon as possible.

She starts binge eating until she regains the lost weight. But the weight gain puts her under psychological stress.

She doesn’t want to gain weight anymore and she can’t lose weight. After all, she has to prove to her parents that she is well, that she has a healthy appetite. Otherwise, she has to go back to the scary man. And make up excuses not to eat.

Caught in this dilemma, Andreas begins a secret double life. One that takes place behind closed doors, between the fridge and the toilet. And that should take 20 years.

Andrea eats until she vomits.

Every day she crams in as much food as a family of five eats in a week.

Andrea has been trapped in the vicious circle between eating and throwing up for 20 years.

Puke – a casual word that makes Andrea Ammann burst into a wave of emotions. You should call a shovel a shovel, she says.

“If you’re feeling down and throwing up, you can use the fancy word ‘vomit’. Vomiting intentionally has a very different dynamic that shouldn’t be sugared.”

Andrea Ammann is now 50 years old. And you can’t see the 20 years between eating and vomiting. Opposite me is a slender woman, she radiates zest for life, and the two decades don’t seem to have left any mark on her, not even on the outside.

When she talks about her adventures, one notices that there are scars. Then she is sometimes almost in tears and she looks into the void with her deer eyes. But when she talks about her work, she blossoms. Today she helps people with bulimia as a mentor. “It fills me up when I can free people from this prison.”

She knows the prison all too well.

For almost 20 years, Andrea has led a double life without ever talking to anyone about it. In everyday life, no one notices that she suffers from an eating disorder. You don’t see anything on the outside of her. She is slim, not spindly. She eats normally in company. But when she is alone, she eats unimaginable sizes: 10 to 20 croissants, 7 donuts, 60 cookies, 1 kilo of bread.

Your binge eating happens in secret — even at work. She’ll never get caught, she’ll take care of that, that’s what she intends to do. As a draftsman she travels a lot. For example, she can stop at gas stations or bakeries and settle there with hamster purchases in the toilet.

“80 to 90 percent of my daily thoughts and feelings revolve around food,” recalls Andrea. “I always planned. When can I leave the office? Can I last two more hours? How much time do I have until the next appointment? What should I buy and how much? Are five donuts enough to throw up, or do I also need a kilo of bread?”

After work, the glove continues. First Andrea goes shopping. Your addiction is money. She prefers family packs. Actually ashamed of her behavior, she tells the salesmen at the till that she buys food for her large family.

At home she succumbs to her binge eating. Consumes thousands of calories. And finally flush everything down the toilet.

There is hardly time for friends. She’s too busy with bulimia. Libra becomes the closest confidant. She is on it ten times a day. Every gram is an evaluation, a judgment, an analysis.

“It was all about that one song,” recalls Andrea. “I was so caught up in this control. If the scale showed me a number my head wouldn’t allow, my day was a mess. I told myself that soon I will explode and look like a hippo. I then decided to be even stricter with myself. More to surrender.”

Year after year, Libra determines your feelings. And the bulimia their daily life.

Being in a relationship doesn’t change that. She moves in with her boyfriend, but she can’t get away from the disease. He uses and deals in drugs. There is a kind of co-dependency between the two. While drinking coke, Andrea throws up. “We knew about each other’s addictions, but left each other alone,” says Andrea.

Andrea and her boyfriend’s life was a fragile house of cards.

“For example, when we had an unexpected visitor, I was under so much pressure. I became nervous, angry and aggressive. It was in moments like these that I realized what I was actually doing. And how sick and imperfect I am.”

But this house of cards never collapsed.

Andrea has taken various therapies over the years to get rid of bulimia. But these visits were more for a clear conscience. “I was then able to convince myself that I would do something about it, but it didn’t help me.”

During an internment she meets her current ex-husband – with whom she will later have two children.

Even during pregnancy, she does not get rid of her addiction. “I told myself I was going to stop, especially before pregnancy and after giving birth. I always pushed it out in front of me.”

During pregnancy, she compromises with the disease: “I took twice as many pregnancy vitamins every day and deliberately did not vomit for a few hours,” says Andrea.

After the birth of her second daughter, Andrea finds it all too much. “For example, when I ate ten Berliners and couldn’t throw up because I had to breastfeed a child, I almost went crazy. I was stressed, angry, frustrated and sad all at the same time.”

Andrea loves her children – and hates her illness. She’s done. Do not know. Think about suicide.

Andrea is on the bottom. But that would be her turning point.

“I looked at my daughters and thought: these critters can’t help me if I don’t get my life in order. Moreover, a soft voice told me that I still have something to do in this world. Then I decided to change my life.” She throws out her scale, accepts the challenge and begins to change her life.

Overnight Andrea stops throwing up. She begins to listen to her body and only eats when she is hungry. Just like their toddlers. She is gaining some weight. But that doesn’t bother her. Your metabolism must first get used to the normal food supply. Only then did Andrea realize what she had been doing to her body for years. She will not become the dreaded hippo.

After 20 years it was over. From one day to the next. What remains are memories and valuable experiences she gained on her way back to freedom. Today she passes on all these insights as a therapist. She shows bulimia patients how to get out and guides them along the way.

In doing so, she drops the measures that have never helped her: prohibitions, pressure and control. Only about 20 percent of Andrea’s therapy revolves around food. The rest of the time she spends on the theme of self-love, personal responsibility and awareness and unconventional treatment methods based on different energetic healing methods.

“Getting out is training,” says Andrea, giving an example: “If you always tie your right shoe first and then suddenly decide to tie your left shoe first, it doesn’t always work at first. But with retraining, reminders and reminders you will get there. ever.”

In her work she sees the task that a tender voice whispered to her at the lowest point in her life: “Andrea, you still have something to do in the world.”