by Tina McGuff
It was now the middle of the night and I was still in such acute pain, they knew they couldn’t leave me like this. Fiona bent down and whispered gently in my ear: ‘Tina, we’re going to have to manually evacuate you. There’s really nothing else for it.’
I nodded, mute with horror, pain and anguish. In that moment, I didn’t care what they did to me as long as they took the pain away. Lying on my side now, Fiona used her hands inside my back passage. It was the most humiliating moment of my life. If I hadn’t been in such distress, I would have died right then from the embarrassment of it all. But even that didn’t work.
So now, Fiona left and, moments later, came back with a tray of surgical instruments. I didn’t even want to see what she had on there. Still on my side, I felt a pushing and pulling at my anus as she and another nurse worked to remove all the built-up faeces from inside me. I felt sharp little digs of pain followed by a dribbling down my butt and I knew that this was blood. I tried not to think about what was going on and even put my fingers in my ears and hummed music loudly so I could be distracted from the pain and sounds.
But then, all of a sudden, I felt a wave of sickness and started to vomit. Fiona was still working on my bottom but the other nurse ran round now with a bedpan as I puked my guts up, all the while sweating and shaking. Fiona continued emptying me of faeces for about an hour and then cleaned me up, replaced my sheets, and helped me into fresh pyjamas. My stomach felt a bit better but it stung where I was torn around the back passage. I was so relieved when it was finally over but, now, the humiliation overtook me like a tidal wave and I couldn’t stop sobbing.
Fiona held me as I wept like a baby.
‘I would rather starve to death than go through all that again,’ I cried. I could barely look at her, I felt so degraded in that moment. But as ever, she was kind, sympathetic and humane.
‘Shush, don’t worry, Tina. That won’t happen again. You’re okay now and you’re going to feel a whole lot better in a few days’ time.’
Her kindness was almost too much to bear. How could she do those things and not hate me, I wondered. I was full of admiration for her patience, her professionalism, but, best of all, her kindness and understanding. Still, I cried myself to sleep that night. It had been the worst, most humiliating moment of my life and I knew I would never, ever forget it.
Chapter 10
The Psychiatric Ward
The fairy lights twinkled prettily that morning – my first Christmas away from home, Christmas in the psychiatric ward. Already it was a special day – the nurses all wore colourful paper hats, while paper chains and shiny decorations hung around the ward and Father Christmas, whom I recognised as one of the doctors, had distributed small gifts to every bedside. Mine was a little orange teddy bear, which I hugged close to me as I waited for my family.
It was Celine I saw first – she came sprinting towards me with a huge grin on her face and I almost squealed with delight as she flung herself at me, giving me a great big hug. The others came in behind her, each wearing warm, happy smiles. It was so good to see them after all this time and I scooted over in bed to let Celine cosy up beside me. It felt so nice to feel her next to me, smell her clean hair. I’d missed her and the others so much.
Mum and Dad were together, looking to the entire world like perfect, happy parents. Not the people they had actually become.
‘How are you, honey?’ Dad asked. ‘You feeling okay?’
‘Are you getting better?’ Celine jumped in. ‘Are you coming home soon?’
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I said, grinning at her. ‘I’m getting better every day.’ It was a lie, of course – I was eating again, it’s true, but only the tiniest amounts, and if my vegetables were covered in creamy, cheesy sauce, I always scraped it off. I hadn’t put on enough weight to get visitors, but for Christmas, the ward made an exception.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked my sisters. I felt so guilty for being in here, for abandoning them to their miserable lives.
‘Yeah, we’re all good,’ replied Sophie. At that moment, the lady in the bed opposite us started crying – loudly. Everyone turned to look at her and, for a minute, I was filled with panic – I didn’t want my family to be upset today.
‘Oh, don’t mind her,’ I said casually. ‘She’s fine. Tell me, what have you lot been up to? Celine, have you been doing your homework? Are you going to visit Granny in the holidays?’
We talked for about an hour before they left to get back for their Christmas dinner. I was so pleased they had all come, and it seemed Mum and Dad had made a special effort to be nice to each other today. Secretly, I was glad not to be at home this Christmas. The ward was jolly that day, with everyone singing carols – it was a world away from the depressing little flat I had come to hate.
It was another couple of weeks before my weight was up enough for me to be allowed to get up out of bed and go to the toilet on my own. Freedom! On that first day, I was up and down to the toilet like a yo-yo – just for the sheer hell of it! Now, for the first time, I could start to meet some of the others on my ward. I met Pam, first – she was the lady with the baby who had come shuffling towards me in her slippers like a zombie on that first morning. Pam was in the side room just across the ward, and she had severe postnatal depression. Her baby, Emma, would cry for hours and Pam would just ignore her. It made me feel so sad, hearing that baby crying and crying – the nurses were in with her a lot.
I could see Pam and the baby from my bed. At first, Pam didn’t speak much because she was on a lot of medication but, over time, we began to chat. She told me that the depression made her hear voices that told her that if she didn’t do things a certain way, the baby would die. I was horrified when she told me she’d been put in the hospital because of an overwhelming urge to kill herself and hurt her child. It was horrible and I felt so sorry for her. She didn’t seem to have a bond with her baby at all. I myself was dying to pick Emma up – she was beautiful, the most adorable creature I’d ever seen – but I was now so weak, I was frightened I might drop her.
In January 1986, furious blizzards swirled outside our windows but, in Ward 18, we were protected from the elements. In here, we were safe and snug, cocooned from the weather, the real world and all its hardships. But I was missing exercise and as soon as I was allowed to walk around, I set myself little routines. I would go to the concourse and run all the way back every day, then I would try to run up and down the three sets of stairs as quietly as I could but as fast as I could, too. It felt great to get back moving around again. My muscles had been eaten up by my own body for survival and now I had nothing left so I had to start building up all of my strength again.
It didn’t take long for me to spot two other girls who I guessed were also in there for anorexia. Both super-thin, to me they looked amazing. They introduced themselves as Violet and Marie. Violet was the one who impressed me most – her clothes were beautiful, all colour-coordinated, her hair was gorgeous and groomed and she had this amazing air of self-possession. I thought she was stunning.
‘Where do you get your clothes?’ I breathed, eyeing the beautiful navy wool polo neck she wore that day.
‘Benetton,’ she replied.
Marie was about eighteen and really pretty, too, with very dark, curly hair. I thought they both looked great – thin and beautiful, they seemed so in control. They were long-term eating-disorder sufferers, they explained, and had been in and out of the ward for months and months. Talking to them was brilliant. They gave me lots of tricks and tips to keep my weight off without actually eating and avoiding falling below the 8 stone mark, where I was put back to bed and kept with a nurse.
‘You’ve got to drink the Build Ups,’ Marie explained. ‘If you drink them, then you can still maintain your weight without actually eating.’
We chatted for hours. These girls were just like me, apart from being much more knowledgeable about the condition. They both made themselves sick – a condition called bulimia – but I told them t
hat I hated making myself sick. Violet was an only child with two very successful parents – her dad had bought her a car for her birthday, which frankly blew my mind.
‘You’re so lucky!’ I exclaimed.
‘Oh, sure,’ she replied drily. ‘It’s amazing what guilt can do.’
Obviously, Violet wasn’t happy at home but I didn’t push her to talk about her issues. Like me, they were both fiercely private people and I guessed, like me, they weren’t really interested in showing their weaknesses. No, instead, we plotted and planned how to foil the hospital’s attempts to cure us.
‘What are the drugs?’ I asked them.
‘Oh, that’s Chlorpromazine,’ Violet explained. ‘It’s a very strong anti-psychotic drug, which makes you drowsy. And they give us Dothiepin, too, which is an anti-depressant. They use them to turn us all into zombies and make us easier to control!’
At this, Marie shoved her arms straight out in front of her, let her mouth go slack and rolled her eyes around in her head, imitating a zombie. We all laughed. Violet was really smart, with a whip-sharp wit – she was even taking a degree while in hospital. I admired her greatly. I was ashamed that my illness had caused me to miss so much of school; consequently, I had no grades or qualifications whatsoever. However, when they told me that, at 16 years old, I was the youngest anorexic they had ever seen on the ward, I felt oddly proud.
We were all on the same treatment plan and the only difference was the start weight and end weight as we were all different heights. It didn’t matter – we all felt the same: too fat. If we met up for chats, we would always do so standing up so we could burn more calories – as it was, I hated sitting on the blue plastic chairs, where I would look down at my thunder thighs and see them spreading out on the seat under me.
It didn’t take long for me to put my new plan into action. That night, I hid a polystyrene cup in the bottom of the bin in the last toilet cubicle. The next morning, just before my weigh in, I went to the toilet. There, I retrieved the cup and, as quickly as I could, gulped down 10 cups of tap water. I could literally feel the water sloshing around inside me – if I drank any more, I would probably have thrown up. This time, when I went to the weigh chair, I pulled my feet in under me as Violet and Marie had instructed (it helped, they said, to bring your weight up). I was thrilled when my weight came in at 7 stone 8 lb – what a result! The nurse on duty with me was delighted and told me I was free to have my family visit.
From that day, my family all came to visit at different times. My granny Lana was especially pleased to be able to see me – we’d walk the concourse together and she would put her thumb and forefinger round my wrists to see how skinny they were. Then she would cry.
‘We all miss you so much,’ she said, wiping away the tears. ‘We just want you to get better soon so you can come home again.’
It was so sad to see her upset like this and I hated the fact that it was all my fault.
One day, I got an unexpected visit from my cousin Marco and one of his friends. We went up to the concourse and they bought me a glorious can of Diet Pepsi, my favourite. As I was drinking it, I was very aware of the boys staring at my hand holding the can, so I stopped drinking.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
They exchanged worried looks and then Marco said: ‘Tina, your hands look like a skeleton.’ I just laughed – if they could only see the rest of me! They never mentioned it again and I didn’t let it ruin my afternoon – I was just glad for the company.
Visits from my parents were nice but they never came at the same time. I had an inkling they were trying to keep things from me because our conversations were always light and untainted by news of rows or disagreements. Unlike at home, Mum didn’t complain about my dad once. It was my new friend Violet who told me what was going on.
‘The doctors tell them not to say anything to you that might upset you,’ she explained after one visit from my dad where he brushed aside all my concerns about my sisters with a breeziness that didn’t quite ring true.
‘It’s part of the recovery process,’ she went on. ‘Negative stuff isn’t welcome here, so don’t be surprised if you’re fed a lot of bullshit from your family. God knows, mine never talk about anything important at all!’
It annoyed me slightly, knowing they were putting on a front for me, but I couldn’t help but feel grateful at the same time. I’d been dealing with their mess for so long, I was glad of a break from the fights and conflict.
One early evening, Mum came to see me and we sat together in the dining room where, at this time of the day, the staff always left out baskets of toast dripping with butter for anyone feeling peckish. Naturally, I wasn’t interested in the food but Mum’s eyes kept sliding over to the baskets. Eventually, she suggested we have some toast together.
‘No, thanks, Mum,’ I said. ‘I’ve just eaten.’
I think by now she had heard every excuse in the book and perhaps this time, it was just the last straw.
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ she exploded. ‘Will you just eat something?’
I looked at her blankly – did she really think this was going to persuade me?
‘Look, either you eat this toast or …’ she hesitated, ‘… or, I swear, I’ll become anorexic, too!’
I nearly laughed out loud at this – as if it was simply a matter of choosing! She knew nothing about it, nothing at all. I was so tickled by this idea that I taunted her: ‘Okay, go on then – become anorexic!’
I sat there smirking as she puffed out her cheeks, clearly vexed. She couldn’t take the control away from me that easily. I didn’t care how frustrated she was – frankly, I didn’t feel anything much towards my mum in those days and I loved the idea that she was going to try to be an anorexic. She changed the subject and after five minutes picked up a slice of toast and started munching on it.
‘Oh, well, that lasted a long time,’ I muttered sarcastically. Mum shot me a look – then she wiped the crumbs from her smart pencil skirt and pushed back her long blonde locks.
By now, I was getting daily counselling and therapy sessions from a host of different doctors. Dr Ballinger was my psychiatrist and she was lovely – small, with red, curly hair. She was very ruddy and outdoorsy – always talking about going on long country walks. Euan was the cognitive behavioural therapist – his sessions were always my favourite. He’d draw little pictures of plates of food and then a picture of me with bubbles coming out of my head, to try to get an idea of my thoughts and feelings around food. He’d try to replace these negative thoughts with positive ones. I did try hard to take on board what he said but it wasn’t always so easy to put it into practice.
Sometimes I just chatted to the nurses.
Michelle, one of the regulars, sat down with me one day and asked what I thought of the illness.
‘It feels like it’s enveloping me,’ I told her, and she nodded. She had short blonde hair pushed back over her ears and a keen, honest face. ‘It gives me some control because everything at home has gone wrong. But I don’t like the fact that it keeps me away from my sisters. If it weren’t for me, they would be left alone all the time – they’re everything to me.’
Michelle nodded again, then put her head to one side, resting on her fingers: ‘You know, Tina, you’re a textbook anorexic. You’ve got to stop worrying about your sisters because they’re never going to appreciate what you’ve done for them.’
Now that made my blood boil – who the hell was she to tell me about my own flesh and blood? I knew my sisters loved and appreciated me – of course they did. And being called a ‘textbook anorexic’ wasn’t all that nice either. Nobody wants to be textbook anything. I wanted to be different, special – I’d set out to be the best anorexic in the world and it irked me that she could dismiss this by lumping me together with everyone else.
Now the days slid into weeks, which slipped into months and the trees outside our windows budded with the promise of spring. Every day, I drank the Build Ups but kept my
eating to a minimum. As a result, my weight slipped back under 7 stone 5 lb and I was once more confined to bed, with a nurse by my side. All meals were to be eaten in bed, no visits. It was hell and made me more determined to get out of there. So I upped my food intake and tried not to exercise too much. Now I was just focused on one goal – getting out.
By the beginning of June, I was well enough to have day outings and I begged the hospital to let me go home. It was very strange returning to the flat. Instantly, I was filled with guilt for my sisters, as I had not been there for them. I felt they needed me and that I was a failure as, once again, my selfishness prevailed with my eating issues. It was almost a relief to go back to the ward after these visits. There I could feel safe and secure and hide from my family’s problems.
One afternoon at the end of the July, I waited anxiously for my turn to be called to see the doctors. Discharge day was a big deal on the ward and it was always a nerve-wracking time – the lucky ones would fly out of the room and literally race to get their things before fleeing out of the door. It was almost comic, the way they would be so elated to leave, like prisoners being set free.
This day, I knew I had a good chance: I’d maintained my goal weight for three whole weeks now and I’d acted like the model patient. At 3 p.m., Michelle came to get me, to show me into the room where Dr Ballinger sat with a panel of three others, most of whom I knew from my seven months on the ward.
Dr Ballinger was smiling broadly.
‘Well, we think you’re doing really well, Tina,’ she said. ‘I can see here that your weight is stable and you’ve been making very good progress in your counselling sessions. I think you’re ready to be discharged.’
Yippee! I nearly leapt from my seat right that minute – it took enormous will not to just run out of there, like a madwoman! But I waited until the meeting was over, thanked the doctors and then dashed to my bed. My bag was already packed so I just said goodbye to Pam, Fiona and Violet and ran all the way up the stairs, out of the main hospital entrance to catch a bus home. All the way back, I couldn’t help but grin to myself like an idiot. It had been six long, torturous months away from my family, from my life, and I was so excited to be free again. Mum knew to expect me as the ward had called ahead.