Category: lifetime

My Past Experience of Anorexia


TRIGGER WARNING – THIS IS ABOUT EATING DISORDERS (ANOREXIA)

This account is purely about my own experience of anorexia. This disease affects all sexes, not just women. It can also affect people of any age group. In my case, I was in my forties when it began. Treatment these days may well be different; I don’t know. If you are struggling with an eating disorder or suspect you may be, please seek help from your doctor or any of the helpline numbers given at the end of this post.

Anorexia isn’t about the food; it’s about control. I wanted to control my life but thought if I could control my body and weight, I’d start to feel better. How wrong I was.

It started with me cutting out fats and carbs like many people on diets. I began to lose weight and felt like I was achieving something. As I lost weight, I still wasn’t satisfied, though, convincing myself I was overweight and needed to lose just a few more pounds. I lost more weight, but I still wasn’t content. I began to develop rituals around food, such as cutting food up into tiny pieces to make them last longer or seem more and, weighing everything I ate, then totting up the calories. I stopped drinking coffee with milk and drank only black coffee and Diet Coke. Still not satisfied; eating salad wasn’t enough to control my habit. I began to weigh the lettuce, water well shaken out of it, and work out the calories in three thin slices of cucumber. The weight started to drop off me, but I couldn’t see how ill I was.

I need to make it clear that anorexia is not a choice, a fad, or a diet; it’s an extremely serious and dangerous illness, which is nearly always caused by significant trauma in childhood, as was the case with me.

More rituals developed, and the weight loss continued. I’m not going to go on to describe all those habits and routines because I DO NOT want this to read like an ‘instruction manual’ for anorexia. Suffice it to say; I ended up in the local psychiatric hospital on the eating disorders ward at a very dangerously thin weight of five and a half stone! I was confined to bed and only allowed to use the bathroom with a staff member present. It was so embarrassing.

My first meal there was presented to me two hours after I’d arrived. It was, to my horror, vegetable curry and rice followed by bread-and-butter pudding and two scoops of ice cream. It wasn’t a small portion, either. I don’t think I’d ever felt that sense of panic before. A nurse sat with me and insisted I ate every stone-cold mouthful. I cried, I sobbed, and I begged, all to no avail. I was made to eat all that food despite having terrible pain in my stomach. It seemed barbaric to me. It took me nearly three hours to force the food down. Other than that, they threatened to tube-feed me, and with my phobia of choking, I couldn’t bear the thought of that.

The eating disorders ward had strict rules. Everything was done on a reward and punishment basis. To begin with, I wasn’t allowed phone calls or visitors, not even my family, and I wasn’t allowed out of my room. Weeks passed, and as I gained weight, albeit reluctantly, I was ‘rewarded’ with a phone call to my daughter, then my son and my Mum. They were all worried sick about me and dreadfully upset that I was going through all of this at the same time, realising I was very ill and needed help. There was no way of ‘cheating,’ although some of the people there tried. We would have lost a reward if we lost weight, which was impossible with every mouthful being supervised. It was such a thoroughly miserable time. At the time, I thought it was tortuous; it certainly felt like it.

However, there are only three ways out of anorexia in my mind. One is to get better despite it being painfully hard work (but well worth it); the other is that you spend your life battling with your illness for, possibly, the rest of your years (and believe me, that’s pretty awful), or you die!! It’s as simple as that!

I began to make good progress and started to feel better physically. I was allowed to eat in the dining room with the other inpatients on our ward; I could go to activities and learn about the basic psychology of eating disorders. We were taught about CBT therapy and offered other forms of treatment once our minds had started to recover from the starvation. We were basically given another chance at life, and I was grateful for that.

Finally, after being in hospital for six whole months, I was allowed day leave, and then weekend leave etc. Eventually, I was allowed home but had to attend the day hospital every day.

I don’t think you are ever really ‘cured’ from an eating disorder, but for me, it’s like being in remission, and I never take my life or health for granted. Anorexia is an addiction as well as an illness. Like any addiction, you have to consider yourself in permanent recovery. Now, at the age of 65, I’m making the most of my time and intend to live the rest of my life without harming myself in this way. I’m happy in my life with two adult children and four gorgeous grandchildren. If anyone is reading this and recognises themselves in what I have written, please, please, seek help.


UK HELP: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/

US HELP: https://www.helpguide.org/home-pages/eating-disorders.htm

AU HELP: https://au.reachout.com/articles/support-services-for-eating-disorders

(Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)

The Death Café (A Poem)

TRIGGER WARNING: This poem discusses thoughts about death and is not intended to upset or offend anyone. The Death Café is held monthly in the back of an art shop in town. It’s not at all morbid; it isn’t a grief or support group, just a place to discuss the topic openly and ask questions. It isn’t about religion, or lack of it, It is open to anyone who wishes to know more and, perhaps, has some unanswered questions about death in a practical sense. This is about my first visit there.

I woke up early to a mackerel sky
With rain afoot in the weather’s eye
Thoughts turned to how I wanted to die
You may be puzzled and wondering why
 
I went to a Death Café with my friend
By writing this, I don’t mean to offend
Each debated how we would like to end
An honest discussion; no need to pretend

I hadn’t been to a Death Café before
I was a bit nervous as I walked in the door
Curious to know what was in store
Eager to learn and keen to know more

Seated inside were six women, four men
I listened intently; made notes with my pen
Wondering whether to go there again
It’s only monthly, so I’ll decide then

I spoke to my children last night; you see
Asked them how they would remember me
I told them I want to be laid by a tree*
Said we should get together, us three

My daughter agreed; she was perfectly fine
My son stayed silent and sipped his wine
We all have to go at some unknown time
But ultimately, the decision’s not mine.

*I’m passionate about trees and nature. I told my children I wanted to be buried close to a tree, preferably an oak. If you’d like to understand more about my passion for trees, you might like to read my post about a conversation between a special Tree and me Tree.

(Photo by Jordan Benton: https://www.pexels.com)





Passage of Time

Photo by Rachel Loughman on Unsplash

Please forgive my indulgence in sharing this poem with you. I thought long and hard about publishing it, even writing it initially. This post follows my two previous ones, Dissociative Healing and Brave. They are all a part of the process.

I’m aware that my posts, mainly poems, of late, have been dark. I’m currently working through my thoughts and feelings about this with my counsellor. She is helping a lot, and I know I will get through this before too long. However, today, I needed to write this straight out of my heart, which is where all my writing comes from. It’s the only way I know how to write.

My intention is not to cause distress to any of my readers, although I’m aware that others may possibly have been through such traumatic experiences.


Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick
The metronome ticks the minutes away
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick
It regularly beats without a delay

She hears it, hears it, hears it now
All the way from childhood days
No choice for her but fear and pain
To come and go from this toxic place

Come day, come week, come every month
Nothing ever changed
Come birthdays, Christmas, year on year
Becoming more deranged

She trod on the cracks along the road
She’ll be punished for that, to be sure
Nearer and nearer she’d get
Ringing the bell on the the door

Waiting, waiting, waiting for time
Knowing she’s headed downstairs
Panic, fear and desperation
He’ll be seated on one of the chairs

She’s greeted by the metronome
Knowing what’s in store
She’s swallowing down the terror
And tightly clenching her jaw

She’s beckoned within, the time has come
The door bangs behind her – it’s shut
The bolt is shot, and she’s trapped inside
As she’s made to be the slut

Come, come, come sit on my knee
Just you do as you’re told
Her heartbeat faster and faster
She’s only eight years old

Don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell a soul
They’ll be trouble if you do
So she silenced herself right there and then
Not knowing this was taboo

After years passed, the news got out
Not from her but another source
Someone else told their story
He denied it all, of course

The police were called immediately
Spoke to her Mum and her Dad
She was frozen solid to the core
Because she’d been told she was bad

She didn’t want to cause any trouble
She silently tucked it inside
The grown-ups shrugged their shoulders
While she crept up to her room and died.




 












Dissociative Healing

Image by Ulrike Leone from Pixabay

The past came back to haunt me yesterday
I thought I was over all that
It suddenly came flooding back
When opposite my counsellor, I sat

I cried a river of tears
As I remembered the sickening pain
I didn’t want to go back to that place
To experience everything again

The adult within me departed
Although I was sat in my seat
I could feel myself drifting away
As my heart skipped its regular beat

My thoughts were transported elsewhere
To a time so long ago
The world seemed unreal as time transposed
My agony completely on show

I had gone somewhere else in my mind
Somewhere distant and safe
I couldn’t be touched from where I was hidden
As I became the child, the waif

Gradually soft words broke through
It’s okay, you’re secure, you’re here
The voice, far away, waited patiently
Till the muffled speech became clear

Her voice brought me back to the room
My head cleared as she reached out her hand
The fear left and the pain abated
As I began to understand

My adult returned; it was time to go
Slowly, I walked to the door
I thanked her and smiled as the sun shone in
For I knew I was healing for sure.

Fragments

Photo by Tuva Mathilde Løland on Unsplash

I will show you

fragments of me

myself

us

hesitantly

if you are kind

and have patience

to listen

and trust

~~~

I will open cupboard doors

that have been closed

for many years

and bring out

pieces of me

people

and truths

hidden

over my lifetime

~~~

Clumps

have been grabbed

thrown

to the ground

but I gathered them up

and tucked them away

in my mind

in my heart

carefully hidden

~~~

These pieces are me

if you see them

as superfluous,

say they are unimportant

are of no value

and without meaning

I will gradually

silently

hide them

once more

~~~

I will fold them

securely

in tissue paper

as if they were jewels

and place them

back into the cupboard

never to be seen again.