Fragile - The true story of my lifelong battle with anorexia. Nikki Grahame

they had made me put on in hospital. But while I was at the Maudsley I complied with their rules.

      Each morning after breakfast of a bowl of cereal and a slice of toast we would go to the hospital’s classroom. It wasn’t like a proper school but it was OK. I did a project about flowers, learning their names and colouring in pictures. That took us up to lunchtime – and one of their stomach-churning meals.

      Then, in the afternoons, we would either go to the park or play outside. The Maudsley offered us lots of things to do and sometimes we did have fun. There was a toy room, an art room, a gym and a Sega room where you could play computer games. We could watch telly and videos too. My favourite video was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I watched it over and over again and loved the bit where the Golden Ticket-winning kids were allowed inside the factory. I’d look at all the chocolate and think, Oh, I wish I could eat that. But I knew there was absolutely no way I could allow myself – the guilt would be too unbearable.

      There was also a day room where we’d sit around and do jigsaws or play board games like Buckaroo and draw Spirograph pictures.

      In the evenings I’d write letters to Mum. Each week she sent me writing paper and stamps and I’d spend hours drawing pictures and writing notes for her and my friends from school. By now I’d been gone a matter of months and almost every day letters decorated with childish colourings and stickers arrived from my old classmates. I glued them up all around my room.

      Evening was also the time for us kids to visit the tuck shop. Of course all the other children were beyond excited about that – but I hated it. The doctors encouraged Mum and Dad to give me 50 pence a week to spend on sweets. But why on earth would I want to do that? I was already eating massive meals every day. I didn’t want to spend money on sweets in the evenings. I wanted to buy comics and magazines but the staff weren’t having any of that. It was Chewits, Chewits and more Chewits. Sweets felt like a punishment to me.

      There were some good times at the Maudsley, though. One time they took us camping in the New Forest for a few days. One of the nurses, Clive, left a trail of red paint through the woods and we had to follow it. It was such a laugh just doing normal kids’ stuff.

      But even that trip had its moments. Mary was there and one morning she said to me, ‘It’s snack time, Nikki. You can have a packet of crisps and a fizzy drink.’

      ‘I can’t eat crisps,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

      Mary barely looked up and just threw four biscuits at me instead.

      The following evening everyone else was making warm bananas with melted chocolate around the camp fire. ‘Can I have my banana cold, on its own, please?’ I asked. Mary tossed the banana in my direction with a look of disgust.

      They also took us on trips around London and to the Water Palace in Croydon, an indoor water park. It was fun, but there was a lot of crying and shouting too.

      At the hospital there was an occupational therapist called Charlotte. Her job was to help me express my feelings through art and crafts. I liked making things but I just wasn’t interested in her constant questions about my mum. Did she watch what she ate? Had she encouraged me to diet? Did I get on with her? It all seemed so irrelevant. Why couldn’t everyone just leave me alone to eat – and not eat – exactly what I wanted? What none of them realised was that I couldn’t give a toss about getting better. I just wanted to get out.

      The staff did try really hard to make us kids feel comfortable. There was a young nurse called Billy who everyone thought was really cool. And there was lovely Pauline who used to cuddle me when I was sad.

      Clive was cool too. But one morning he said to me, ‘You’re filling out a bit.’ Surely anyone – most of all a qualified nurse – would know that is not the sort of thing you say to an anorexic. That had a massive effect on me. I already hated what they were doing to my body. I could feel my thighs become softer and see my tummy getting rounder and it disgusted me. I was gutted that they were undoing all the work I’d done to my body over the past year. So for Clive to then say I was filling out threw me into a new depression.

      But worst of all the nurses was Mary. I remained terrified of her until the day I left the Maudsley. She would stand behind me during meals and make me scrape every last scrap of food off my plate. If I didn’t finish it, she’d tell me off. I was still just a child and found her really frightening.

      If any of us played up we were given a certain number of ‘minutes’ to stand and face the wall. Mary was always handing out the minutes to me for being cheeky by saying ‘Shut up’ to the nurses or even a couple of times ‘I hate you’ when they made me eat something I couldn’t face.

      One of the nurses would read me a story when I got into bed but when she turned the light out there were no cuddles or goodnight kisses like at home. Often I would lie there and quietly cry. About missing Mum, missing Dad, being stuck in hospital and another destroyed Felt by Numbers.

      Other nights I’d feel stronger and make plans about what I’d do when I got out of there, how I’d set about losing the weight they’d made me put on and how I’d get back in control of my life. All I could focus on was the day they would let me home. To reach that day, though, I knew I just had to get on with doing what I was told and so I did start gaining weight.

      After a couple of months of eating all my meals properly, sitting at the table in my cubicle, I was allowed to eat in the main sitting area, although my table was still shoved so that I was facing the wall with a member of staff sitting next to me.

      When I’d done that OK for a month, I was allowed to eat in a downstairs office, although still it was only a blank wall and a nurse for company.

      Then finally, four months after arriving at the Maudsley, I was allowed to eat my meals with the other children in the main dining room. Chatting and giggling during meals again was fantastic. I felt normal. There were three tables in the children’s dining room: the Dinosaur table, the Happy Eaters table and the Care Bears table. They put me on the Happy Eaters table! What a joke that was. If only it had been funny.

      It had taken me virtually my entire stay at the Maudsley to work my way up to that table but it meant I was one of the kids who behaved during mealtimes and, most importantly for my doctors, I was eating my meals.

      At the beginning of September, after six months at the hospital, I was told I would be going home. I’d gained 6 kilos (13 lb), to bring my weight up to 26 kilos (4 stone 1 lb) and although still skinny I was closer to the average weight for a child of my age.

      But although on the outside I appeared to have recovered, inside my head I was still as intent on starving myself as the day I’d arrived there. If anything, I was more determined than ever. The big difference was that I was now far cleverer at fooling people about what I was thinking.

      To celebrate my last day at the Maudsley the staff treated all the kids on the unit to a McDonald’s. I ordered a hamburger, chips and a strawberry milkshake and hated every minute of it. For me the entire trip was a nightmare, although the other kids were having a great time. I ate and drank with a smile on my face, making sure everyone thought I’d come through my problems and was as right as rain again.

      But in my mind there was no doubt – as soon as I was home the starving would begin. And this time it was going to be serious.