My Secret Life (2 page)

‘You’re disgusting’, Patrick says with a winced face. ‘You’re so fat.’

I shrug my shoulders and the pair continue laughing. Ms Dunphy rings the yard bell and Sarah takes my hand so we can go to line-up. When I’m standing behind her, she turns around and puts her finger to her lips. I’m not allowed tell.

***

I don’t bear any ill-will to these people from my past. To do so would be petty and even more humiliating than that day in the yard. And so when Anna asked why I thought I was fat, I simply informed her, ‘Because I am.’ Opposed to the obvious truth of, ‘Because I was told so and I’m not allowed tell you.’ In this rather warped way, I saved myself just a little bit of dignity. Who wants to relive hurtful childhood memories, let alone actually place any degree of importance on them? Thank you, but on this matter I chose to opt for the road most travelled.

Trying to evaluate whether or not I was indeed overweight – or at least in need of shedding a few pounds – is complicated now. Time has a tendency to distort truth and as if my perceptions weren’t distorted enough at the time, today I’m near bewildered entirely. I have made a point of consciously trying not to think too much on it. If I were to properly analyse the situation, I’d probably still say that I was overweight before beginning my bulimic descent. Even at my lowest weight whilst in the densest stage of my illness, I never saw myself as being that skinny. I still don’t believe I was ever so thin as to have sparked concern. Since that time, however, friends have disagreed and maintained that I had reached a point of emaciation. Similarly, I learned post-therapy that my mother spent several nights crying herself to sleep as a result of worry for my deteriorating condition. Perhaps I’m just too close to the situation to judge accurately and it’s all too natural for my opinion to be disenfranchised. At the same time, it often feels that I have been trained to believe I was emaciated. It seems part of the expectations of recovery; firstly, to believe that weight-loss was unnecessary to begin with and secondly, to assume that after losing a substantial amount of weight you surely resembled a poster-figure for anorexia. Having been aware of these possibilities in the back of my mind, I underwent a degree of resistance to recovery. I thought that if bulimia had brainwashed me into thinking I was too big, recovery was going to try brainwash me into thinking I was too small. And I didn’t want that. We didn’t want that.

Like anyone else sharing a life with an eating disorder, I sought to encourage myself. I traipsed for hours through pictures of bone-riddled women for motivation. The pictures were the perfect
thinspiration
, or
thinspo
as they are so affectionately entitled. All the while, my bulimic self would whisper sweet nothings in my ear and tell me that this was the definition of perfection. In looking like this, surely my ‘appearance box’ would be immaculate. During the months spent in therapy I once joked to a friend about how if I’d had a choice, I wished I had been anorexic and not bulimic; at least then, I could have looked more the part. She didn’t get it and the joke, as it turned out, didn’t go down well. But it was a thought that stayed in my mind long thereafter.

There is a misconception that anorexia and bulimia are the same thing. They’re not. To a certain extent, I’ve often wondered if one exists without the other, as both retain similar behaviours. But I would never refer to myself as anorexic, mostly because I have never looked anorexic. A poor reason to define one’s illness but it’s just how my head works or at least did for a very long time. The truth is, bulimics such as myself tend to be an average weight. I lost and regained in the region of about 50lbs within a matter of two to three months. This pattern continued over and over again for two years. But I never slipped too much below average weight or indeed above.

In this way, bulimia satisfied all it needed to internally but never showed so much as to land me in hospital or worse, in trouble with the people around me. Evidently, it all came out eventually. That goes without saying. Before that, however, it enabled me to live a dual life in absolute secrecy. Of all eating disorders, bulimia is one of the most invisible. She was my invisible self and together we lived a hidden life. She taught me to be a master of secrecy and I had never felt so empowered as when with her. It was the perfect illusion.

I cannot put a cap on this era in my life. It’s impossible to say when an eating disorder begins unless rooted in a particular trauma which, as we have ascertained, was not the case with me. In terms of behaviours, my habitual tendencies had begun to change around the age of 17. I would have moments of weakness that led to episodes of vomiting but they were few and far between. It was vomiting, not purging. What made me note this distinction, I don’t know. But I never saw it as anything more than a ‘once-off’ occurrence that coincidently occurred more than just once. It was not until I had turned 18 that I started really hearing her in my head and more importantly, that I started listening. Christmas was on the horizon and, refusing to straddle behind the game even before the gluttonous season itself began, I vowed to make use of the new gym pass that lay in a drawer beside my bed. Finding the motivation wasn’t difficult when reminiscing on childhood emotions and events, as we have briefly touched upon.

I had not known what it was to look forward to sports days in school, or to wear a belly top and pretend to be the given pop star of the time. Rather, I was the very poster girl for obesity in children. Unable to run very fast or for very long, I dreaded physical activities in school with tremendous angst; often claiming to be sick or, in the case of an annual sports day, not even turn up. And so, despite the very concept of exercise resurrecting haunting memories of a fat girl lagging behind and forever being picked last, I charmed myself into entering a gym.

‘Mum, have I put on weight?’ I asked my mother one day.

‘Oh Leanne, I don’t know.’ She sighed. It was the usual sigh that had been present since I first started wanting to lose weight as a child. Having been slender her entire life, my mother didn’t understand my concerns. She tried to sympathise. But more often than not, she was exasperated by the very concept.

‘It’s okay to be honest, I don’t care. Just tell me.’ I contested.

‘Alright, fine. Yes, you’ve put on a little weight. But sure, you just need to exercise more and eat properly. I’ll never understand this weight obsession with girls today.’

It was all the incentive I needed. If Mum had noticed a weight gain, surely everyone else had too and were trying to spare my feelings. I would not be the victim of their pity. I would not allow myself be seen as a failure. This thought in mind, I was slightly less encumbered on my first day in the gym. Instead, I was consumed by an unparalleled feeling of determination. Moments into my first workout, however, I felt that I had been humiliated even before my inevitable scarlet cheeks had time to flourish. Instantly, I tried to make excuses for my failure. I had not worn the correct clothing, so it was impossible to exercise properly. I had not fully clipped my hair back and therefore my fringe was sticking to my forehead. Had I eaten a meal before I came to the gym? Of course I had; that’s why I was getting cramps. And everyone knows you simply can’t exercise if you have a cramp.

Yet for all my justifications, I could not drown out that small voice at the back of my mind.
Lies,
she whispered.
Lies.
Her voice was all too familiar and not easily ignored. Upon brief consideration, I realised she was right and crumbled internally; not only for my inability to perform physically, but also for my attempt to excuse such a failure. The transition from my former state to the latter was a quiet one and took only moments. Yet its consequences were felt deeply and most severely. I left the gym and my zealous ambitions behind me and walked home.

Humility is something I have a lot of. Today, I relate it to the humbleness that rests with every thought I contrive, every word I utter and every breath I take. It is laced in my skin and is something that keeps my feet grounded to the earth when required. It acts as a prerequisite to everything I do and even keeps me firmly in touch with that inner self that people so often lose under pressure or when tested. The humility I possess today is a result of a practised exploration of thought, feeling and motivation. It was once, however, related to sheer mortification and nothing more. I have been humiliated more times than my pride would care to admit. The consequences of this make moments of embarrassment such as that detailed above all the more significant and all the more deeply felt. The shame that attaches itself to humiliation has never been easy to bear for me.

***

I am very young. Every year for Halloween, my sister and I dress up as witches. My mum is very good at making a witch’s costume. But this year we don’t want to be witches, witches are boring now. My sister, Natalie, is dressed up as an Arabian princess. Her hair is long and silky and she’s wearing make-up. I’m not allowed wear make-up because I’m too little. As the Arabian princess looks for her trick-or-treat bag, I put on my own costume. I am a dice. You know that thing you roll in board games? That’s me. I’m in a cardboard box painted white with black spots on it. My mum has cut out holes for my head and arms. My legs are awkwardly manoeuvring somewhere down below, but I can’t see them.

All limbs through the correct cut-outs, I proudly turn around to say goodbye to my mum. The blood rushes to my face. Natalie is looking at me through watery eyes and wearing a dangerous smile. She and her friends begin to laugh uncontrollably and I want to cry. I am humiliated. I clumsily rotate to Mum, whose eyes have fallen on my puce-red face with irrevocable pity and what looks like guilt. I want to yell at her for convincing me to be a dice. I want to tear away her painted box and stamp on it. I do neither of these things. To drown out the now hysterical laughter I would have to shout. If I do that, my voice will crack and I’ll flush into tears. Instead, I wince at my mother and move out the front door in a sideways shuffle.

Natalie is supposed to trick-or-treat with me but she’s walking with her older friends. I don’t mind; I’m glad to be away from them. I have found several other children from the housing estate. I don’t know them but they let me walk near the circle so it appears I’m not by myself.

I see the silhouette of our neighbour on his bike in the yellow streetlight. He’s one year older than me but thinks he’s too old to trick-or-treat. I don’t like him. He cycles by me as I try to keep up with the other children. It’s difficult in my box because the cardboard is rubbing off my underarms and my bag is heavy with sweets, popcorn, and chocolate. The other children don’t want me to walk with them anyway, so they walk very fast.

He cycles by me and chants, ‘Leanne the pan, the big fat man!’ He’s been singing that for as long as I can remember. He glides past me again, this time making me spill some of my goodies from my bag. I hear laughing and see that the older boys – older than Natalie – are watching from across the street. I don’t want to trick-or-treat anymore. I abandon my sweets scattered on the ground and carry myself and my bag up the street to my house. The big boys are still watching and I can feel their gaze sizzling on the back of my head.

I can hear the chain on his bike getting closer. He’s cycling very fast. He knows I can’t cycle without my stabilisers and he likes to show off. He’s getting very close now. I try to walk faster but the box is starting to rub against my neck and my underarms are stinging. He starts chanting again and I begin to cry.

He cycles by again, this time even closer and says ‘Whoooosh!’ The next time he circles around I start to run. I don’t care about my trick-or-treat bag anymore. I want to go home, away from the big boys and away from the boy on his bike with no stabilisers. I can hear his chain roaring up behind me now and I start to plead with the cold air in front of me to please stop him. Just as I let out a desperate moan from the lump in my throat, I hear the big boys laughing and before I know it, his bike pedal catches the back of my heel.

I scream and fall to the ground. My head doesn’t slide out of my mother’s cutting at the top of the box, but instead gets stuck halfway and I can taste cardboard and paint in my mouth. The palms of my hands are bleeding and I feel gravel bits falling off when I try to move them. I can’t get up because the box is too big.

Suddenly I start crying hysterically and am ashamed of myself. I am ashamed because I screamed when I fell and now I’m crying. I know the big boys can see me and though at a distance, I can still hear the bike chain buzzing somewhere behind. I want to crawl into my mother’s box and never come out again. I don’t care that my underarms are stinging anymore or that my trick-or-treat bag is on the ground. I am no longer a dice. I am a girl in a big box and all I want to do is disappear in it.

I have no option but to crawl out of the box. I pull my arms in first and then my head. I try to wipe the tears away from my eyes but it makes my hands sting even more. The boy is gone. ‘Look, look! There’s a girl in that block of cheese!’ shouts one of the big boys as I step out. I pick up my mother’s box and my near empty bag and walk home. I won’t tell Mum. I won’t tell her about him, my hands, or the big boys. And, above all else, I won’t tell her that they thought her dice was a block of cheese.

***

The concept of humiliation, for me, has always been an illustrious element of my bulimia. Perhaps this is what has caused my now altered interpretation of it. The main reason for this is because it is something that my bulimia fed off throughout her persuasions. She used it to strip me down until there was nothing left. She would often dig deep to find either a moment or feeling of degradation in my past and succeed in applying it to my present. From there, an exchange of guilt and shame would take place. Until I would inevitably give in to her.

It didn’t take her long to convince me to return to the gym. We both wanted it and knew above all else that we needed it. Suddenly, I was faced by what appeared to be a battleground. The question of dedicating myself to exercise was not – or at least no longer – about losing weight. It was rooted in the simple fact that I could and would do it. Not only would I do it, but I would be the best. I would be the fastest, the strongest, the person who could endure more than anyone else with whom I crossed paths. This was ambitious given the lack of exercise I had undertaken in recent years. But I found myself stuck on the word ‘endure’. I could endure anything and I would endure everything to get what I wanted.