to prevent this?’
I know that my parents went over and over in their headsevery possible moment or chance they thought they could have conceivably raised it with me, or tried to open me up. At the time, I would not let them get near me. I would, instead, deflect them, ‘No, no thank you. Everything is fine.’
Because of my detachment from what I was doing to my body in starving myself, I couldn’t have explained the reasons behind it at the time. I didn’t have the capacity, I wasn’t able to answer my parents’ questions; I wasn’t engaged with a wide enough perspective to give a proper theory on myself, a perspective which I now have.
There are so many fingers pointed when it comes to eating disorders. It seems too painful not to allot a proper explanation. Surely there is no possibility of understanding anorexia, if there is nothing to target all the pain and exasperation towards? And so it is easier to take a view. Many do. They say that it is about low self-esteem; others root for the cultural target, some to a chemical imbalance in the brain, a personality disorder, born under the wrong star sign, born too late, born in difficulty, a result of the image of thin beauty in magazines, the female brain, the media, the government, a genetic predisposition or even something more fundamental, something elemental about a renunciation of feeding. The list goes on and on and the issue becomes more and more confusing.
The most disturbing of these conclusions is seemingly one of the most prevalent among the medical profession and public – the belief that the anorexic is to blame, purposely seeking out attention through self-starving. 2
‘Silly girl.’
‘Ridiculous diet.’
‘One of those little phases.’
Anorexia nervosa is not about stupidity or playing up; it is an expression of something else. The body becomes a symbol to try and put across that expression, whatever itmay be. The body finds a language to discuss things which cannot be articulated, or which haven’t yet been acknowledged or explored.
My experience of this illness is only that – my own – but my understanding of what I went through is not confined to the edges of me. It relates to the stories of others; its sounds often resonate with theirs even if their beginnings or endings are not like mine.
So before I come to tell you more of my secret story, perhaps it will make more sense, feel less out of time, if I try and provide some reasons, some explanations, some retrospect; something to alleviate the confusion and break down the myths that surround this illness.
Growing
The doctor was able to label me anorexic because I fitted into a certain set of criteria. I was an anorexic because I:
refused ‘to maintain weight at a minimal normal level for height and age, such that the body weight is 15 per cent below that expected for the individual’s height and age’
had ‘an intense fear of gaining weight and becoming fat’
had ‘a distorted notion of body shape and image’, such that I ‘continued to complain of feeling fat even at a very low weight’
had ‘amenorrhoea’ 3
I was no longer just a teenage girl playing with her food; I was now in a completely different territory. The above criteria tell one story of how extreme the illness is compared to someone trying to lose a few pounds, but another starting point in understanding the aetiology of the illness is that an anorexic (often unconsciously) uses food control and self-starvation to mask deep-rooted fears and feelings. These issues take refuge in the control and order of a diet and when they appear to dissipate as a result, an anorexic feels that it is definitely the self-starving that has solved them.
One of the common anxieties which anorexia works particularly hard at attacking is growth (in all senses). An anorexic circumnavigates growth or change by evading it, by stepping out and stepping back from the fear of it. This can happen at any life-stage and in either sex
I know that my parents went over and over in their headsevery possible moment or chance they thought they could have conceivably raised it with me, or tried to open me up. At the time, I would not let them get near me. I would, instead, deflect them, ‘No, no thank you. Everything is fine.’
Because of my detachment from what I was doing to my body in starving myself, I couldn’t have explained the reasons behind it at the time. I didn’t have the capacity, I wasn’t able to answer my parents’ questions; I wasn’t engaged with a wide enough perspective to give a proper theory on myself, a perspective which I now have.
There are so many fingers pointed when it comes to eating disorders. It seems too painful not to allot a proper explanation. Surely there is no possibility of understanding anorexia, if there is nothing to target all the pain and exasperation towards? And so it is easier to take a view. Many do. They say that it is about low self-esteem; others root for the cultural target, some to a chemical imbalance in the brain, a personality disorder, born under the wrong star sign, born too late, born in difficulty, a result of the image of thin beauty in magazines, the female brain, the media, the government, a genetic predisposition or even something more fundamental, something elemental about a renunciation of feeding. The list goes on and on and the issue becomes more and more confusing.
The most disturbing of these conclusions is seemingly one of the most prevalent among the medical profession and public – the belief that the anorexic is to blame, purposely seeking out attention through self-starving. 2
‘Silly girl.’
‘Ridiculous diet.’
‘One of those little phases.’
Anorexia nervosa is not about stupidity or playing up; it is an expression of something else. The body becomes a symbol to try and put across that expression, whatever itmay be. The body finds a language to discuss things which cannot be articulated, or which haven’t yet been acknowledged or explored.
My experience of this illness is only that – my own – but my understanding of what I went through is not confined to the edges of me. It relates to the stories of others; its sounds often resonate with theirs even if their beginnings or endings are not like mine.
So before I come to tell you more of my secret story, perhaps it will make more sense, feel less out of time, if I try and provide some reasons, some explanations, some retrospect; something to alleviate the confusion and break down the myths that surround this illness.
Growing
The doctor was able to label me anorexic because I fitted into a certain set of criteria. I was an anorexic because I:
refused ‘to maintain weight at a minimal normal level for height and age, such that the body weight is 15 per cent below that expected for the individual’s height and age’
had ‘an intense fear of gaining weight and becoming fat’
had ‘a distorted notion of body shape and image’, such that I ‘continued to complain of feeling fat even at a very low weight’
had ‘amenorrhoea’ 3
I was no longer just a teenage girl playing with her food; I was now in a completely different territory. The above criteria tell one story of how extreme the illness is compared to someone trying to lose a few pounds, but another starting point in understanding the aetiology of the illness is that an anorexic (often unconsciously) uses food control and self-starvation to mask deep-rooted fears and feelings. These issues take refuge in the control and order of a diet and when they appear to dissipate as a result, an anorexic feels that it is definitely the self-starving that has solved them.
One of the common anxieties which anorexia works particularly hard at attacking is growth (in all senses). An anorexic circumnavigates growth or change by evading it, by stepping out and stepping back from the fear of it. This can happen at any life-stage and in either sex
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