Misfit

by Charli Howard

  These ‘bad days’, as I called them in my diary, turned me into a madwoman (as though I wasn’t one already). I’d go BALLISTIC. I’d be in a horrific mood all day and would deliberately eat less in the hope I wouldn’t have such a bad day tomorrow.

  ‘FAILLLUUUURREEEE!’ the Brain Deviant would yell.

  ‘Would you like a biscuit?’ my nan would offer.

  ‘NO!’ I’d yell, then would storm upstairs and do a bunch of sit-ups or squats, thinking that would somehow make a world of difference. My skin would itch from how irritated and frustrated I was with myself. Within an hour, my mood would be calm again. Mood swings are just one of the problems you have when you starve yourself.

  ‘YOU’RE PATHETIC!’ the Brain Deviant would yell. ‘YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT! NO WONDER NO ONE LOVES YOU! NO WONDER YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS! NO WONDER YOU’RE SO UGLY!’

  A month to the day passed, and I wasn’t down to my target weight. I had well and truly f***ed up. I wondered what Ed would’ve thought about me. I couldn’t even get weight loss right.

  I was about four pounds from what I liked to call ‘perfect’. Except that’s the thing with eating disorders – you can hit that goal weight, and it’ll never be enough. You’re chasing happiness. A number on a scale will never solve that.

  When are you going back in? Ed would text me.

  ‘Just give me another couple of weeks,’ I promised.

  But the weight just wouldn’t budge. My body was essentially going WTF and trying to hold on to any weight it could to protect my organs. The fact I’d lost over a stone and a half in four weeks was not good enough for me, nor was the fact that old clothes hung off me. I was a big fat failure, and the Brain Deviant never let me forget it.

  My eating disorder was ravaging my body. Looks-wise, you become far from pretty. You constantly look tired. Your breath smells. You break out in spots because of the lack of nutrients. Your skin looks grey. Your hair falls out.

  And guess what? You’re never, ever happy.

  What I saw in the mirror wasn’t ‘fat’, really. It was just a weight of issues: a heavy burden of guilt, shame and loneliness topped up with a nice dose of anxiety in human form. That was why I felt fat. But when I looked in the mirror, although I did see a distorted view of my body, I really just saw a let-down.

  By week seven – almost a month after I’d promised I’d be ‘ready’ – I decided to bite the bullet and head back to the agency. I wasn’t sociable. I wasn’t happy. I was in bed by 6 p.m. every night. How much more ready could I be?

  I was two pounds heavier than I wanted to be when I met Ed at the same spot outside the Tube, but I weighed less than I ever had before. It was now or never.

  Rather than point out my faults, this time Ed seemed … impressed.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You look great.’

  I didn’t look great. My head looked like a moon on a stick, my skin dull and lifeless, even with lashings of foundation. But Ed rarely gave compliments, so I knew he must’ve thought I was now ‘model material’. He’d spent a lot of our alleged ‘friendship’ telling me how fat I was, or how small my boobs were, or if I changed X/Y/Z I’d be the ‘perfect model’.

  The Fake-AF Booker from before came to greet me. She eyed me up and down.

  ‘Let’s measure you then,’ she said, taking out a measuring tape. Like Ed, she also seemed impressed. A wave of relief fell over me. The numbers did all the talking. My tummy was rumbling loudly – I hadn’t eaten anything that morning in the hope the measurements would somehow drop further.

  ‘Let me get some of the team to come in,’ she said.

  Once again, I sat in the empty office, staring at the endless magazine covers featuring my favourite supermodels. One by one, the agents came in and chatted to me – about four or five in total. Some would bitch about the famous supermodels, though I was pretty convinced they wouldn’t say those kind of things to their faces. I nodded and laughed, hoping I was saying the right things.

  I glanced at the time. I’d been in there with Ed for two hours. Then, after another half an hour, Fake-AF Booker came into the office and sat opposite me.

  I could tell by the sudden change in atmosphere that it wasn’t good news.

  ‘We’ve all been talking, and I’m afraid it’s going to have to be a no,’ she said.

  I sat there dumbstruck. It felt like I’d been punched in the gut. WHAT?!

  I did what she said they wanted! I got down to the dream measurements!

  ‘But … but … you said …’

  ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘But you didn’t get down to the size quickly enough. And then there’s the height problem …’ She paused. ‘But good luck with other agencies.’

  I was absolutely crushed. It wasn’t like I’d shrunk in height in the seven weeks she’d last seen me, was it? I’d given up two months to lose this weight, and for what? Fake-AF Booker continued to chew her gum loudly and began chatting to Ed like none of this had ever happened, as though I wasn’t in the room. It was like they’d decided not to buy a car because it had the wrong parts.

  That night, I ordered the biggest portion of Domino’s ever. I’d forgotten how good pizza tasted.

  The Brain Deviant didn’t let me enjoy it for long.

  9

  The Art of Acting Sane

  Guess what, everyone? Over time, I became normal! Well, from the outside anyway. From the outside, you would’ve thought I was like everybody else. I blended in, and you’d never, ever, ever think I was an obsessive compulsive, anxious weirdo with strange eating rituals.

  Yes, I did it! From the outside, my life appeared picture-perfect. But what did ‘normal’ mean, exactly? I still hadn’t entirely worked it out. I could only assume it meant being happy, and if there was anything I wanted in this world, it was happiness. I guessed I’d have to fake it till I made it.

  I’d stopped chasing modelling, outwardly at least, and my weight was now healthy and normal. I’d started a fashion course at university in London, because that’s what normal people did, wasn’t it? Go to uni, even if they didn’t have much interest in a particular subject. Deep down, I’d never been the clubbing or drinking type, but normal people liked doing that, didn’t they? So that’s what I did – got drunk in rubbish clubs among gross men, pretending I was having a whale of a time, when I would’ve actually preferred watching a DVD in bed.

  Was this what ‘normal’ was? Boyfriends? Girlfriends? Uni? Money? Holidays? Drunken nights out? If it meant I’d finally be at peace with myself, I wanted these things, too – even if they hadn’t appealed to me much before. No matter how many times I applied to agencies, the constant rejection proved my modelling aspirations were becoming more and more unlikely. Perhaps I was searching for happiness in the wrong place?

  If people assumed I was happy via the images I posted online, that must’ve meant I was normal. Right? Wrong!

  This is probably the time to tell you how misleading social media is. I know everyone tells you that, and I also know that we all manipulate what we choose to post or not to post on our pages. I mean, we don’t choose to post stuff that makes us look bad or ugly, do we? And even though I know I behave this way myself, I still manage to forget that other people do this, too. Their lives aren’t as jazzy as they make out, no matter how often they post a photo of their new car or write ‘OFF TO MAGALUF WITH DA LADZ’. Their lives may look normal and happy from the outside, but no one’s life is perfect. However, when you see a constant array of smiley faces and seemingly perfect lives plastered on a screen in the palm of your hand, we all have a habit of forgetting this fact.

  I didn’t think about this at the time. I thought I was still the odd one out, that I was the only one who didn’t feel ‘right’ or who didn’t have it together. I didn’t want my Facebook friends to know that though, obviously. It wasn’t like I was going to post a status saying, ‘WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!’ or, ‘Guess what, everyone! I’m so stressed out that I’ve made myself sick tw
ice today!’ or, ‘Shame I only have fifty pounds in my bank account – LOL!’ No. No, of course I didn’t. Well, would you? In order to keep up with the Joneses, I had to pretend my life was as hunky-dory as theirs.

  Despite the fact that the Brain Deviant had repeatedly told me there wasn’t a hope in hell I’d ever get into the London College of Fashion, guess what? I did get in. I’d set my mind to it, and I actually did it. For the first time in a billion years my mum and dad were thrilled with me.

  I made a great group of friends there. I was very lucky in that respect. Unlike school, where you’re kind of thrust into an environment where people may or may not share your ideals, we all bonded over our mutual love of fashion. I bleached my hair bright blonde and got some more random piercings – anything went in fashion school. I had two tongue piercings at one point, cos why not? It didn’t suppress my appetite like it had last time, but it did for about four days. Four days without eating gave me a bit more control.

  After my experience with the 800-calorie diet, and as I’d expected, I had gained the weight back and more. No one can sustain a diet like that forever. But you know what? After a while, I didn’t care. My latest buzz was far greater than how I felt when the number dropped on the scale. It was called HAPPINESS.

  I was struggling with the womenswear course, but that didn’t matter. I had such a great friendship group that it more than made up for it. But, boy, was I struggling. Womenswear and pattern cutting was all numbers and measurements, neither of which have ever been my strong point except for when it came to counting calories. I mean, I’d cheered and ripped up my book on the day I finished my GCSE maths exam because I was that excited, and my maths teacher had put me in detention afterwards. For one, no one had told me how pricey the course would be. Fashion courses, especially design-based ones, become so expensive, especially once you buy the right tools and fabric. The workload was phenomenal – not an easy ride at all like I’d somewhat hoped. I’d heard about kids partying at uni, but by the time I got home from a day of working I was physically exhausted.

  I began paying people in my class to finish my work for me – there were no rules against this, and, besides, some of the rich overseas students openly got their clothes made.

  I secretly wished I’d listened to my gut and not gone to uni, but this was a few years ago, and if you didn’t go to uni you were basically considered being a stone’s throw away from an ASBO. Anyway, no one needed to know I was struggling as much as I was. My confidence was gradually improving, and I am convinced that was down to the fact I no longer put all my emphasis on my looks.

  I ignored the itch underneath my skin that told me I craved something more. For the first time in a long time I was making people proud. I finally felt like I was on the right path. I was no longer the misfit I was always made out to be.

  I was midway through my second term of uni when I fainted in Tesco. Right by the dairy aisle, to be exact, which wasn’t exactly a highlight of my university days. I’d had a bit of a sore throat for a few hours and had popped down to get some orange juice when BAM! – I woke up in the storage bit at the back, where they keep all the cardboard boxes and supplies. Usually I would’ve screamed if I woke up to the sight of four confused men crowded over me, but this time I was too weak.

  They’d called an ambulance and it was on its way. Despite trying to convince the paramedic that, no, I was not pregnant, and that, yes, I really did feel fine, they drove me to the hospital. All of a sudden, my throat felt like it was on fire. Never had I experienced this sort of pain. What made it worse was that I was totally on my own, needing a hug. I sat in A & E for hours and almost fainted from the pain again, until six hours later I was sent home diagnosed with a severe case of tonsillitis and a ton of codeine to get me through it.

  Over the next couple of weeks, I dropped over a stone in weight. I was still eating the same, but now I was less than eight stone and the physical changes were quite drastic. I had cheekbones, for one.

  People began doing double takes when I’d walk into a lecture, or, even worse, would tell me how great I looked. I would smile through gritted teeth while I tried not to fall asleep through the mist of codeine, a powerful painkiller. I’d fall asleep on the Tube or in lectures because of how relaxed I was. But most of all, I was calm: calmer than I’d ever been. It made me forget about the Year We Do Not Talk About and the evil ex-boyfriend. None of my problems mattered any more. My course didn’t matter any more. Best of all, like class-A drugs, it suppressed my appetite. I now only ate when I felt I needed to. I was hooked.

  Rather than being concerned about my continual weight loss, however, I BLOODY LOVED IT. I was thinner than I’d ever been. Even once my tonsillitis cleared, the weight was dropping off. What a dream!

  Now, a sane person would view this extreme weight loss as something serious, which it undeniably was. But not me. I revelled in the attention I was getting. Friends and lecturers would approach me concerned, and other girls told me enviously how they wished they could have my figure, which is kind of messed up, if you think about it. I guess I wasn’t entirely over my eating disorder, no matter how much I liked to pretend otherwise. It had always been lurking, and now it was back with a vengeance. And so, like a broken record, the modelling question popped up again.

  Because I was now underweight, I was approached by a few older students to model their fashion collections. I did it for a bit of extra cash, letting them drape their designs over my frail frame. I began getting scouted by agencies again, only for them to – you’ve guessed it – never actually sign me. It now wasn’t the weight issue, but the height problem instead.

  One day, I walked into my university canteen when I bumped into an old male model friend of mine doing a graduate fashion-week casting. I’d known him since we were about sixteen, and he’d always believed in me. He’d always encouraged me to keep going where modelling was concerned and genuinely believed I was model material.

  I couldn’t help but feel somewhat envious of the models standing around me. They were tall, they were glamorous, they were beautiful. They were also swanning around London while I was failing (and fainting) at university, the lucky gits.

  ‘You gonna give modelling another try then?’ he asked.

  ‘Are you joking?’ I replied, scoffing. I looked nothing like these glamazons, and was kidding myself if I ever thought I would.

  ‘Have a think about it,’ he said. ‘I’m not gonna lie – you are a bit short –’ FYI I am 5 foot 8 inches – ‘but why don’t you keep going to agencies and see what happens?’

  I promised him I’d think about it, but no longer had the courage. I didn’t want to get let down again.

  It is during an attempt to appear like ‘one of the girls’ that I meet my first normal adult boyfriend, Scott – in a dodgy nightclub in Berlin with some friends, to the sounds of German techno music billowing away in the background, and just after I’d threatened to punch a drunk guy who’d randomly kissed me on the mouth.

  Scott came from an incredibly normal background and was nine and a half years older than me. He seemed so grown-up and worldly-wise, full of facts and knowledge. Unlike me, he’d lived in the same house his entire life – I’d lost count of how many places I’d lived in by this point. He was still friends with the people he’d been to school and university with; I’d lost touch with most of mine. It transpired that Scott and I were living in the same area of London, and that felt normal, dating someone who lived nearby and who knew all the same spots as me. In my mind, anyone who had a successful, solid relationship dated local people.

  I was drawn to the fact he was comforting and safe; Scott was drawn to the fact my life seemed exciting and cultural and a bit all over the place. Once we were back on British soil, he took me to London’s Brick Lane for some bagels, and that was it – I got myself a boyfriend. One who wasn’t an abusive dick, which made a nice change.

  The only un-normal thing about Scott’s life was his brief stint as a musician, wh
en he’d been signed to a major record label with moderate success. Funnily enough, I’d seen him and his band play when I was fifteen – I’d got bruises on my hips from rowdy drunk men pushing me into the metal gates at the front of the stage, and I could’ve sworn that I’d had my drink spiked that night at the after party, but that’s as much as I recall. Scott would go on and on and on about the ‘good old days’ he’d had when he was touring, and I’d listen intently, fascinated by the fact that I was going out with someone whose life seemed so rock ’n’ roll.

  Whenever I’m happy or relaxed, it’s as though my eating disorder vanishes into thin air. When I first met Scott my disordered eating still lurked in the background – making me count calories and obsessively calculate my daily allowance – but as I fell deeper in love with him and we kept going on dates to restaurants and cafes like normal couples, worrying about food was no longer my main concern. For the first time in a long time, my eating disorder was on hold.

  Scott was a dreamer. His head was in the clouds, and every day he’d tell me all the things he was going to do in the future, like the exotic countries he’d visit and vintage cars he’d buy. And I, being the awestruck nineteen-year-old I was, became wrapped up in these stories, clinging on to every dream of his as though it was my own.

  Eventually, I’d push all my aspirations to the side for his. I’d repeatedly tell him what he wanted to hear – that he was going to be successful and rich – and he’d lap it up. Who cared about my dreams, eh?! My life was about living for his! His dreams and how he spoke so confidently about his future comforted me, making me feel less anxious about the uncertainties of my own.

  I began distancing myself from my own friends in favour of his. I don’t need to tell you this was a silly idea, but I couldn’t bear to be away from Scott. Gone were days out with friends or going out to a bar or two. My life became Scott, Scott, Scott, and I was utterly addicted to being with him.