Momentarily I was so proud. Then the hunger for better results kicked in. For those of you who have been lucky enough to escape addictive behaviour, I want you to think about when you get an alert on your phone, or a text message from someone you like. You get a little ‘hit’ – an endorphin rush. You want more. Have you ever messaged someone a question just to get a response? That’s how addictions start, curiosity. What happens if I say this? What happens if I do this? Searching for a rush, connection and a boundary.
When we went back to school I kept at it, cutting apples into pieces and sucking on them in class. Careful to never eat them, just suck the juice out. One day it was announced by one of our teachers that a girl from our class would not be coming back this term as she had been admitted to a special clinic for her eating disorder. Instead of being sad for her and her family like those around me, I was jealous. I can’t even do this as well as the other girls! The belief I had about myself was that I was failing at everything I cared about.
Later that term a well-meaning friend caught me not eating and told my parents. I promised it was just a phase and that I would start eating again. With everyone watching and a new-found emphasis on eating as a family or at the table I made the strategic decision to move on to bulimic behaviour. I wasn’t about to stop – I needed to get a body that would make my life better, and I also wanted to smoke a lot of weed.
The two were not congruent and the obvious solution was to make myself sick. I ate normally, and then ran off to the bathroom and stuck my fingers down my throat. Over time the rules were relaxed again and I was allowed out to see my friend. At hers we smoked pot and got high, binged on pizza and then drank pints of salt water to make ourselves sick. Sometimes we did this together, sometimes I did it alone. It made me feel closer to her to share this secret ‘naughty’ behaviour. I felt like we had found a glitch in the system and that we were tricking life. It felt good to have someone to share secrets with. It felt good to have someone who got me. It felt good to have someone to talk about boys with, to plan parties and fun times with. It felt good to belong.
But juggling school, family, friends, smoking, boys, fashion, hair dye and secrets got very complicated – so much was out of my control.
As the everyday stresses of my adolescent life increased, all I wanted was to escape in a puff of smoke and control. More and more I needed to feel like I had some sort of control over my life. I felt like my entire existence was a charade of trying to fit into a life that I wasn’t meant for. I became convinced that I should have died when I was a baby. I wasn’t meant for this world. I got more and more stressed out. My body began manifesting severe stress symptoms; first I got ringworm and eczema and then I got a really nasty ear infection.
I was born with something called a preauricular sinus,5 which is a hereditary and reasonably common congenital malformation. It appears just as a little hole like a piercing up on the top part of the ear. Most preauricular sinuses are asymptomatic and can remain untreated unless they become infected too often. Most people have one on one side. My dad does, my brother does. I had two. One on each side. Mine both got infected a couple of times as a child and my parents were offered surgery but opted not to put me through it. Which was a good decision and they remained fine until I was fifteen. Just before my Year 10 mock exams and GCSE coursework deadline one got really badly infected and I was off school for ages. I missed school, but more importantly for me at the time I missed parties and a Prodigy gig. It felt very unfair. I was at my mum’s. The infection got so bad that she took me to casualty. They sent me home with painkillers and gave her instructions on how to drain my ear. I was in a lot of pain and it was not an easy task. She couldn’t do it, so she called my dad. Over the course of what felt like FOREVER but was in fact a matter of weeks we went to casualty again, often, and the ENT specialist. Eventually they took us to a room on the ward, gave me a local anaesthetic in my ear and lanced the cyst.
FUCK. I still remember exactly how much that hurt.
I squeezed my dad’s hand so hard he visibly sweated and tears rolled down his face. A week later my glands were still up, I had a huge scab in my ear and I was still off school, but it looked like it was healing. Then it flared up again, so we went back to the hospital, where I was told that they were going to try one more thing without using ‘knives’ but if that didn’t work then it would need lancing again. The ‘one more thing’ was a different course of antibiotics, with a warning that if it didn’t get better they would have to give me an internal dressing under general aesthetic. The recommended course of action was to wait until the infection was healed before attempting surgery. So I prayed to a God I wasn’t sure I believed in that it would heal. Because of their close proximity to the facial nerves, the removal of preauricular sinuses is performed by an otolaryngologist, requires a lengthy and scary consent form, and isn’t usually performed whilst there is an infection. The consent form basically said that I could end up with a paralysed face. The doctors and my parents let me read all the information and make my own decision about consent. It was a really big moment for me. A self-responsibility and acceptance moment. A surrender and uncertainty moment. A ‘how much do I value my life?’ moment. It was another ‘FUCK I must be a grown up now’ moment!
MY DIARY ENTRY READS:
SO FAR I’VE MISSED A HALF TERM OF FUN, TWO COOL PARTIES, FOUR WEEKS OF SCHOOL, AND I AM STILL IN SO MUCH PAIN. WHY DON’T I HAVE A BOYFRIEND? OH I KNOW BECAUSE I AM TEN AND HALF STONE. MUST DO BETTER. TARGET 9 STONE.
Even in these circumstances, my focus was the FAT and the lack of boyfriend. The lens through which I viewed the world was completely blinkered. I wanted a boyfriend so I would feel less alone. I fantasised that he would be the person I talked to and made these sorts of decisions with, but the reality is that I wouldn’t have shared any of what I was actually going through with a boyfriend even if there had been one. In reality I didn’t trust anyone, not even myself. I had a limited set of resources at 15 and I used what was readily available to me. I was sure that the solution to my discomfort was outside of me. I projected all my hopes and fantasies onto an imaginary, idealised boyfriend. I numbed all my uncomfortable feelings with food, drugs and sex. Food became my friend; a silent, non-confronting, comforting friend. Smoking became a way of meditating; taking a moment to just be, notice and breathe. And sex? Well, sex was my path to significance and some very loose sort of connection. If the guys that everyone else fancied wanted me, then I must be worth something.
I signed the consent forms, got the surgery and luckily the doctor didn’t hit my facial nerves so I still have full use of my face!
During that time I was hugely sociable and rarely spent any time alone. I didn’t like what happened in my head when I was alone and the only place I shared my feelings or inner world was in my little book of poetry, usually when stoned.
DEATH, DENIAL, SELF HATE, DO THESE THINGS BRING US TO HELL’S GATE?
OR IS IT THINGS LIKE LUST, LOVE AND SEX?
THE THINGS WHICH ARE FUN AND I ENJOY BEST?
DOES EVERYBODY FEEL THE WAY I DO NOW?
OR AM I JUST A SAD AND MISERABLE COW?
DOES GOD LOVE ME, AND OTHER SINNERS TOO?
OR WILL I ROT IN HELL? IS THIS TRUE?
SHOULD I BE DADDY’S GOLDEN GIRL?
BEAUTIFUL AND SPLENDID, A SHINING PEARL?
WILL I BE A PAUPER LIVING OFF THE LAND,
OR WILL I BE RICH AND LEND OUT MY HAND?
SHOULD I WORRY DEEPLY AND LAY
AWAKE AT NIGHT?
SHOULD I WORK HARD AND HOLD UP THE FIGHT?
I KNOW THE THINGS THAT SOUND RIGHT
I KNOW WHAT HE WOULD DO....
BUT THAT DOESN’T HELP ME!
WON’T SOMEONE GIVE ME A CLUE!?!
Out in the world I was hard and edgy and fierce. I skived off school, smoked cannabis and tried to numb the feelings that snuck their way into everywhere. The anger and grief inside me