As soon as I got home from school I would lock myself in my bedroom. Sometimes I’d lie on the bed and cry. Other times I’d just exercise – it was the only thing that made me feel better.
The dining-table screaming matches escalated again. Each mealtime started in the same way. Mum, Tony, Natalie and I would be sitting down together but Mum would barely be able to concentrate on her own food as she would desperately be trying not to take her eyes off me for a moment in case the food started disappearing down my top or trousers.
I’d begin by pushing the food around my plate and separating it into piles so nothing touched anything else. Then the food would just sit there getting colder and colder while I stared silently at the wall or floor, withdrawing further and further into myself.
Mum would beg me, ‘Please eat it, Nikki. You said you’d eat this. Please?’
As the minutes passed she would become more forceful. ‘Look, if you don’t eat, you’ll have lost weight when you go for your weigh-in next week and they won’t let you home again. You’ll be sent back to Hillingdon Hospital.’
Sometimes that threat would work, because I was still haunted by the regime at Hillingdon and hated the thought of going back there.
I began drinking litres and litres of water and would put bars of soap in my pockets to make me heavier for my fortnightly weigh-ins at Collingham. As long as I could get away with these tricks there was less need to eat at home.
But soon, even the threat of Hillingdon meant nothing to me. I wouldn’t even look up when Mum mentioned being sent back there. There wouldn’t even be an eyelid flicker. I don’t care about Hillingdon, I thought. I don’t care about anything. I don’t even want to be alive, to go through this, any more.
Tony, too, tried hard to make me eat, praising me when I did eat a mouthful, persuading me when I wouldn’t. But there must have been loads of times when he thought he’d wandered into a total nightmare.
After half an hour or so Tony and Natalie would drift off into the other room, leaving Mum and me sitting there, my plate still piled up between us. Some evenings it felt like we were enemies on either side of a battlefield. And sure as hell I wasn’t going to be the one to give in first.
Things got so bad that after a couple of months Mum made me eat my dinner wearing just my knickers so she could tell if I was hiding food. I felt the cold really badly then because I was so skinny and I would be covered in goosebumps, but it was the only way she could see what I was doing.
An hour or more would drag past and still I’d refuse to eat. That was when Mum would sometimes lose it with me and start shouting at me in her frustration. ‘Just eat it, Nikki!’ she’d scream. ‘You’re killing yourself and you’re expecting me to sit back and watch you.’
Once she had started I’d join in too, screaming and lashing out at her. ‘I’m not fucking eating it. Understand?’ I yelled back. ‘I don’t want your food. You can fucking stuff it.’
Even after I had finished my food, or the whole thing had been abandoned, I’d then have to sit in front of Mum for an hour in case I was sick.
If I’d eaten everything, I’d be allowed out to see Lena and some of the other kids from our road who used to hang around on their bikes. But if I felt I’d eaten too much I’d make my friends stand and wait as I vomited it all up.
Other times I just ran out of the house straight after dinner, before Mum could stop me, and threw up against someone’s garden wall. One night she tore round the streets in her slippers looking for me by following a trail of vomit.
I was never a bulimic, though – someone who constantly controls their weight through vomiting. For me, being sick was simply a last resort if I’d been made to eat something that I really couldn’t cope with.
I knew Mum was finding it draining because I was constantly outwitting her. She was truly stuck in the middle. Collingham had given her strict guidelines about what I should and shouldn’t do. But I was giving her ultimatums about what I would and wouldn’t do. ‘It’s your choice, Mum,’ I’d say. ‘I’ll either eat what I agree to or nothing at all – you decide.’
Collingham had told Mum that if she allowed me to leave food on my plate she was helping me kill myself. So every time I didn’t eat a full meal, which was most days, she was consumed with guilt.
Mum was trying to please everyone and constantly feeling like she was failing everyone.
Her every attempt to outwit me failed. Collingham had told her to buy double-cream milk to help build me up. She knew I would point-blank refuse to drink it, so she had to pour it all into semi-skimmed milk bottles when I wasn’t around. But she didn’t get away with that for long as I could tell the milk was thicker and creamier and it made me gag. Then she tried buying higher-calorie Tesco cakes and putting them in boxes of McVities low-fat cakes.
‘These don’t taste the same, Mum,’ I said after the first mouthful. It was like I could taste calories and she couldn’t get away with anything.
Mum was tired of the constant battle. Every day she was reliving the same nightmare but there was no alternative. If she gave in to me, the chances were I’d die. I was making her life a misery.
All the counsellors had told Mum she had to be strong for me. Because while anorexics like to think they are in control, their behaviour is actually totally out of control. And that is why they need to feel their family is strong, like a fortress protecting them.
Deep down, I guess I did want Mum to be strong to protect me. But I also wanted her to be a push-over, to give in to my outrageous food demands and tempers. It was like I was constantly testing Mum to see exactly how strong she was. And sometimes she did cry, and sometimes she did lose it. And then I could see the despair in her eyes as she realised she wasn’t being as strong as she ought.
Natalie was becoming so angry that everything at home revolved around me and what I had or hadn’t eaten. Mum’s every waking thought was consumed with me and whether I’d live or die. There wasn’t much time or energy left for Natalie and she resented me like hell for that. She started rebelling in her own desperate bid for attention. She would be rude and stroppy to Mum and would stay out late, giving Mum even more to worry about. Natalie and I were getting on worse than ever, bickering all the time. Our house was so full of anger and violence that it was impossible to believe that we’d once been so happy. How could things have slipped this far?
During that autumn my weight started falling quite quickly as I became more and more withdrawn and unhappy. I’d slipped back into this hellish cycle where I could only make myself feel better by not eating, but not eating was just making me feel weaker and more sick again.
I began bunking off school and hanging around the shops. When Mum found out she went mad. It didn’t stop me, though. I was angry, threatening suicide, rebelling and being a complete pain in the arse.
The fortnightly trips to Collingham to get weighed became even more of an ordeal. I’d tried bars of soap but now I’d fill my pockets with paperweights and anything else heavy I could find to boost my weight. But even the combination of that and drinking several litres of water wasn’t enough to disguise the fact that it was slipping dangerously low.
At that point I think Mum in a way gave up on me – she was exhausted and just felt there was nothing she more could do. Then one day in December I simply refused to go to see Dr Hodes at Collingham and be weighed. Mum tried persuading me, then we started screaming at each other, but still I wouldn’t budge. I refused to leave my bedroom.
‘Please come, Nikki,’ Mum begged. ‘Otherwise they’ll send you back to hospital and it’s Christmas soon.’
‘I don’t care!’ I screamed. ‘I hate you, I hate hospital and I hate my life – I wish I was dead.’
I’d been saying things like that more and more, talking about killing myself. I don’t know whether I seriously meant it at that age or even understood what death meant. But I certainly knew I wasn’t happy in the life I was in.
Mum had made an appointment for me at
Collingham and I knew I would be readmitted. I had no idea how long I’d be away for this time, so the night before the appointment I persuaded Mum to let Lena and my other friends Suzanne and Jennifer come round for a Christmas party sleepover.
We lay in our sleeping bags on the lounge floor, chatting and giggling. At times like that I almost felt normal.
When Mum and Tony went to bed we lit a cigarette and passed it round between us. I knew it could be months before I saw my friends again and there was nothing I could do about it. I was being thrown along by events out of my control.
The next morning Lena, Suzanne and Jennifer went home and Mum helped me pack a suitcase for my stay in hospital.
As we walked down to the station I looked at all the toys and decorations in the shop windows. It would be Christmas in a fortnight but try as I might I couldn’t see much to celebrate.
CHAPTER 10
RAW ANGER
‘Here we go again,’ I mumbled to myself as I forced my emaciated frame back up the steps at Collingham Gardens.
It was a bitterly cold day and the gusts of wind stabbed at my body, now unprotected by even the merest layer of fat.
There was a huge Christmas tree in the entrance hall at the unit, and tinsel neatly wrapped around the staircase, but I was long past enjoying that sort of thing. I was down to just 23 kilos (3 stone 8 lb) and didn’t care about anything much at all.
I was put straight on total bed rest and not even allowed to walk down the corridor without permission. Yet it was almost a relief to be back. It felt like coming home. Again, someone else was going to take control for me for a while. All I had to do was comply.
And it was good to see Paul Byrne again, even though I knew he and the others were going to make me eat. A few days before Christmas there was a big dinner for all the kids and they made me finish the lot – turkey, sprouts and stuffing. It was agonising.
As Christmas got closer all the other kids gradually drifted away with their parents and the unit prepared to shut down for the holiday. But there was no way they would allow me home for a fortnight. Instead I was transferred to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to be kept under observation. I was allowed home for just Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
Mum and Tony came to collect me in the car on Christmas Eve. It was another bitterly cold afternoon but when we arrived at our front door I didn’t even step inside. Instead I started running up and down the road to burn off some of the calories they’d been ramming down me at Collingham. It might have been Christmas for other people, but to me it was just a chance to exercise.
When Mum finally persuaded me to go inside, I stood shivering next to the open fire in the living room, keeping the exercise going by rocking from one leg to the other.
Mum looked at me in despair. ‘I see nothing has changed then, Nikki,’ she said.
Christmas was OK. It was good to be home and to see my friends, but hanging over me all the time was the thought that I had to go back to the Chelsea and Westminster after Boxing Day – and there they were going to make me eat again.
Back in Collingham after New Year, things weren’t as good as they had been during my first stay.
A lot of the old nurses had moved on and the new ones weren’t as much fun. Many of the kids were new too. They were a nice group, but they weren’t my real mates. Yet again I felt like everything had changed around me and I was the odd one out. That was becoming such a familiar feeling. At first it hit me hard, so I had a wobbly start back at Collingham, exercising furiously whenever I could until I dropped another kilo.
I’d heard the name ‘Rhodes Farm’ bandied about for the past couple of years by other anorexics and experts, especially when I was at Collingham. People always spoke of it with a certain awe. The place was regarded as the Alcatraz of anorexic centres – no one got out of there without being made to put on weight.
‘I’ll never go to Rhodes Farm,’ I said confidently. ‘Not me.’ Cockily, I thought I’d always be able to outwit the system.
At Collingham they had me straight back into counselling sessions too, which I still loathed. One session I spent the whole hour listening to my Walkman rather than answer their boring questions.
I made the decision I just had to get out of there as quickly as possible, which meant going along with whatever they wanted me to do – and that was eat. So I started eating whatever they put in front of me and gave myself a break from my constant battling.
I began to make some progress, clearing my plate at mealtimes and my mood improved too. And the less miserable I felt, the more inclined I was to eat. And the more I ate, the better I felt. Somehow I’d drifted out of the bad cycle I’d got stuck in at home and was in a better phase. I even started concentrating more in classes.
Paul said if I could reach 34 kilos I would be allowed home at weekends again. The alternative was misery weekends at the Chelsea and Westminster, and I’d have done anything to avoid those.
So I pretty much complied and ate what was put in front of me, and my weight crept up. Of course there were still times when I’d try to hide food but there were none of my tantrums and plate-throwing routines. I was much calmer at Collingham.
There were other treats too if I ate my meals. One day Paul took me shopping to Kensington High Street because I’d been making such good progress. For some reason we wandered into a Thorntons Chocolate shop – bizarre, I know! They had a raffle on and Paul got me a ticket. And what do you reckon? I won an Easter egg and it was huge. I felt so proud when I carried it back into Collingham. I didn’t eat it of course – I just kept it in my room – but it was great to look at.
Although I was eating more, I was still obsessed with exercise. Mum would come and visit me at weekends and if I’d been eating OK she would be allowed to take me shopping. But what Paul and the other nurses didn’t know was that once we were out of the front door I’d break into a run, desperate to burn off a few calories. Mum would be left trailing behind, trying to keep up.
But I knew she wouldn’t shop me to the nurses as that would mean she’d be barred from visiting. So again I had her over a barrel.
By the spring I had reached that golden 34 kilos (5 stone 5 lb) and was allowed to spend weekends at home again. But of course it was back to dodging food and exercising every weekend. If I didn’t take every opportunity to do that at home I’d feel guilty, as though I’d failed in some way.
Even when Mum came to collect me on the tube I’d run to the top of each escalator at the station for the exercise.
‘Please don’t do that, Nikki,’ she would say.
‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ I’d tell her. ‘Let’s just get home.’
In April it was my thirteenth birthday. Hurray, I was a teenager at last. Still no boobs or periods but I felt sure they had to come soon.
Just after my birthday I was allowed a weekend at home, so to celebrate I went with Lena and Jennifer to an under-18s disco. It was brilliant.
Still in a better frame of mind, I continued to gain weight. They were giving me enormous meals – plates piled high with chips, and custard on every pudding. There was no choice but to eat them. If I didn’t eat it or tried hiding anything then I’d just get the whole lot replaced and would have to start all over again.
On 21 June I hit my target of 38.2 kilos (6 stone). I was 142.2 centimetres (4 feet 8 inches) tall. Two days later I was discharged and allowed home.
Mum and Dad had been having loads of sessions with the doctors at Collingham while I was there about how they were going to prevent me losing all the weight again the minute I came out. They were trying to build Mum up, to teach her how to be strong with me when I was in a rage or negotiating myself down to one cream cracker for my dinner.
Mum had to make it clear to me that she was never going to let me die. The doctors thought that once I truly understood this I would feel more secure and stop trying to control situations myself by refusing to eat. It was a good idea in theory. But in practice, no chance.
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When I got home the weight fell off faster than ever before. My willpower kicked in and just wouldn’t let me give in to eating anything more than an allowance set by myself. It was like everything that had gone before, with bells on. It was during this autumn that my illness reached its peak.
There were still some meals that Mum could cook me which I was OK about. A slice of roast beef in a gravy from a packet was allowed because I knew there was 120 calories in the gravy and roast beef was only 100. With that I’d have one potato cut into four (120 calories) and carrots (virtually none).
I remember thinking to myself, I wish I could eat food, not numbers. But I couldn’t. My entire life was dictated by calorific values.
Mum was trying to get tougher with me and would make lasagne (500 calories) or macaroni cheese (500 calories) as ‘punishment meals’ if she thought I’d been hiding food or exercising a lot. But I knew exactly how many calories a lasagne contained and would just go mental about it.
So it was the same old battles. Several times I scalded myself on my stomach when I tried to hide spag Bol and other food down my knickers. Another time Mum found pasta inside my school sock. Most of my clothes got food stains on them somewhere before Mum returned to insisting I ate in my knickers.
I threw Complan drinks in the plant pots, shoved food behind the cooker until we got rats, and would often fill my mouth with food but then spit it out when no one was looking.
If Mum even considered giving me the kind of portions I had meekly eaten up while at Collingham, the whole lot went straight over the dining room wall. Poor Mum spent so many evenings wiping off all the pasta sauce and grease.
I was being sick, throwing food around, hiding food and doing everything I possibly could to get my weight back down again.
Mum looked so sad and so hopeless. But I still thought this was all her fault and she deserved my outbursts – she shouldn’t be making me eat when I didn’t want to.
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