My eyes lie to me! (Anorexia Nervosa)

Member Name: kimgraham

Product:	Anorexia Nervosa
Date:	22/11/01 (1129 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none,probably

Disadvantages: bad for your health

I thought long and hard as to how to go about this opinion. I set off by wanting to write an opinion on an excellent diet book called “5 days to a flatter stomach “ by Monica Grenfell. The more I thought about it I realised that I could only do it properly if I explained a lot about my background of anorexia. But, it struck me that the good reader may become justifiably dischuffed if they had to wade through several paragraphs on anorexia before getting to the topic that they had chosen to read! Hmm, what to do?! I could just review the book without mentioning the anorexic angle, but to me that was a vital part of the story. In the end I decided to write two separate ops and I do hope that you will read the one on the book when I get round to writing it!

You probably think this is a sneaky way to get you to read another of my ops! I assure you that that is not the case.

So, to my story. My name is Kim and I am an anorexic. I am also two stone overweight. Before you all snort with derision please allow me to elaborate.

Being an anorexic, if you have been one for a length of time, is like being an alcoholic. It is a tendency, a fault in your psyche that stays with you for the rest of your life, just waiting to be triggered off again.

In my teens I had a bit of puppy fat, like most girls that age. It wasn’t much but when I was seventeen I decided to do something about it. I joined Weightwatchers. My aunt was a Weightwatchers lecturer at the time and it seemed the best way of going about it. I possibly might not have bothered, but I had a younger sister who was very thin and very blonde. I spent most of my childhood and teens hearing our father call her his “little blonde bombshell”. It had a profound effect. I grew up thinking you would get on far better in life if you were blonde and thin! I have spent most of my adult life with blonde hair (courtesy of a bottle) and very thin.

To be fair
to my Dad, I don’t honestly think he had favourites but my sister and he both had TB at the same time when my sister was 18 months old. They both nearly died and spent nearly 18 months in hospital together. It was an isolation unit and I was not allowed in, for my own protection. This set up a different kind of bond between my father and sister, but as a child you don’t understand. I always felt a bit of an outsider and spent most of my life wanting to be my sister. Pathetic isn’t it?

Where was I? Oh yes, I trotted off to Weightwatchers and was very successful. I was a runner up in Weightwatcher of the Year in the 1970’s. I was very proud. I loved being thin and decided my goal weight was too high. I managed to maintain at a stone under goal until I got pregnant with my first child. I too trained to become a lecturer for Weightwatchers. I was the youngest they had ever trained at that time, and without blowing my own trumpet I was very successful at it. I was able to fit it in around my musical career so all was good. I was thinner than my extremely skinny sister. Life could not get any better! I even did some modelling for Weightwatchers.

I was very ill in my first pregnancy. My weight rose alarmingly. I was 21 years old and hugely fit at the start and weighed seven stone. By the time my son was delivered I weighed 13 stone. You can imagine my distress. It must have been a hormonal thing as I truly ate next to nothing. I am only 5’2” so to almost double my weight had a very bad effect on my health. The doctor did not want to know. I went to him and pleaded for help. I asked how this could be happening when I was eating only 600 calories a day. His comment was “ well, perhaps you should stop eating fish and chips and cream cakes”.

“I don’t ever eat anything like that- I told you I am on 600 calories a day”

I will never forget his reply, or the devastating effect
it has had on the rest of my life. “Yes, well eating that little didn’t have that effect on the people in Belsen”.

I wanted to hit him. I was very, very angry and upset. I told my then husband who was also pretty cross. He spoke to the doctor, who clearly didn’t believe either of us. The seeds for many years of cycles of starving had been sown.

My beautiful little boy was born. He has always had many health problems but he was basically sound and we were over the moon. Now to lose the weight. I followed the weight watchers programme. Before I had lost it all I fell pregnant with my elder daughter. There is only 15 months between my eldest two children. By the end I was also thirteen stone. This time I was heartbroken. I felt unwell and revolting. Again, no support from the medical profession. By this time we had moved and it was a different doctor. He said there was nothing he could do to help but I was monitored very closely in case I developed diabetes or pre-eclampsia. Both of these can be brought on by excessive weight gain in pregnancy. Mercifully they did not in my case.

Back to the weight loss programme for me. I was so very determined. My self-esteem was at rock bottom. Have you noticed that if you have a self esteem problem rock bottom seems to have a magnet which happily pulls you down whenever possible? I wanted to fight it. I was only 23 and looked and felt 20 years older. My glamorous sister came to visit.That did me a lot of good! My family commented on the vast weight gain.I felt very samll inside and very large outside. Isn't that a strange ambiguity?!

I breast fed both the babies. They say you lose weight if you feed them yourselves, it didn’t have that effect in my case. I must point out that it wasn’t the reason I breast-fed!!Just as well really, isn't it!

I joined a gym and aerobics class at our local sports centre where there was a crèche for babies wi
th trained nurses. Wonderful. I felt much better as time went on. The steady, regular weight loss of the excellent weightwatchers programme was frustrating me. I wanted results. I wanted them NOW. I cut all my food rations in half. Then I cut out meals. I had control. The weight was falling off. Soon I was well under seven stone. I was over the moon and could not stop. Anorexia had taken hold.

In those days the medics did not bother much with eating disorders. If you were at death’s door you were admitted to hospital and force-fed. Mercifully I never reached that stage. Then something happened. Daughter number two was on the way. It was a terrible pregnancy even by my standard. I was fourteen stone when she was born and she was 4 pounds at full term. I spent quite a bit of time in hospital during the pregnancy as something was obviously going very wrong. The baby would not grow, and I did nothing but! Luckily, apart from being very tiny for a full term baby there was nothing else wrong with her.

Back to the gym I went. Back to the starving I went. There was so much of me that I successfully fed all of them for a minimum of 15 months a piece despite the starving. I got back down to just over 6 stone. Everyone said I was too thin, but I thought it was marvellous. I have been able to starve at will for most of my adult life and the minute I thought even one pound had gone on I would starve for a few days. I thought myself very clever.
I remembered a quote of the Duchess of Windsor “you can never be too rich or too thin!” Well, I didn’t think I could ever be really rich, not in the monetary sense anyway! But I could be really, really thin. She was absolutely right, I thought.I was happiest when my size eight clothes were too big for me.

Now apart from my odd eating habits I am a normal well-balanced individual who has a great desire to be significantly underweight!

When my third child was two years old
her father and I divorced. It was amicable and he and his wife are amongst my close friends. I moved in shortly after with my new partner and we had a little girl together a year later. He made the mistake of saying “You won’t get too fat while you are pregnant will you?” It was the wrong thing to say really, wasn’t it!
Anyway, you have undoubtedly guessed that I did. I was thirteen stone at delivery this time and I did have gestational diabetes.

I lost it all again though and a bit more besides. I was so proud of myself being able to starve at will. Everyone said I was far too thin, but I truly believed that you could never be too thin! This time I also became really obsessive about exercise. I had always had a bit of a tendency, but this time it ran wild. I also dabbled with large doses of laxatives. I soon gave that up though. I could not bear the stomach ache!

Two years later I became pregnant again but the baby was dead before he was born. It is something from which you never really recover. You just learn to live with it, and try to keep your self-pity for times when you are totally alone. Strangely, this time I had not gained as much. Only four stone this time. It did not want to shift. I had to starve almost continually for two years but it worked in the end.

My husband then had an affair. I was so grief stricken that I was not thinking about him, apparently. He had problems at school (he is a teacher not a toy boy!) and felt I was not supportive. This was a matter of months after my stillbirth. I had done my best but it obviously wasn’t enough. I felt scared and totally inadequate. I was also battling my extreme pain over problems we were having over my stepchildren. (I have written an opinion on this too).

Five years ago I had a heart attack whilst teaching at school. It was brought on by a combination of family history and extreme stress.
I have never been fully fit since, al
though I am working really hard on it now. I gained weight. My self-esteem plummeted. I immediately started a cycle of starving. Nothing happened. I tried 400 calories a day for 6 weeks. Nothing happened. I was frantic. By this time it was becoming a real problem. I had all the mirrors removed from the house apart from the one in the bathroom as everyone else in the family wants to see what they are doing. I stopped wearing makeup as it meant looking in a mirror.

If I went into a shop with mirrors I left the moment I spotted them. I even kept away from shop doors because of the reflection. This is something that is with me to this day. I will try to put make up on again for special occasions but I use a tiny mirror in my eye shadow compact so that I can on see a tiny bit of my face at a time. How do I manage the bathroom mirror? I clean my teeth with my eyes shut!

I am also paranoid about photos! It caused a real problem earlier this year when I stood for Parliament, as I had to have publicity photos taken for the election address and for press releases. I got round it by telling people to make sure I never saw them. Eventually I did and I was distraught. Who was this fat, ugly woman? Inside I still feel like me and I hate what I see. I am a size 14 now. My daughters say it isn't that bad. But I see a hugely obese woman looking back at me. Tell me that isn't bad.When you are used to being smaller than a size eight then a fourteen seems massive.

By the way, please do not take offence if you are a large lady reading this (or chap). It is part of the curse of anorexia that ideas of size are hugely distorted.

I realised how my anorexic mentality was still going strong when a male pupil of mine had to leave university in his second term due to severe anorexia. When he came home he came to see me. He had had puppy fat at school and had been teased. Also, his voice did not break until he was eighteen. Poor lad, no wonder he ha
d a self esteem problem. All anorexics do. But here is the odd thing. He was, according to the hospital and everybody else, dangerously thin. I thought he looked terrific. I had the good sense not to tell him that. He is now making a good recovery. The treatment these days is so much better, not like it was when I first succumbed.

So, what of me now? I went to the heart clinic three weeks ago. I said I could not exercise (which I need to do to help repair the heart as I now have heart failure) and that if only I could lose weight I could perhaps exercise without keeling over. The doctor witnessed the keeling over on exercising at first hand, as I passed out on his treadmill. Whoops, how embarrassing!!

He listened to me, and knew that I had a nutritionist’s qualification. He believed what I told him. The answer, it seems was obvious to him: the weight won’t shift this time as long-term anorexia has totally cocked up my metabolism. Oh deep joy. So am I destined to stay overweight forever? That would destroy somebody like me completely!

The doctor explained that the minute I go on a really low calorie diet or try to starve, my body remembers what has gone on before. It then goes into starvation mode and hangs on to my fat stores for all its might. You can almost see the funny side of it- my body getting its own back for years of mistreatment!!

He advised that I try a radical and new approach. He suggested eating. Eating regularly? Me? I was not keen. I though I will end up like Hattie Jacques and Dawn French rolled into one. An interesting point to interject here, is that I am not, apparently very overweight. The doctor said about two stone. But on the rare occasions I see myself I see myself as larger than my 24 stone friend. Anorexics eyes lie. That is one of the difficulties we have. Even when grossly underweight we see ourselves as fat.Interestingly it seems only to apply to our image of ourselves. I never see oth
er women as big unless they had a clinical obesity problem, like my large friend.

I was despatched to devise myself a diet plan where I eat very often but small amounts. This is where we came in. I spotted a review on Dooyoo for the book” 5 Days to a flatter stomach”. It seemed to fit the doctor’s description of what I should do. I bought a copy. I keep going round and round the 5 days and it seems to be working! YaY!! It has even got rid of my really severe fluid retention in my legs and feet without me taking my medication. I forgot to pick up my prescription last week and have been working flat out during Chemist opening hours. I could not believe it when the swelling went down. It is the first time I have seen my anklebones in six months! So I really must get round to writing a review of this brilliant diet book.

Thank you for bearing with me this far. I hope you don’t think I am a total nut case as nothing is further from the truth. I will always have a tendency to starve when I feel like it, but somehow there seems little point when it doesn’t do much!

So, is there a moral to this tale? We,, not really, but I think in this day and age far too much emphasis is placed on being very thin- just look at the supermodels such as Kate Moss. Also, young girls are very impressionable and easily bruised. Try not to make your daughters feel bad if they are a bit podgy. Most often it will go, and if not you can help them to eat more healthily. If you suspect your son or daughter might have an eating disorder then don’t wait for your suspicions to be confirmed. It might be too late.

Get professional help at the first signs and maybe you can prevent your sprog having a story to tell like mine.

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