.: thin is in :.

[ Sorry. there's nothing new here. If you saw my old site, you probably already saw this.]

anyway , i wrote it for the autobiographical component of my english gcse course over 2 years ago...but never wanted to rehash it into new words. The subjects partied out guys. it's just sitting here for posterity.

Anorexia hit this girl-child at the age of fourteen. It was 1997.

I didn't stop to think about how much weight I wanted to shed. My only aim was to be thin. I was not happy at the time , not in any way and I thought being happy went hand-in-hand with being thin. I considered myself to be a good judge of how fat or thin I was and so I was sure I would know when to stop dieting. I did in fact, weigh 10st 12lb at the time , but for my height of 5ft 8 , I realize that was not a huge amount.

Over eight weeks , my weight plummeted to under 7 stone , at which time , I began to suffer serious physical problems. ( I lost 2/3 of my hair , my protruding bones nearly tore my skin , a fine downy fuzz appeared on my arms , I stopped menstruating , and eventually I caused myself to suffer from Osteoporosis. ) I did not like being called an anorexic, although sometimes I convinced myself that I did. I hated the stigma that went with such a label. I could not be an anorexic. This was me, Rachael. It's not what I was about.

Everyone regardless of whether or not they themselves have suffered from the illness, has definite views on what the root cause of anorexia is. Myself, I think the causes to differ from person to person , but having said that , I have read many reports on the subject , and found myself to be something of a textbook case , which in itself was depressing as everyone likes to think of themselves as being unique.

I have always been very close to my father, and simultaneously , practically enemies with my mother. At the time I never thought that my father could have anything to do with my eating disorder , but when I analysed myself more closely ( as I am prone to do ) I realized that his involvement in my life was perhaps one of the main factors that caused me to become an anorexic. He has always had high hopes for me , for I was the apple of his eye , and although he never said that he would love me any the less if I swept the streets for a living , the inference was always there at the back of my mind. Not in his..but in mine. I was the achiever of the family. Both my brother and my sister ( with whom I only recently became acquainted) had failed to make a success of their lives. They had no interest in self-advancement and my father was always telling me how glad he was that I was different. I was afraid of letting him down and of being a disappointment to him and I wanted to be perfect , if only to please him. When I finally took a step back from the situation and told myself I was an anorexic on the path to self-destruction , I felt incredible guilt. I had let my Father down terribly. He did not know how to handle the problem , and in a way he made it worse , for he lectured me on how stupid I had been , to nearly kill myself in the pursuit of a projected image. I was too ashamed to tell him otherwise , and I convinced myself that every time he looked at me he saw a failure. My dieting had failed to make him happy.

There have been periods in my life when I have felt the most unimaginable self-loathing. I was always very adept at self analysis and the more I scrutinized myself , the more I hated myself. I was a failure in every sense of the word. I had few friends , I was unattractive to the opposite sex , I was doing poorly at school , and I was blamed extensively for the disintegration of my parent's marriage.

In retrospect , I realize there were many other paths I could so easily have trod , aside from those connected with food. I could have mutilated my body by compulsively cutting or burning myself.[ oooh! how naive! When I wrote this I really had no idea what was to come ] I deem anorexia to be a form of self mutilation, for like any other way , it progresses seemingly towards self-destruction. Others would follow.

I know that many people believe the blame for anorexia to lie with the fashion industry , and the waif-like , emaciated models it uses to display its clothes. I can only speak for myself , when talking on the subject of anorexia, as I have never met anyone else with the same problem. Being bombarded with images of skinny and sickly women , did take its toll upon me , but not to the extent that I did what I did to be like them. Yes , I did compare myself to them and draw the conclusion that they were perfection personified , whilst I was a fat and ugly failure . The society we are brought up in , is geared towards beauty and the pursuit of it . Every little girl , at some point in her childhood , possesses a Barbie doll , or the cultural equivalent of one. The image surrounding Barbie , is one of perfection. Barbie has everything , from a complete wardrobe of pretty clothes to an attractive beau, Ken. She has long blonde hair and an hour-glass figure complete with perfectly formed bosoms and tiny , high waist. It is a physical impossibility for any woman to achieve the appearance of Barbie , and yet children are brought up to believe that this is what society expects of them, this is how they should look if they want to be happy and to find a partner. I find it laughable that people condemn fashion and its purveyors , yet at the same time , buy their children these icons of unrealistic , unobtainable, perfection. What are the marketers of this product doing , if not sowing the seeds for a future generation of anorexics and bullimics ?

I regard anorexia as a psychological illness , with physical symptoms and consequences , and therefore I can say that it is not the first mental illness I have suffered from , the first being OCD ( obsessive Compulsive disorder. ) I have always had a great fear of death and of those I love dying. I used to visualize inanimate objects, such as cupboards and chairs as being my loved ones and I convinced myself that by constantly chanting to these objects , I was perverting the course of nature , and thus saving their lives. I doubt it would have been classified as OCD , had it not been for the time scale . I distinctly remember repeating the same sentence for nearly two hours , whist standing in front of a formica kitchen unit. I was aware that my actions were absurd and irrational , but I was compelled to keep doing it , as I had convinced myself , that lives depended on my actions , and I was not prepared to let people die , for the simple reason that I felt my actions to be slightly inane.

I now realize that OCD manifested itself in anorexia , for the obsession changed to one of food. Although I was depriving myself of an element essential for sustaining life , I prepared it obsessively for others. Making three-course meals , and then watching my family eating it around me , whilst I sat there with nothing more than a glass of water , or better still with nothing at all. Seeing people gorge themselves whilst I exercised restraint and will power gave me a greater opinion of my self-worth. It was not that I thought myself to be anything exceptional , it was that I valued other people so little , and compared to them , I felt myself to be a giant. I walked amongst them , seeing through their petty lives , ridiculing their shortcomings and condemning their failures. In a warped way , I began to perceive myself as being super-human. I no longer needed to eat. I was not like the rest of the human population. I could exist on nothing. I knew deep down that it was all a delusion of the illness , but it scared me , because sometimes I thought I actually believed those weird thoughts.

Whilst I was entirely in the grip of the disorder , I would think nothing of going without food for four consecutive days , at the end of which I would feel so faint , that I was unable to stand unaided. It may sound perverse , but for me , starvation became almost like a drug , one to which , I was addicted. I received a thrill from feeling dizzy every time I stood up , I took a pride in the pale , anaemic look that had become my trademark and most disturbingly of all, if anyone had asked me what the most pleasurable experience for me was I would have said : "It's a wonderful feeling when your bones start to show."

I could not bring myself even to lick a stamp , as I was terrified that the glue on it might contain a fraction of a calorie. The same was true of toothpaste , and so my dental hygiene standards went downhill ! There were times at the beginning ( two in total )when I had brief lapses. I remember not having eaten for a weekend , and being so weak that I did not have the energy to even get dressed. I ate a packet of crisps and for the rest of that day and much of the next , I thought about nothing else but what a failure I was. On both those occasions I took excessive doses of laxatives in the vain hope that the food would pass through me quickly , without turning to fat. The result was crippling abdominal pain , and me spending most of my time hanging around public toilets , which I am sure gave me one hell of a reputation ! I also started to smoke as I had been told that it speeded up one's metabolism. It also took my mind away from food and the emptiness I felt inside. Needless to say, I found it a very hard habit to give-up. I remember a neighbour reporting to my parents that she had seen me "with a ‘fag on". My parents seemed to be overwrought at the prospect of their daughter being a smoker , and they made a public show of it , concurrently brushing my eating disorder under the carpet.

The worst thing was that I was in a catch 22 situation. I wanted so much to be normal, to be socially accepted as only thin people are ( for when people found out about my disorder , they treated me like a leper. ) and yet I loved being an anorexic . Before anorexia I was Rachael the schoolgirl , afterwards I was Rachael the anorexic. I was the disorder. Without it I would have been nothing. It gave me a purpose. It was like my best-friend, always there for me, And what else can that truly be said of? It gave people something to talk about , for they could focus on my emaciated, shrivelled outer shell , without looking beneath the surface , and without seeing what an awful person I really was , for I had no liking of my character, no-one ever said I was good to have as a friend , or a neighbour , or just to have around. Starvation became almost an act of passive revenge. I was saying: "see? I am slowly disappearing , and you will be very sad when I am gone" I had this incredible anger within me. I was angry with all those who had treated me badly , all those who had just ignored me , and all those people who had never said the right thing at the right time. Every time I lost a few more pounds it was like a triumph , both for me and what I stood for. It gave me a sense of power , to be skinny and suffering , to feel like I could conquer both my body and all the other girls who wanted to be as thin as I was. Initially my heavier colleagues showered me with compliments , telling me how much they would give to have a body like mine , but not long after, their comments turned into the more vicious , gossiping type. They told me I was looking ill , and how skinny I was , but I never believed them. If I was so underweight and beautiful , why was I not allowed to see it ?

Even now , I feel very angry towards almost everyone I knew at the time. No-one helped me to recover from anorexia , and that simple fact is enough to destroy what is left of my self-confidence , and set me back on the road to the illness. If they do not care whether I live or die , it is all too easy to start reasoning along the lines of: "they don't care because I'm fat, but if I were thin............"

I am very bitter towards my friends , my teachers and my parents. All of whom , I feel let me down significantly. My friends tried their hardest , to exclude me from their lives , as the illness had made me depressive , quick-tempered , and exhausted. I was not the funny ,witty , person I once was , I was like an extra from the living dead , and they were all too eager to be rid of me. My teachers were a source of much angst as well. They were constantly demanding work from me , work that I wanted to do , but just didn't have the energy for. They could see I was ill , but not one of them , ever offered me the option to talk to someone which was what I needed most of all. The incident that I am most embittered about was the one where my tutor spoke to my father. It was over me not having attended school for some five days on account of illness no doubt brought about by my condition. I was at home and able to eavesdrop on my father's side of the conversation .She happened to mention to my father that she thought I was traumatized , and when my father asked her what she meant , she went on to say that she knew I had anorexia and that she had done for some time. Well , why didn't she try to help me? I was perplexed by her total lack of sensitivity and consideration for me. The fact that she knew , and never once , helped me , or even made allowances for me , was perhaps the most hurtful thing she could have done. I was incredibly angry with her. When I think of that incident now, it never fails to raise negative feelings. As for my parents , they could not face up to the fact that a daughter of theirs might be dysfunctional in any way. They loved me but they were unable to cope with the situation and I think they thought that by leaving it alone long enough it would go away. So what did help me to overcome anorexia ? The truth is I don't know. One-day I was starving myself , as was the norm , and the next I had eaten a packet of fudge , followed by a bowl of ice-cream , followed by four or five chocolate bars , followed by a large portion of chips , etc. I had my first ( but not last ) binge. It was then that my eating habits swung to the other side of the spectrum. It definitely was not that I faced up to the fact that I had a problem , for I had known that all along. If I am honest about the scenario , then at the very beginning , at Christmas 1995 , I had the intention of becoming an anorexic , it seemed to me like an ideal way to lose weight in a short space of time. I didn't understand what it really was. However the anorexia I imagined , didn't mirror the anorexia I got. I had always thought anorexia to be a very fast way to diet , with no side effects or lasting consequences and most importantly , I thought I would be in control. I would know when and how to stop. The reality was horrifyingly different. You don't have anorexia. Anorexia has you.

I don't know how I could stop myself from becoming an anorexic again. I am a much uglier person as a result of the illness , and not in a physical way. Nothing anyone can do , could please me. I see fault and failure in everything , and I hate myself for it. I think that maybe whatever I go through , is some kind of divine retribution for me being such a terrible person. All I can say is that I'm so sorry for whatever it is I did wrong. People tell me that the first step on the road to recovery is learning to love oneself. If that is what it takes to recover , then I don't think I ever will. Recently , I destroyed over a years worth of writings about my illness. I was tired of failure and tired of having it documented. I may be able to force myself to consume food now , but I will never like myself again , and only when you can do that , have you truly recovered. Anorexia is not something that happens to you , it is something you do to yourself, and that makes it much more difficult to learn from. I never thought myself to be ‘that' kind of person in the first place and so I cannot say with any certainty that I will never be like that again. The temptation to diet is always there and I regularly skip meals for fear of weight gain. I compare myself to other people constantly and I always feel inadequate, if not physically, then academically. Self analysis is all very well but in some ways it has done me more harm than good, for the more I learn about my inner self, the less I find there is to like.


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