What drives a bright teenager with everything to live for to anorexia? Author of Thin, Grace Bowman, tells her story of living with anorexia nervosa
When I was 18, I decided to go on a diet. I'd never dieted before, but in the build-up to my A-levels, I'd put on weight and wanted to lose it. I decided to cut out chocolate and fast food. I lost some weight and felt better and more in control. But rather than stopping there, accepting that I'd lost the half stone I needed, I continued.
Within a couple of months I was obsessed by food. I turned inwards. I was quieter, more withdrawn. I lied to my family and friends about what I had eaten; I avoided the house at meal times. I secretly put the food I was offered in the bin. I was suddenly afraid of food; scared of putting on weight in case I crashed out of control.
Lack of confidence
This was more than a diet gone wrong. In the months leading up to the diet I had put pressure on myself to perform at school. Success did not breed confidence; it masked my lack of it.
When everything felt out of place, my body was something I could control. Being thin was desirable. Thin meant perfect, popular and successful. I was desperate to be liked. I decided that, if nothing else, people would think of me as thin. I used the diet to try and fix my lack of self-esteem.
My parents took me to the doctor. They came to realise that this was more than a teenage phase. I had no idea what was happening to me. I knew I was obsessed by food but couldn't diagnose why. I felt lacking in energy, but wholly focused. I got top marks in my A-levels and was heading for university, until the doctor made the diagnosis of anorexia nervosa and I was told I couldn't go. I spent the next year battling my addiction, with my weight dropping to five and a half stone.
Destructive illness
I was permanently cold; my hair fell out, my periods stopped, veins and bones protruded out of my body. I knew that this illness was destructive and painful not only to me, but to my friends and family too. But the flipside of anorexia - weight gain - was still too petrifying.
My parents were incredibly supportive throughout. They did not blame me, instead, they read up on anorexia. They came to understand that it was not about food but feelings. They tried their hardest to help me. I was defensive and self-absorbed. Beneath this I was desperately afraid and so the fact that they were there for me, even when my behaviour seemed irrational, was hugely important.
The turning point
It was the turning point of a new year that prompted my recovery. I was offered a place at Cambridge University and was desperate to get there. For the first time I decided I had to try and fight the anorexia. I had been watching my life fall apart from the sidelines, almost as if I wasn't in my own body. Somewhere beneath the anorexia, there was another Grace and I wanted to get her back.
The first steps were practical ones; eating more of the foods I felt comfortable with, increasing my calorie intake slowly. It was a difficult process, but eventually I stopped losing weight and began to put it on. I went to Cambridge with my body weight repaired, but my self-image in pieces.
Fighting demons
I tried my hardest to silence the 24-7 voice that said, 'Not good enough, not thin enough, diet, exercise, be smaller'. In ignoring this, I seemed to be going against what every other woman was doing. The omnipresent images of thinness were hard to disregard. These weren't the catalysts for my anorexia, but they were, and are today, negative influences on self-esteem. They certainly make it harder for someone suffering from an eating disorder to recover. There was no size 0 when I was ill, but had there been, I would have had ample justification that my dying body was somehow normal.
By the end of university I was tired of my eating disorder dominating my life. I threw away my scales. I put down the diet magazines. Every time I uttered the words, 'I feel fat', I asked myself what I was really worried about. I switched my attention to something else more fulfilling.
Understanding the problem
Anorexia is not about nutrition or fashion, it is a mental health issue. It is so important that women (90 per cent of sufferers are female) believe in themselves and nurture their self-esteem to find value in qualities other than body shape.
Recovery is possible, even in this skinny-fit world, but it takes effort and time. Eating disorders need to be discussed instead of being closed up in shame and silence. Early awareness might help someone identify what they are feeling before it is too late.
Thin by Grace Bowman will be published by Penguin on 25 January 2007 and will be available to order from www.amazon.co.uk