TW: Contains references to eating disorders.
It has been eight years.
Margaret Atwood writes, “when we think of the past, we think of the beautiful things to pick out”. Perhaps it’s an ironic quote to preface what I feel needs to be written, but I think it reminds me that anorexia is a master manipulator. It likes to skew the past and remember it in dysfunctional, untrue ways. The past that I lived, eight years ago, was far from beautiful.
It marks eight years since I, a fifteen-year-old girl, (in)voluntarily consented to be placed into inpatient care for my anorexia. What had placed me in such a situation was less the mental deterioration (I had reached a numb state a long time before I was at my “lowest weight”) but rather my physical deterioration. I was out of time. What, in time, the external world saw as a frail, grey child-turned-old lady with glazed, hungry eyes who desperately needed help, I saw emptiness. A numb, sedate-like feeling had taken over my body. My head heavy and filled with a dull ache.
“Hunger, chronic hunger, leave one wordless. The starvation speaks in silence. Its language is the stutter, the stammer. If you have been around someone suffering from chronic hunger, you will know what death looks like. It lives inside the eyes, and it is like a howl that has taken root inside the person’s body”.
Cynthia cruz, “Notes towards a New Language: on nourishment”
Rendered mute, chronic hunger paralyses your entire body. You become all of a ghost that drifts in and out of life.
The choice was no longer mine to make. I saw the irreversible key be swallowed by my keeper.
What I thought I felt was the scratchiness of my khaki knitted jumper.
What I thought I felt was the breeze on my ivory collarbones.
What I thought I felt was sadness.
What I really felt was relief.
What I really felt was confusion.
What I really felt was emptiness.
What I really felt was abandonment.
What I really felt was fear.
What I really felt was anger. That I had failed myself. That an invisible monster had kidnaped the Harlow-born, green-eyed baby girl. That I would never get her back.
A friend once messaged me, saying, “My illness has caused grief, but it is the treatment that has left the scars”. And yet I will still see comments regarding treatment for anorexia: “Why can’t she just eat a sandwich?”. Oh, but it was never about the fucking sandwich, was it.
I was now entering a place hidden beneath overgrown shrubbery and a tall, chocolate-brown fence, which would offer me a promise of recovery. I would become part of a community of chronically ill patients who would all support each other on their “journey”. But I felt like a household chore to the doctors, psychiatrists, therapists and support workers. Something to be done and ticked off a list.
Admissions to specialist eating disorder units are not made readily. They are typically a last resort for treatment that has otherwise gone stagnant or failed. Mine being the latter, I was held in a position of vulnerability. Either I accepted the help (in)voluntarily, or I was to be put under a section by the Mental Health Act. I do not deny that I needed specialist help. I might have done then, but with copious times spent reflecting, I know that it was a matter of life or death by that point. I can wholeheartedly say that I wish it had never reached that stage. But it was not open for debate. What I went through in the name of “saving my life” was painful and traumatic. It is a time in my life that I struggle to talk about because, for so long, I didn’t feel that I could. Inpatient treatment for anorexia in 2015 was aggressive. I doubt that much has changed in 2023. I was put on vastly inconsiderate meal plans and medication without any choice. My body became an appendage. I struggled to reconcile the demands being made of it inside an environment that I had no control over.
The heart-wrenching, destructive and traumatic sides to certain eating disorders in inpatient units are often patched over by medical professionals and even sufferers who experience much shame around their treatment. I believe it is a mirage that must be uncovered if an appropriate amount of awareness is achieved. I have faith that things can change if survivors are able to speak out. At fifteen, it was a harrowing experience. I would get to see my family four times a week; otherwise, it was a ten-minute phone call. No phones were allowed, meaning my only contact with the outside world was through what my family offered. If, for any reason, my family could not make the visit, I would be left with no visit nor phone call. To say I was lucky was an understatement considering the sacrifices my family made to try and visit me at every single opportunity they could. However, not all of my friends had the same experience. One individual I knew saw her parents once a month – sometimes, not even that. She was eleven years old. The regime did not grant allowances for those whose families lived miles and miles away. I consider it draconian to think of that girl and how she spent months of her life stuck in a room with no TV, no family, and nothing other than paper and her thoughts.
I consider myself a survivor of the trauma I continue to face after being in an inpatient unit for four months. Within that time, I witnessed multiple suicide attempts, unjust restraints, and so much pain. The type of pain that never leaves you. The kind of pain that continues, to this day, to wake me up at night and leave my body covered in droplets of cool sweat. Shivering, convulsively, my nervous system goes into overdrive. Are they coming for me? Am I back there? Will they pump me full of medication without my consent? Will I see my friend become a monster possessed by some invisible force? Will I walk into the bathroom to see someone I love covered in blood lying unconscious? Will I?
Layers of questions that never got answered. If I could recount the horrors of inpatient treatment, I would need an entire novel. This is a snapshot. I left the inpatient unit much heavier than I went in. And I am not just talking physically. I will repeat it: I consider myself a survivor of the trauma I experienced. Reintegrating into “normal life” was like plunging out of a helicopter without a parachute. There was no medical nor emotional support provided. I understand that the mental health services in the UK are stretched beyond belief, therefore, making an individual recently discharged from treatment low on the priority list. However, it is no surprise that the relapse rates for individuals with anorexia who have received inpatient care are so high – 41%, according to a study conducted in 2016*.
If anything is to be taken from this piece, I hope it is about just how complex anorexia is and, secondly, about how the treatment is still equally as flawed. My hope is that in the eight years since I was treated, that things have moved on. I fear that they probably have not. What I hold close to me is the fact that every day that passes from this anniversary will mark another day closer to recovering from the trauma. From learning that I have survived and will continue to survive.
“Is life something you play?
And all the time wanting to get rid of it?
And further, everyone yelling at you
to shut up. And no wonder!
People don’t like to be told
that you’re sick
and then be forced
to watch
you
come
down with the hammer”
Anne sexton, “Live”, The Mercies
*(https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-016-1019-y).