My Secret Life (14 page)

Along with the severe weight fluctuations, my social patterns moved along some warped meridian grid of global scope. The world would just have to revolve around me and my bulimia or else we simply would not participate in it, as was the outcome time and time again. Plans with friends and intended outings would come about only when my bulimia dictated so. Any interactions with others were subject to her will and whether she thought I was acceptable enough to be seen. If for whatever reason I was substandard, she would convince us both of the fact and thus we would lock ourselves away in my room together, wallowing in self-loathing and that usual absence of all worth.

My self-worth was not always measured by just my weight. It extended to every facet of my aesthetical make-up. The problem was that by now – on top of all the insecurities that had existed before – my appearance had genuinely altered due to the bulimia and proved to only deepen the wound of confusion about how I looked. My hair had thinned staggeringly. Since I was a child, my mother had boasted about my locks, which were always full and bouncy even at substantial lengths. Now, it hung from my roots as if the life in it had died. With every time I washed my hair, I pulled out more and more worrying chunks. The drain would clog with the mounds falling from my head. Whereas before I had always let it flow naturally, I now found myself brushing it up, pulling, tearing and flipping it, desperate to give the illusion that there was more atop my head.

My skin was no better. Spots, sores and blisters had formed around my mouth from where my vomit-coated fingers rubbed and writhed against on a daily basis. It was rough and dry, flaking every now and then. I once owned a bearded dragon named Charlie. Like most reptiles, Charlie would shed her skin as she grew. I would go to her tank to feed her and find large pieces of skin lying on the sand, while Charlie sat like a peacock in the corner, an ever so slightly different shade in her colouring. I felt like this was happening to me now. I was shedding my skin as I had watched Charlie do for so long when she was growing. The difference was that the tint of my skin beneath was not changing to anything favourable.

‘You’re grey,’ Anna had told me. It was during one of her relentless lectures about my health. She always used cut-throat statements; I think as a way of emphasising the severity of what she was saying. She had been one of the first to accuse me of having an eating disorder and was by far one of the most vocal of the group. ‘Your skin is grey! Leanne, how is it even possible you can’t see that?’

The truth is, I was a mixture of colours those days. Kate had commented before how my skin looked yellow, even under the usually immaculate make-up I painted over it. It was a bit of everything by that stage. Hearing Anna’s voice, along with everything else that my friends had drummed into my head, I stared into the mirror, examining the splinters of skin that stuck out in random patterns. I scratched at one of them for a while, harmlessly, on the bridge of my nose. I saw some sawdust-like powder trickle down. Finally, a notable piece flaked off from the surface. I tried to get a grip on it with my now blunt index finger and thumb. My nails had stopped growing a long time ago and because I had been in the habit of biting my nails down, they were now constantly below the line of my fingertip. Eventually, I got a hold of the shard of skin. My eyes darted between my reflection and my fingers, as I tore the piece of skin right from the top and down to the bump at the bottom of my nose. It left a red and shiny slit that ran the length of my nose and stung under the exposure. My mother later gave out to me for picking at my skin when she saw both my scratched nose, as well as scabbed spots that had been bleeding only moments before.

I wonder how she would have reacted had she known what was happening inside my mouth too. My teeth, or at least the very frail impression that was left of them, ached between my gums. I started to think they were simply rotting away in my head and always feared the worst upon waking from dreams in which I discovered there wasn’t so much as one tooth left. I developed a bad habit of perpetually rubbing my tongue along the inside of them, as if to test their durability or even their security to the gums from which they grew. If I pushed even remotely hard against them with my tongue, they splintered in pain. Sore to the touch, most things seemed to hurt them now and no matter what I ate during a binge, if it was anything that required chewing, it would inevitable bother my teeth in some way. Even liquids were harsh on them when too hot or cold and would heighten the sensitivity when they hit the nerves running through my mouth.

It was like one very thin thread now held them to my gums and I was sure they would fall out sooner or later with the right push or mid-way through a binge. Maybe they’d fall out while purging, unable to withstand the velocity of my own vomit. Some of them didn’t feel far from it anyway. For weeks now, I was able to wedge the tip of my tongue beneath the bottom of my two front teeth. Decayed and almost dissolving away, they finished abruptly and sharply, leaving a slight gap between where they ceased and my gum began. I had gum disease as well. I knew it, even before a dentist confirmed that it was the worst form of gum disease one can get. You don’t spit that much blood while brushing without there being something very problematic happening behind your lips. I wished I could do more for them; if not for their good health then even for the sake of a decent facade. I’d been a coffee drinker and smoker of about 10 to 15 cigarettes a day and now, to top it all off, had cultivated a mental resistance to mouthwash and chewing gum, both of which I knew had hidden calories. I couldn’t exactly stop brushing my teeth and accepted my twice a day scrub as an unavoidable calorie intake. But I would only make room for the bare minimum, without compromising a lifetime necessity.

Along with my hair, my skin and my teeth, there was something noticeably different as a whole about me. What it was, I still find difficult to put my finger on. I carried myself in a rather contorted way; my shoulders were always hunched, my chest collapsed inwards and I forever had my arms wrapped around my abdominal area, almost nursing it and as if hiding something beneath. My mother says it was my eyes. I knew they looked a little strange, as the girls had argued on many occasions that they looked some off-coloured shade of yellow. In the months prior to writing this memoir, however, my mother broke my heart when she put it quite simply by telling me, ‘You weren’t there. Your eyes had no life in them anymore. It’s like you just weren’t there behind them.’

Whether it was my weight or any of the idiosyncrasies mentioned above, it became harder and harder to be around people. I was just too embarrassed and ashamed of what I had turned into to allow them to see me this way. Some sociable activities were unavoidable, such as birthdays and generally just proving I still existed. But these events were usually agonised over and sent me into a tornado of fasting and purging, attempting recklessly to lose weight even if just for the one night. When I did have to show my face, I was relatively chatty, lively and cool natured. The need for secrecy meant I had to be. I have found this to be true of most bulimics I have spoken with. The fabrication of what you are and the reality are two entirely different people. Hiding the reality was of the utmost importance, as just one night of glory could fuel me to struggle on for weeks thereafter, a refreshed objective in further charging my disease.

The truth is, for all my invented perceptions and lively countenance, I believed I was dying inside, if not completely dead and buried already. The worst part was that nobody even knew it, not fully. They couldn’t have, because it was only I who lingered in that desolated cave of my mind. Bulimics are very often contradictory in this way; they can be social creatures and lead lives of total normality – quite well, might I add – and yet, remain some of the loneliest people inhabiting this earth. The loneliness I endured during that time of my life is something I hope never to experience again.

It’s more than just the feeling of being isolated. I was disconnected mentally, physically and emotionally from the entire human race, it seemed; I didn’t even feel part of it. I was a subspecies of the people who walked the streets and went about their daily lives. I was not part of the world they’d built and lived in. I was like a half-formed variety of what they were; a critter that was intended to be like them but was never finished. I was unworthy of the space I took up in that world and the lies I showcased in order to fit in. At long last, I was the living rendition of the monster that lived in my reflection. It was this realisation that sucked me deep into that bottomless vat of depression.

In bed at night was when I felt it the most. A hole had been carved in me and was growing bigger by the day. The physically overwhelming emptiness caused by fasting and purging had permeated right to all seeds of emotion, killing them away. I would have chosen uncomplicated sadness over this; sadness at least retained some purity and a confirmation of some emotion. I would have chosen anything but this. The sensation hurt like hell. That’s where I was and I’d known it for a long time now; I was in hell. I just knew I would die here and when that time came to pass, I would be alone. Even she would have abandoned me by then.

***

I am 15 years old. I’m walking down a long corridor in Dublin’s Mater Hospital. I’ve never been here before because nobody has ever mattered so much to me that I should visit. From the outside, the hospital resembles something along the lines of a university or state building, perhaps. Amidst beautiful grounds of well-kept grass and flourishing flowers, there sits the Mater itself. It has an overbearing presence about it. Though intimidating, it holds in its stance an air of architectural magnificence, as if concealing something truly spectacular from the world in which it dwells.

The only ominous thing about this place is the steps, which run high and very wide, leading you into its heart. The pillars that rest above those steps blockade its front door. They are almost frightening and resemble a stone cage that could hold the biggest and most dangerous of all beasts. As I get a little closer to them, I think how a terrifying monster must live here, deep within the walls.

Inside is a mishmash of old and new; mahogany wood panelling colliding with steel-like floors and desks. It feels wrong, like the original purpose of the place has been compromised somehow and has resulted in an offensive distortion. Very suddenly, I don’t trust this place and I don’t want to be here anymore. It scares me almost as much as the thought of why I am here in the first place.

I’m sitting in a chair that has been designated to me, beside an open door where light spills out into the hallway. This must be the old part of the building. It’s very dark for a hospital and boasts statue after statue of various saints whose names I can’t remember. Fear grips me and glues me to my seat, as I chew away at my nails and tear at the skin around my cuticles. The room spilling out light is quiet, with soft murmurs drifting their way into the hallway. The priest was in there today, I was told. I don’t dwell on this fact and forget it the moment I remember it. I don’t want to think about how many people have died in that room or in that bed. The thought makes me cower slightly and all my childhood fears of ghouls and ghosts are instantly sparked up again. Just as I think I’ll burst out of my seat and run crying down the hallway and back out to the beautiful gardens, it’s my turn to go into the room. I take a deep breath and then hold it for as long as I can.

The decor of the hallway, which resembled that of a church, has abruptly disappeared and been replaced by cold steel and pale blue bed sheets. The room has that clinical smell that only a hospital can have. My sister is weeping and I can tell she is suppressing a somewhat violent sob. All the sombre faces attempt to refigure themselves into faces of assurance. They fail but I appreciate the effort nonetheless. All eyes are on me, my gaze falls upon the hospital bed and I well up with emotion, a heavy lump in my throat and a cold dampness over my heart.

My father smiles at me from his steel bed. I hardly recognise the man bar that smile, which I’ve seen a thousand times before. There are wires everywhere, running in and out of him. On the other end of each wire, is connected to one or more of the ugly machines that flash bright lights and make beeping and buzzing sounds.

‘You okay, babe?’ he asks in a voice that does not belong to my father. I nod uncertainly. I have no words.

I have a very vague recollection of the day my father was struck by a heart-attack. At the time, I had no idea of the severity. He had suffered with heart related problems before, including something called Bell’s palsy, which made one side of his face drop completely for a while. But this was different because he had never looked like this before. Mum had warned me that Dad wouldn’t look ‘too great’ and that a quadruple bypass was a very big ordeal. If only I had known what she meant then; perhaps I wouldn’t be so struck with horror now. I don’t know how my face looks because I’ve lost all sensation in it. It can’t look very pleasing because everyone around me resumes whatever conversation they were having before I entered the room. They’re talking about the priest from today, but I zone out from the conversation.

My father was a man who prided himself on a clean shave. I remember as a child that he had boasted a full beard and for a time, just a moustache. As I’d gotten older though, he was always well-shaved and I never saw so much as one bit of stubble on his face. He was a tidy man and kept everything about him very neat. But he isn’t tidy now and his dishevelled appearance causes me to think the worst. He is half-slumped back on the pillows, too weak to fully lift himself. His salt-and-pepper hair, usually shaved down to a very fine blade, looks almost shaggy now. I can definitely run my fingers through it if I try. I can’t remember ever doing that. His face, now gaunt around the eyes and with hollowed cheeks, has not been shaved in quite a while and grey stubble laces his jaw from ear to ear. His skin has turned a soured cream colour and because of this, his dark brown eyes – the ones he has passed down to me – look big and heavy, as if it is a struggle for his face to even hold them in place, never mind keep them open.