It Feels Better to be Honest
Hello!
So I'm nervous to be writing this but I think that I need to be honest if I'm going to maintain my recovery and if I'm not going to spiral again. And hey, this is my life and you chose to be here. I have been beyond open about my battles with anxiety and it feels like second nature to talk about it now and I'm proud of that. What I have never been open about and have never really talked frankly about is having anorexia. It feels very strange writing that down. But I alluded to it in my last post and it caused me to have some difficult, emotional, but highly necessary conversations with my family. It caused me to speak to my Mum about it for the very first time without lying and honestly, it feels so much better to share my experience with this illness and to not be afraid of admitting it and to try and tackle it head on. So, with an overwhelming sense of dread, here is my story of anorexia.
I first got called fat when I was about 11 or 12 and I tried to sort of diet then but I wasn't very good at it and I gave up pretty quickly. I then went into a hormonal depression at the age of 13 when I hit puberty. I say hormonal because I haven't suffered from depression since and I think it was just an unfortunate side effect. Anyway, during this time I just sort of ate my feelings and put on a lot of weight. When I was at the end of year 9 so age 14, my family and I went to the USA for a road trip and I distinctly remember being in this B&B in Massachusetts somewhere and looking in the mirror at myself in my underwear. It's still such a vivid memory but I remember really coming out of the fog of my depression and really seeing what I'd done. I had self harmed, I had stretch marks, I was fat. It was at that point that I decided to lose weight. And at first I did it sensibly, doing lots of exercise and cleaning up my eating. When I went to school, I went a little bit more extreme, I started skipping meals and training hard at rowing. I lost some weight, of course I did. But then, in the second half of year 10, I started eating more again because to be honest, I was hungry and I put on weight again. I was fairly stable for a bit and feeling not too bad about myself. I felt bad about skipping school lunches because I was wasting money by not eating them so I asked to switch to packed lunches and use the money for singing lessons, so that's what we did.
I was ok with my weight for a bit, and then I hit 16 and things were getting more serious with rowing so I decided I was really going to lose some weight. So I started throwing the packed lunches away. Again, I'm sorry Mum for wasting money on that. I chewed gum to stop the hunger cravings and drank a bottle of diet coke at lunchtime because it had caffeine in it. If I had training that day, I might drink a bottle of lucozade. I mean, sometimes I'd eat the sandwich if I had training but it carried on like that for a while. Again, I returned to normality for a bit but then when I hit sixth form so 16 or 17, things got really bad.
I started restricting further and training harder. I would do 100 squats every morning whilst cleaning my teeth. This turned into 100 squats and 50 leg raises each side. Then 100 squats, 50 leg raises, and 50 sit ups, and then planks. This was on top of training for rowing 5 times a week. I'd have smaller bowls of cereal in the morning, and then sometimes just chew gum until I had dinner. Now I've really got to thank my parents for enforcing family meals because that meant I ate at least something. Sometimes I'd eat an apple as a snack because I decided that they had little enough calories. I downloaded calorie apps on my iPad, asked for a fitbit for my birthday, which I got and started to agonise over the numbers. I'd push myself to the limit at training and I was the fittest in the squad come the end of my time rowing.
Now, I really disagree with the media for glamorising eating disorders and for making it seem as though starving feels euphoric all the time. Let me explain the euphoria aspect. As anorexics, we have certain things that make us happy. I had a few. The gum chewing and lack of food made my stomach hurt and the more it hurt and the more it made me dizzy, the happier I felt. I had to be able to see my ribs. This was partly because my boyfriend at the time said he liked it when my ribs showed so I would make sure I never put on enough weight for them not to show. People would often say that my bones poked into them when I hugged them and this used to give me a thrill. Not eating when other people were made me feel an odd satisfaction. My boyfriend almost encouraged it as he didn't let others question me for not eating and would often comment on how thin I was getting, saying how gorgeous I looked. Believe me, gorgeous was not an appropriate word for me.
Those things gave me a buzz but there were so many aspects that made me so petrified that I could barely breathe. If you went to school with me, you may remember how my hair would stand up on end in tufts.
This wasn't because of the static in my hair as I so jokingly told everyone. My hair was falling out in clumps to the extent that it covered my bedroom floor. My mum often had to pick them up and put them in the bin before she could hoover up the rest. I said in my last post that I refused to brush my hair. Know why? Because I was frightened of how much hair would come out when I did and the knots held it in, even if it wasn't attached.
I was exhausted and I looked it. And sometimes I was so hungry that it felt like my stomach was eating itself. I felt sick all the time and when I exercised, the room would spin but I pushed until it hurt anyway. I had no colour and the less colour I had, I saw as a win.
I was ritualistic. Everyday I'd put one finger in my mouth and the other on my cheek and pinch to see how much more fat I could lose on my face. I'd bend my arm and if it creased at the elbow too soon, I'd eat less. I'd grope my thighs and my stomach to see how much fat I could pinch. I'd prod myself and if it was soft, I'd be angry. I still do these on occasion. But I don't restrict anymore. I started to curl my hair because it made it look a bit thicker so that made me a bit happier.
But it was in split ends and would break off. My nails would flake as well and I would often get spots. I was cold all the time and honestly, I really wouldn't wish it on anyone. I hated myself and there were days when I'd just sob and sob into my pillow.
I slept a lot because I was so tired all the time. But the thing was that I could put it down to other things. I excelled at music and sport, I was academically talented. I was busy all the time. And the activities could replace food.
My nose would bleed from the pressure and my muscles ached.
And then... my body had had enough. I started to collapse all the time. I remember people at school going on about how I would collapse because I didn't eat and I would violently deny it. Well, props to you guys, you're absolutely right. The specialists have said that that's exactly why the condition started. And it's good it did really because then I was forced to eat. And I slowly began to recover.
But it's not just what you do to yourself that makes it so hard, it's other people. I could lie to my parents, my teachers and my friends; I was the best liar I knew. Cover up with layers, pretend you've eaten elsewhere, have an answer for everything, I had it sorted. But my peers at school? They noticed and they weren't kind about it. In sixth form we were allowed to have food in lessons and for a while I refused to eat it. People would waft it under my nose and say "Bet you wish you were eating this!" And some delightful people tried to force me to eat it. I'd panic and cry later because they were so bang on. See, anorexia is not hating food, it's being obsessed with it. Of course I wanted to eat it, I wanted to snatch it and eat all of it but I could tell myself I was disgusting and the cravings would subside. Eventually I gave in and would eat a bit but add more exercises to my routine. And do frequent body checks. You saw this one last post.
And I had loads of these pictures. Luckily, I've deleted most of them since coming to university. I'm happy to say I've come a long way with recovery but you don't ever get better. I'm making my peace with that now. I will always have anxiety, I will always have anorexia but they don't always have to have me. And you know what, I love my hair now, and my nails. They've fully grown back and are thicker and stronger. I have colour in my face. And sure, I've put on about 3 stone but I'm the size I'm meant to be. I wasn't meant to be skinny and no-one deserves to starve themselves like that.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. And please be kind to others, I'm sure there are others in your life who are just as great at lying so please be kind. I'm not fully there yet but it's going in the right direction and talking about it is so helpful. So here's to being open.
Lots of Love,
Sarah xxx
