Tag: anorexia

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)

Back In The Days (Poem and Introduction)

TRIGGER WARNING – mentions alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, eating disorder, self-harm, and emotional abuse.

My kind and excellent blogging friend and reader, Brian, published a post yesterday called ‘A Good Question‘ – it was about how other people cope with their feelings if they’re unable to write them on paper or screen. I’ve not always been able to write; I started after an awful experience working with an emotionally abusive therapist who had no boundaries. I became a wreck while I was with her, and she walked out on me the day my father died in April 2012. I thought I would never recover. From that moment, I began to write and wrote about that experience of what happened to me while I was, supposedly, having therapy with her. I wrote a poem at that time (one of my first posts on my new blog) called, ‘Killing Me Softly.‘ Please, could you take the time to read this, as it will help you make more sense of today’s poem? It’s only short (thank you).

This poem is the story of those years. I’ve never shared this part of my life, so it’s an extremely scary thing to do. I wanted to speak my truth, as I always do. I’m aware that I might be opening myself up for criticism and disgust here, but I now take responsibility and deeply regret my actions at that time and everything I put my family and friends through. Please, know that I’m not in this place anymore.

BACK IN THE DAYS

Back in the days when I couldn’t write
and the pain lived deep down in my soul
I had other methods to help me cope
to fill up that vast, gaping hole

It was when I was seeing that counsellor
when they all told me not to go
I came out of there tearful and broken
I’d never been so depressed and low

Back in the days when seeing her
I found myself drowning in sorrow
I got into debt with the landlord and more
and I needed some money to borrow

I started each day with a bottle of gin
kept it down by the side of my bed
I couldn’t face coffee or breakfast
just lay wanting death instead

Back in the days when I got into drugs
and was out of my head every day
I was literally living on benzos and weed
and had totally lost my way

I stopped eating food; became so unwell
I had anorexia; was all skin and bone
I hated everything about myself
I was down to under five stone

Back in the days, I’d knock back the pills
I’d bought from the chemist as well
and swallowed all my prescription drugs
I thought I was living in hell

I woke up one day in intensive care
all hooked up to tubes and wires
It hadn’t occurred to me before
that I was literally playing with fire

Back in the days when I started to cut
I was trying to bleed out my pain
I got treated like a timewaster
and I tried to jump under a train

Today, I’ve totally moved on from that
I’m grateful that I’m here at all
I confess I caused so much trouble
but now, I can stand straight and tall

Now, these days, I’m fit, happy and well
Have been clean and sober ten years
I’ve made my amends and changed my ways
And I’ll continue to persevere.

Thank you so much for reading. Love Ellie Xx 💓




Image by günter from Pixabay





Best Foot Forward …

The only photo of me in the flesh that you’re likely to ever see! I’m shy.
Make the most of it – it’s not likely to happen again 😉!

I thought I’d give you a little background information about my disability. It’s not something I’ve previously spoken about much in my blog, so this is my story.

I started life as an able-bodied little girl who did all the usual activities that young children do. I was always small, skinny and underweight, but there were advantages to being as I was. I could shin up the gym apparatus faster than many children in my class. Considering I was sometimes thought of as a weed, I did pretty well. I grew up, married, had my two children, Tom and Clare, and then my ex left. I continued to raise the children alone and also had to work to bring some money in for us to live on. It was a tough time, but I was very content. Between school runs, the children’s football matches and netball, I was a carer and home help for ten years (I’d initially trained as a secretary and worked in the City of London for several years). I combined my work which I loved, with caring for Tom and Clare; we were a very happy little family.

When the children were about thirteen and eleven, I saved enough to take them to the funfair in town (Essex in the UK). It was there that I had my accident which was to change the course of my life.
When our carriage crashed, I felt a tremendous jolt that jarred my neck and spine. Eventually, after a lengthy spell in hospital (with my children staying with my Mum) and with many tests, x-rays, scans and examinations, the doctors decided I’d damaged the nerve endings leading from my spine. They said it was permanent. It was an awful lot to come to terms with, but over time, I grew, not so much to accept it but more to live my life despite it. I wasn’t about to give in easily. The pain was awful, though, and I was on morphine for quite a while. It wasn’t all bad – I was away with the fairies much of the time 😄!

Fast forward twenty years. It was recommended that I have a DEXA Scan as osteoporosis was suspected, given that I’d always been small-boned, had experienced a few years previously with anorexia, and being unable to exercise very often. When I got my results, I was unsure who was more shocked, the radiographer or me. My T-scores were appallingly low. A score of -2.5 indicates osteoporosis, but mine was -4.5, which meant I had severe osteoporosis.

Degrees of osteoporosis
Mine is severe, meaning there is more air space (in brown) and very little solid bone (shown in beige). It’s a wonder I haven’t entirely disintegrated!!

I was told I could die if I fractured my hip or be left even more disabled if I injured my spine. I have to admit I was scared – very scared. Every move I made seemed risky, and I lived in fear for a while. I became super-careful with everything I did, but two years ago, I tripped over Peanut (my new cat) while transferring from my wheelchair to my walking frame. There I was being rushed off to Accident & Emergency for the second time. I was in agony. I’ve never felt pain like it. After all the x-rays and scans came back, the doctors announced that I’d broken my pelvis, not once, not twice, but in six different places. I don’t do things by halves. If I’m going to have an accident, I’ve got to do it in style!

Strangely enough, contrary to what most people would think, I don’t have any regrets; I’m not angry or bitter or in the least bit dissatisfied with my life. I am who I am. Without the experiences I’ve been through, I wouldn’t be me. I wouldn’t be Ellie.

My next post (Part Two) will be about my journey back to good health and where I intend to go from here on in.

Okay … these aren’t my legs, but just an indication of where I go next on my journey. Look out for part two.