Tell my story, the blank draft prompts me... It's not as easy as a linear tale of incidents, or occurrences.
My journey with body dysmorphia, anorexia, and eating disorders is more of a yarn ball that has been shredded by several feral cats and left in the mud and rain to rot..... almost impossible and highly unpleasant to untangle.
I guess I shall attempt to start at the beginning, with the little girl. The little girl whose self-worth was methodically and pathologically eroded by those who were supposed to love me most. My mother and sister, subjected to constant trauma and abuse from my father (who was an alchoholic), hid themselves in a world of perfection. A coping mechanism of sorts, I suppose. They created an alternate universe, where my mom was a graceful queen and my sister a prima ballerina. I was painfully shy and awkward and certainly did not possess the same streamlined graceful muscular body as my sister. My teachers, along with my mother and sister, used to point out rather bluntly, that ballet was just not my forte. I tried many times, over the years, to follow in my sister's shadow, but found myself repeating words that had been whispered about my body, my gracelessness, my posture, and my inability to remember routines (a result of PTSD and a symptom of ADHD, both left untreated).
What I would have given to have been one of those lovely garland girls. There I was, at about 10 or 11 years old, cast as a very awkward sailor: 2nd from the right.
I tried modern dancing which was slightly better, but unfortunately, the private school where I attended extra mural lessons, along with tap dancing and drama, was straight out of a schoolgirls horror story, with filthy rich girls filled with hatred and spite. In the two years I was there, I did not make a single friend.
Me, around the same age, where my greatest achievement, was the position of Library Monitor that I had earned and displayed the position's badge with all my pride.
My gift for singing only became apparent a bit later, but by this time, incredibly deep lashes had already been calved into the crevices of my psyche. My voice certainly offered massive reprieve. How differently the whole world, especially my matriarchal family, began to see and treat me. At least for a while.
A far more confident Claire at the Grade 7 Barn Dance.
My grandmother, right up until she lost her ability to recognise or communicate with me, would point out every single kilogram or centimeter I had lost or gained every time I went to see her. From when I was as young as 9 years old until I was well into my 30s. I eventually built up a wall, but just like my mother's constant criticism about my hair, my posture, my speech, my very existence, the walls I built were only as strong as I allowed them to be. I so often let my guard down, desperate for love, attention, acceptance, and praise. I lowered my walls time and again, only to have what tiny amount of self-esteem I had, to be utterly ravaged.
Grade 8 Claire
When my sister moved out, my father disappeared, and my mother was working nightshifts, I spent far too much time alone. My soul completely broken by early romances that ended in heartbreak, disaster and utter violation, I lost sight of my dreams. I turned my anger inwards, in the only way I knew how. I decided that my selfworth in this life must be determined by my awful body, that I would need to mutilate, change and make to sufffer in order to become worthy of love.
The beginning of my decent
I stopped eating.
I started cutting my arms.
I have a scar on my upper thigh, from a childhood injury, that I would use as a measurement of my worthiness. If I could place my hands around my thighs, and get each opposing thumb and middle finger to touch, it meant I was getting thin enough. Eventually, I no longer needed to squeeze. The gap between my fingers disappeared altogether within three months.
I became obsessed with the idea that, the less I ate and the more sickly I could become, the more I would come closer to finding some ounce of acceptance. That perhaps those around me would realise how bad the pain had become and they would rescue me from this pit of despair that was swallowing me alive.
I would break open shaving razors with stones and use the blades to calve letters into my arms. Symbols of self-hatred.
I would consume diet pills, riddled with methamphetamines, that further ate away at my sanity and drove me further to madness, insomnia, and depression.
At my worst, at just 15 years old, I was drinking 8 liters of water a day and never sleeping. Severe anemia meant I could not get out of the bath without fainting. When I did fall asleep, I experienced the most horrifying sleep paralysis that made me terrified of losing control of my consciousness. I weighed approximately 42.6 kilograms the last time I got on the scale.
I had lost 18 kilograms in approximately 4 months.
By the time my mother took me to get help, it was for narcotic addiction, and never were any of my other issues addressed. I decided I did not want to go to rehab, I changed schools and my mother left the country, in an attempt to create a fresh start for us.
When the opportunity arose, and while I was living with my sister, I ran away and dropped out of school. Ironically, this symbolized the end of the "dark year" for me.
I never did follow my mother to the UK, although I did visit her at the end of that year, and again in my early 20s (the photos below are from my 1st visit, while still recovering from surgery). I found a lover, who was too old for me, but he and his family essentially became my foster family. They taught me to drive and helped me get my matric and college qualifications. Just a few months after moving in with them, in the year following the dark year, I was hospitalized twice.
I developed cholelithiasis (gall stones) which went undiagnosed for months and is pain worse than anything I have ever experienced, including childbirth. It is unheard of for a child so young, to develop this illness, much less at the severity at which I was afflicted. It was definitely a result of my anorexia. By the time I was diagnosed, my fever was spiking at over 40deg Celsius and sepsis had begun to set in. They removed my entire gallbladder before I lost my life. For the next 5 years, I was plagued with constant kidney issues and was even hospitalized for a week, as my kidneys could not function properly, thanks to excessive water consumption.
To this day, my mother denies I had an eating disorder. That I suffered from childhood depression, or that she or her own mother had any part to play in my demise. I don't believe that my mother, sister and grandmother were inherently or maliciously cruel to me, but rather that they were a culmination of generations of trauma.
My saviour, in reality, became myself. Although my new adoptive/ foster family seemed to accept and love and support me, they too were fated to abandon me and I would have to rebuild again from nothing.
But I rose again, I was torn down again and I rose again.
Later, my abusive marriage saw me turn the other way and I ate away my feelings, gaining 30 kilograms after my child was born. I suppose in some way I thought I was burying myself. Hiding. Disappearing under the layers. An easy way to escape the hell that my marriage became.
Since my separation from my "foster family," my divorce and especially in more recent times, there have been periods of immense happiness, where my cortisol levels drop and my happy endorphins are allowed to thrive, and almost without effort, my body and metabolism return to normal.
But this seesaw of weight gain and loss seems to be a curse. Perhaps even a lifelong one.
Perhaps with enough therapy, I will one day overcome it.
Whatever happens to me though, I ask you to be kind to your children, your siblings, and even your friends. Be accountable for your actions. Analyse your expectations and ask yourself: who are your judgmental words and scorn, - masqueraded as "tough love" -really serving at the end of the day?
You, or them?