Bulimia Doesn’t Have to Control Your Life
Compassionate Bulimia Treatment in Bergen County, NJ for Eating Disorders, OCD, and Anxiety
If you’re struggling with bulimia, you may feel ashamed, out of control, and deeply alone—even if no one else knows. Many people with bulimia describe living a double life: appearing “fine” on the outside while feeling distressed, fearful, and trapped by food and their own behaviors on the inside.
What Bulimia Really Feels Like (And Why It’s So Hard to Stop)
Bulimia isn’t about lack of willpower. It’s about being stuck in a powerful cycle driven by anxiety, fear, and emotional overwhelm.
Many of our clients with bulimia describe:
Feeling out of control around food
Intense shame and self-disgust after bingeing or purging
Fear of weight gain or eating “wrong”
Using purging or restriction to calm anxiety or distress
Hiding behaviors from loved ones
Feeling lonely, secretive, and misunderstood
Promising “this will be the last time”—and feeling defeated when it isn’t
Bulimia often co-occurs with OCD, intrusive thoughts, perfectionism, and anxiety, which makes stopping behaviors feel even more impossible.
How Bulimia Treatment Works:
Bulimia treatment is not about willpower, strict rules, or “just stopping” behaviors. Bingeing and purging are not random or impulsive—they are learned responses to emotional distress, anxiety, trauma, and deprivation. Effective treatment focuses on interrupting the cycle at every level: behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and physiological. We take a comprehensive, evidence-based approach that treats bulimia alongside anxiety, OCD, depression, and trauma.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Bulimia
In therapy, we work to:
Identify rigid rules about food, weight, and control
Challenge all-or-nothing thinking
Reduce over-evaluation of body shape and size
Build flexibility in eating behaviors
Interrupt the binge–purge cycle in real time
CBT also helps clients understand how thoughts, emotions, and behaviors reinforce one another and how to respond differently when urges arise.
Stabilizing the Binge–Purge Cycle
For many people with bulimia, bingeing does not happen because of a lack of control—it happens because the body and brain are under strain.
A common but often misunderstood factor in bulimia is not eating enough or not eating consistently. When the body is deprived—physically or psychologically—it becomes more vulnerable to binge urges. Restriction increases:
Intense food preoccupation
Loss of control around eating
Heightened anxiety and urgency
Stronger binge–purge cycles
Early in treatment, we help clients:
Establish regular, adequate nourishment
Reduce long gaps between meals
Understand how deprivation fuels binge urges
Exposure-Based Therapy & ERP for Food and Urges
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) helps by:
Gradually facing feared foods or eating situations
Allowing urges and anxiety to rise without purging
Learning that urges peak and fall on their own
Building confidence in tolerating discomfort safely
Over time, ERP reduces the intensity and frequency of urges while increasing trust in your ability to cope without engaging in harmful behaviors.
DBT-Informed Skills for Emotional Regulation
Many people binge or purge to manage overwhelming emotions. When distress feels intolerable, behaviors become a way to escape, numb, or release.
Using DBT-informed approaches, we help clients develop skills to:
Identify emotional triggers
Regulate intense emotions without self-destructive behaviors
Increase distress tolerance
Build healthier coping strategies
Reduce impulsivity during emotional spikes
