The Past

It started when I was about fourteen. I began experimenting with bulimia, and I think the first thing I ever threw up was chocolate ice cream. I remember it so well, and will never forget it. I ate some, with my family, and I remember feeling overwhelmed with guilt at what I had just eaten. I know everyone else had eaten it, but I felt fat and disgusted with myself. I had already had dinner with my family after promising myself I'd only eat a tiny bit but then I got hungry and it was served and I felt so guilty after eating it. I started making all these meal plans with low calorie and low fat foods like rice and soup and beans on toast without butter and stuff. But it never worked, and I always ate anyway. 

I was always a good eater. Had a healthy appetite and ate when hungry and ate enough to keep going. More than most of my friends or family did, and I was never fat. Ever. I stayed at about seven stone for all my teenage years no matter how much I ate. Ok, I had no boobs and no ass, until I got to age fourteen. Then I started eating quite a lot of chocolate (not as much as I do now...) and instead of putting on weight, I got boobs and that ass I needed so much. Boys took more of an interest, and my periods started. Around this time, the eating disorder really kicked off and I started self harming, especially when something went wrong. I used to do it in the bath, with a razor or with scissors or anything sharp I could find. Started with a rather blunt and rusty blade I discovered from somewhere. The feeling of release when I finally drew blood was such a rush.

I’m not proud of it at all, just trying to explain that at the time it helped me through the day which I dreaded. I was in Transition Year at school and became deeply unhappy and began writing dark poetry. I dreaded school every day but I knew when I got home after homework, which I did and studied for with a dressing gown belt tied so tightly around my waist I could hardly breathe because it made me look thinner, that I could cut. And it got me through the time. I lay under the covers in the dark with my blade, and nobody knew what I was doing.

Mam asked about the cuts on my arm a couple of times, and I just said it was the cat who scratched me. She knew full well. She’s a good mother, and she knows everything. I don’t know if she knew I was throwing up my dinner every day. Probably.

It all came out in the wash when my sister read my diary because she was worried about me and wanted to find out what was going on. I’ll never forget it. We were on a car journey and she cried the whole way to west Cork. And I was texting her even though we were sitting beside each other, and I begged her not to tell my parents. But she did. I’ll never forget it. In the end, we went to the sea side and I tore up the diary and threw it in the sea and said it was over. It wasn’t.

I stopped for a while, but then I went on the Spanish exchange. Two weeks, and I wasn’t used to drinking and found it difficult to fit in. On the last night, the day before I was due to fly home, the other Irish girl I was there with went off with some guy, and the boys were busy buying dope to smoke and I was left with this sleazy Spanish dude who attacked and raped me in the park.

After I got back, the eating disorder kind of went in to overdrive. However, I got in to a more serious relationship and felt steadier and happier, though I was still unhappy at school. Studied for my leaving cert with the belt around me and was still inducing vomiting a lot and endlessly writing meal plans that I couldn’t stick to because I was hungry.

Then, I got in to music college. The stress to perform and be perfect was unbelievable. I felt totally inadequate, all the time. I drank a lot and partied hard, but began to gain weight from eating crap food after nights out. I felt out of control and frightened of the weight gain. I began going out with a guy who made me feel absolutely useless and pathetic.

Then the bulimia really began. I drank glasses of salt water to induce vomiting, and stole my housemate’s vodka with I drank shots of to try to make myself sick. It was horrible. I began abusing laxatives, up to a hundred a day, and eventually boots refused to sell them to me. I went to every pharmacy in Cork to get them.

I was jogging 4 miles to the gym, swimming an hour and using the gun and then running the 4 miles home again. My college work suffered and I was too exhausted to even pick up my cello bow.

My parents began to notice my lack of eating when I came home at weekends. My granny came to visit and we went out for a meal, and I didn’t eat anything, I think I managed one mushroom. My dad approached me, and scooped me up in to his arms and asked me why I wasn’t eating. I didn’t know what to say. Stopped going home at weekends.

Eventually, the weight loss was impossible to ignore and I was taken to the doctor, who threatened me with a police escort to hospital and diagnosed me with severe anorexia and chronic bulimia. One night my mam rang me and said she’d been talking to the doctor and was worried that my potassium was low because of the vomiting and when I told my boyfriend, he knocked on my door and shoved a banana in my face. I pretended to eat it and threw it away. Inconsiderate asshole. I’ll never forget it.

My first admission to hospital was because of severe dehydration. I stayed a couple of days. Eventually my mam and dad pulled me out of college and brought me home. I was dangerously ill. What followed was a ten month long admission to a special eating disorder unit in Preston, England. The priory, how very rock and roll of me. I don’t think I can write about that, it’s too painful.

Next post, is to tell the story of the hospital stays in the psychiatric hospitals in Ireland. There were so many. I have spent a total of one year in those hospitals, in bits, up to 3 month stays, and some only a day. The tales are horrific.

Sorry this is a bit bleak. More positive stuff will follow. Once my story is out, I can begin to talk each day about the steps I am taking towards recovery, and the struggles I have with trying to get better.

Today, I made it a non zero day by writing this, and by sitting down to have dinner with Kegan (my partner) and keeping it down. I did it! I actually had dinner! Decided that every time I feel fat, which is a lot, I’m going to eat something. Here’s to recovery! Thanks for reading this.