[music playing]

I didn't want to die. And that's where I was headed.

Will you sit down, daddy?

All right. I wanted to make sure you're OK.

At a strapping 200 pounds, 38-year-old Rick, husband and father of two certainly doesn't look like someone who suffers from a potentially deadly eating disorder. You fight the urge every day?

I fight the urge. It's an ongoing battle.

But for 15 years, most of the time in secret, Rick has been battling bulimia. At your worst, how many times would you purge each day?

Every meal, every day. Six to seven times a day. Every single thing I ate, I would bring up.

You were 10 years old in this photo?

10 years old. Right.

Rick's obsession with his weight can be traced to his painful struggles as an overweight child.

I was always large— always went through school with a label— fatso, tubby— any cruel name you can think of.

And those cruel names followed him even as an adult, after he had married his high school sweetheart, Cathy. Rick began working at a chemical plant where his co-workers teased him unmercifully.

Before I knew it, they ganged up on me and held me down. They used this packing tape. They wrapped me— literally, from head to toe— wrapped me like a mummy.

Everybody thought it was funny?

Everyone thought it was funny. Torture the fat kid.

Instead of reporting his coworkers, Rick tried harder to fit in. He soon discovered purging as a way to quickly lose weight. So really, you started purging to gain acceptance?

Yeah.

You lost the weight, though.

He lost it very, very quickly.

I lost 100 pounds in 10 months. I got down 150 pounds.

That he resorted to purging is not surprising to Dr. Joseph Donnellan, who runs the eating disorders unit at Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey.

Eating disorders are not about eating. They're about how you feel about yourself. It's about self-esteem and self-confidence and your feeling of control in the world.

But it didn't take long for Rick to lose control of his world to his obsession. This disorder soon wrecked havoc on your health?

Yeah. I've had seizures. Yeah.

The first one that he had, we didn't know what it was. I thought he had a heart attack.

I couldn't concentrate on anything. And before I knew it, I was out [? of a ?] job.

It was devastating.

As devastating as that was, it would be several more years before Rick— who ended up on disability— would admit he needed treatment.

If it's difficult enough to go for help for a psychiatric illness, for a perceived women's illness, the man is going to hide it even more.

Come on.

OK.

What moved you to decide to seek treatment?

When I hear my daughter say, daddy's going in the bathroom to get sick.

She knows.

She knows.

So almost two years ago—

Hi.

Good morning.

—Rick finally checked into the eating disorders unit at Somerset.

Come on in, Rick.

I am very nervous about it. It's never going to go away. As much as you think it, or you want it to, it'll never go away.

Over the past six weeks, Rick has done well enough to be discharged from the eating disorders unit. But just a few weeks later, he suffers a setback. Have you purged since you left the program?

Yes, I have. I do overeat. And the urge is just too much, and I do purge.

Rick, though, still believes he's on the road to recovery, even if he occasionally hits some bumps along the way.

I'm going to win. I'm going to win. I'm going to beat this.