Fragile

by Nikki Grahame

  At the same time I was eating less and less. Gypsy Booth, who ran the school, called me over one afternoon. ‘Nikki, I’m really sorry but I’m going to have to pull you out of some of the dances for the Christmas show,’ she said. ‘You’re too weak.’

  I told Gypsy I had an overactive thyroid and I was waiting for the doctor to sort it out but I don’t think I fooled her for a moment. For some time I’d known I wasn’t doing the jumps properly because I was so weak but I’d been trying to ignore it.

  I was distraught at being dropped from the dances and that just made me more stressed. So I ate even less. And as the weight dropped off me and I spent day after day looking at myself in front of a dance mirror in a leotard, I got to like what I saw and wanted to get even thinner. I had tumbled back into that old vicious circle.

  Mum was desperately worried too.

  I knew perfectly well what was happening – I could tell from the haunted look in my own face. And I knew I had to do something if I wanted to avoid going back into hospital. I tried making myself eat things like Twix bars but then I’d be so racked with guilt afterwards that I’d make myself exercise like a freak again.

  By the beginning of 2001 I was in a bad state and my weight had slid to 34.5 kilos (5 stone 6 lb). Then one afternoon Gypsy sat me down and said, ‘I’m sorry, Nikki, but I’m going to have to bar you from the school until you put some weight on. If anything happened and you had an accident because you are so weak, it would be my fault, and I can’t have that on my conscience.’

  I was devastated. I’d been planning to make dancing my career and now the dream was being ripped away from me. I admitted to myself that I had to go back into hospital – I was too far down the road to pull myself back on my own. But now I was an adult there were more problems than ever securing funding from the local authority to get me a place in an eating-disorders unit.

  My GP tried everywhere to get me help. By April the situation was critical and I lost a further 2 kilos (4½ lb) in four weeks. But, with the restrictions on funding, even Dr Lask and Huntercombe were unable to do anything. I was getting more and more angry and miserable that no one seemed to want to help me and my weight dropped further. I spent my days charging round the local streets, burning off calories. I’d gone past the point of being able to help myself.

  Then in June they admitted me to the Adult Psychiatric Unit at Hillingdon Hospital. It was to be my first experience living with adults with severe mental problems and it was utterly terrifying.

  CHAPTER 20

  NEVER GOING BACK

  At night, men would trail their bodies up and down the corridor outside my room. Sometimes they’d bang their heads on the wall in frustration, as if trying to rid themselves of whatever demons writhed inside. Other times they would rattle my door handle, terrifying me as I lay, hiding under my duvet.

  Schizophrenics, alcoholics and the homeless, unloved and unwanted, had washed up in the psychiatric unit, their minds disconnected and floating free of the outside world. I hated it and couldn’t face leaving my room to be brought so close to the brutal sadness of others’ tragedies.

  Day after day I sat in my room and watched television. If I even went to the loo I had to take my valuables with me so they didn’t get nicked.

  Being in that place didn’t help me one bit. It didn’t make me eat – I was just given my meals and left alone, so it was little different from being at home. I’d been there about a week when one evening I was in the day room watching telly when I became conscious of an old man sitting in the chair opposite, staring at me. When I looked over at him, I glanced down and thought I was going to be sick. His eyes focused on me, he was masturbating.

  I ran straight out of the room and to the phone, where I rang Mum’s number, my hands shaking.

  ‘You’ve got to get me out of here!’ I screamed. ‘Now.’

  Mum was there within half an hour and as we accelerated away from Hillingdon Hospital I was shuddering with relief.

  Almost immediately I was found a bed in the Eating Disorders Unit at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in Beckenham, Kent. The world’s first psychiatric hospital, it is famous for being known originally as ‘the Bedlam’ and giving that frightening word to the English language. Nowadays it has staff expert in treating adult eating disorders. But the regime was horribly tough.

  When I arrived I weighed in at 32.8 kilos (5 stone 2 lb) and was 155 centimetres (5 feet 1 inch) tall. And although I was a voluntary patient there was no messing around. If I didn’t eat what they served up to make me put on weight, I’d be instantly tubed.

  The meals were terrifying, and you had to eat it all, every time. For breakfast it was a cup of tea with two sugars, three Weetabix with 0.15 litres (¼ pint) of full-cream milk, then beans on toast plus two extra slices of buttered toast and orange juice.

  Ten o’clock was snack time – a mug of full-cream milk with two sugars or a Nesquik milkshake and two digestive biscuits.

  For lunch you were allowed to choose from a menu but it was usually something like quiche and veg, followed by chocolate sponge with chocolate sauce.

  The afternoon snack was a cup of milk and a doughnut. Dinner would be similar to lunch.

  There was a 45-minute time limit for finishing every meal and if you refused food outright, or even just messed around with it, they would use the replacing rule that was so familiar to me.

  The nurses didn’t take any nonsense. Once, I said, ‘Please, I really can’t drink that milk with all that cream in it.’

  ‘Deal with it,’ the nurse snapped back.

  They wouldn’t even let me know how much I weighed, making me stand backwards on the scales so I couldn’t see the reading.

  There was no camaraderie between the patients either. Everyone was out for themselves and anorexic competitiveness and bitchiness was at its worst.

  It was shocking to see how sick some of the adults were. There were women with really high-powered jobs being sick in paper bags and ex-junkies wandering around. Then there were other women in their 40s with kids, sitting sobbing as the nurses just walked past them. Other women had been banged up in there for years.

  The whole place was vile but something there must have worked for me because I complied. There were no tantrums and I ate everything put in front of me.

  The whole experience showed me how horrific those adult units are and made me determined not to spend the rest of my life yo-yoing in and out of them. I knew that mentally I’d left all that shit behind me and this was just a temporary relapse. I’d grown out of all this – I didn’t need it any more.

  And I hated being away from friends and family more than ever. I’d fought so hard to build myself a life in the outside world and I was in danger of losing it all over again.

  But lurking at the back of my mind was another huge reason to comply. I knew that if I refused or acted up, they had the option of sectioning me – legally holding me against my will. And if they did that I’d be locked up in there for a minimum of six months and possibly for ever.

  After two weeks at the Bethlem Royal I was eating sensibly again. I’d just needed a kick in the right direction. But I couldn’t bear another moment in there and after the second ward rounds, I announced that I was discharging myself.

  I knew I had made good progress, so they no longer had grounds for sectioning me, and on 9 July, a fortnight after I’d arrived, I walked out of the door.

  As I sat in the back seat of a cab on the way home, I swore to myself: I am never going back into one of those places again.

  And until now – touch wood – I haven’t.

  Back home I made some tough decisions. As much as I loved dancing I knew that for me it was too dangerous to pursue professionally, so I reduced it to a couple of evening classes and made it into a hobby instead.

  Then I enrolled at college in Harrow to study for an NVQ in beauty therapy. I’d always loved beauty products and make-up and the course seemed perfect for me. At the same time I got a part-time
job working on the Clarins counter at John Lewis in Watford.

  I loved doing my NVQ – it felt like I was making up for all the school time I had missed out on. When I finished college I was able to make the Clarins job full-time. But I was always getting into trouble and had five disciplinaries against me for chatting on the phone at work, chewing gum, wearing the wrong shoes and even sleeping in the beauty room and putting on fake tan while on duty! At the same time I had the highest sales in the region, so they kept me.

  I came pretty close to marriage around this time, when I met my first true love, Chris Jakes, at a John Lewis Christmas party. He was really good-looking but most importantly he was incredibly caring and warm. He was out that night with his colleagues from a different firm. Within days I had fallen for him.

  A fortnight after we met he went on holiday with his family to Dubai for Christmas. I rang his Mum and said, ‘I’m going to fly over to see him.’ And I did.

  A lot of people will think that is just bonkers but it was love. For six months I didn’t tell Chris anything about my childhood or my anorexia – I needed him to think I was normal. But when I finally told him my whole story he couldn’t have been more supportive.

  But then I started feeling he was being too nice and I felt a bit suffocated. He wanted to marry me but I wasn’t sure about that kind of commitment. I realised I was treating him like shit and he was letting me get away with it.

  When I ended our relationship I broke his heart and I feel bad about that because he is such a nice guy. But we’re still good mates now.

  Eventually I got the push from John Lewis for being just too naughty but Clarins still wanted me, so they moved me to Debenhams and I loved it there too.

  The only difficult area in my life was Mum’s new boyfriend, Rory. She had split up with Tony soon after I came out of Rhodes Farm. Apparently they’d been growing apart for a while and it can’t have been easy for him coping with me and Natalie. We’d both been pretty mean to Tony at times but deep down we were really fond of him and the separation came as a shock.

  This new bloke, from Mum’s work, was just awful. He was only 27 and I felt that he hated me and Natalie. Things got a bit tense at home and I went to live with Dad for a while. But then we had a fall-out and he kicked me out. It was a bit complicated really because Natalie was then working locally as a home carer and had been living with Dad when I turned up one day with all my bags in the back of a cab. There was no room for all of us, so Nat moved back to Mum’s.

  But after Dad kicked me out I couldn’t turf Natalie out of a room again by moving back to Mum’s and we were getting on so badly again I knew we wouldn’t survive long under the same roof. One night we had a massive row after my friend wouldn’t get off Natalie’s computer and it ended up with us physically fighting. I was pulling her hair, then she kicked me and broke a rib.

  My bones are very fragile because of my osteoporosis caused by anorexia but it didn’t stop me getting into scraps with Natalie.

  There was still so much anger and jealousy between both of us and the merest incident brought it all tumbling out. Natalie was still mad that Mum had dedicated so much time and attention to me when I was ill and I was mad at her that she’d been at home with Mum.

  So all in all we decided it was best for me to find my own place and I went on the council list for accommodation. They found me a room in a hostel-type block with communal shower and kitchen areas. I was there for a year and a half and it was awful.

  The shared areas were filthy. Sometimes I’d walk in the bathroom and there would be bloody sanitary towels stuffed behind the radiator and used razor blades lying on the floor. Some of the children even pooed in the back garden.

  At one point the whole place became infested with cockroaches – they were there for three days before the pest-control team turned up.

  One night someone tried to force their way into my room. Terrified, I just lay there rigid under my duvet. Another time I had to lie and listen as a guy beat up his wife. I could her head being banged against the wall. I was frozen with fear.

  With all my OCD issues it was a nightmare and I ended up cooking most of my meals and taking showers at Mum’s flat.

  I signed on with an employment agency which got me work on beauty counters in all sort of different stores, including House of Fraser and Harrods. Working in the West End was brilliant – I loved the buzz of it.

  Then I rented my own flat really near to Mum’s and Carly moved in with me. We were both in control of our eating and things couldn’t have been better.

  CHAPTER 21

  BIG BROTHER

  I’d already applied to Big Brother once but hadn’t been selected. On my application form I’d told them the whole grim story of my illness and the years away from home and they probably read it and dropped it like a hot potato.

  So when I decided to apply again for the 2006 series I knew this time I had to hide everything about my anorexia if I was to stand any chance of getting selected. Open auditions were being held in Wembley towards the end of 2005 and I persuaded Carly to come along with me for moral support.

  By the time we arrived, it was already mid-afternoon. We joined a queue which seemed to stretch for miles and waited our turn. I was supposed to be meeting another friend at five o’clock. She was dating a footballer and we were going up to Sheffield for the weekend to see him and his mate, who I really fancied.

  As it got closer and closer to five o’clock and then passed it, my friend kept ringing me, increasingly frantic that I hadn’t shown up.

  ‘I think I’d better just go,’ I said to Carly. ‘This guy in Sheffield is really fit and I’ll never get chosen for Big Brother anyway.’

  Another five minutes went by and my friend kept on ringing my mobile.

  ‘That’s it, I’m going,’ I told Carly. ‘I can’t keep her waiting any longer.’ And at that exact moment I was called in front of the judging panel.

  ‘Right, you’ve got one minute to say why you should go into the Big Brother house,’ a producer shouted in my direction.

  And then my phone rang again. It was my friend going mad that I still hadn’t shown up. So I spent the first 30 seconds of my precious minute on the phone to her, telling her to calm down and go without me.

  By the time I came off the phone, all I had time to say was, ‘My name’s Nikki, I love Big Brother, I’ve watched every single episode.’

  A woman from the production team stamped my hand and said, ‘You’re through.’ I nearly collapsed!

  Months later the Producer called to say he’d decided I was through to the next round from the first moment I opened my mouth.

  Next I had a minute in a mock diary room in which I had to talk about myself. I remember saying, ‘I want to be rich and I want to never have to work again as I hate work and being told what to do.’

  That night I went home so excited. Deep down I had a feeling I was going to be accepted.

  For weeks after that nothing happened at all. Then finally I got a phone call from Endemol, the production company which makes Big Brother, asking me to come and see them. At the meeting they asked me what kind of things I enjoyed doing and all about my family and my job. But any questions about my childhood I neatly avoided – or simply lied.

  The audition process went on for six months. I had home visits, medical checks, reference checks and psychiatric checks. Luckily I was an old hand at telling psychiatrists what they wanted to hear.

  As for the home visit, they came round when Mum was on holiday and so they just met Carly at my flat instead, and she already knew not to mention anything about anorexia.

  I hadn’t told anyone in the world apart from Mum and Carly that I’d applied for Big Brother, I wanted this to be my secret.

  As well as face-to-face interviews there were endless phone calls asking me more questions about myself, but whatever they asked I never let anything slip about my anorexia. I was a reasonable weight at the time, so there was no reason why they would
have guessed.

  The night before my twenty-third birthday I went on a big night out with a group of friends. Somehow we got separated and I lost them. They had my door keys, so when I got home to my flat in the early hours I couldn’t get in and had to go round to Mum’s.

  The next day I was tired, hung-over and still in my clothes from the night before when my phone rang.

  ‘Hi, Nikki,’ said the woman on the other end. ‘I’m Claire O’Donohue, Executive Producer at Big Brother.’

  By then I knew enough about how things worked when I heard the words ‘Executive Producer’. I certainly knew one of those wouldn’t be bothering to ring me if it was just another umpteen questions about my favourite colours and star sign. I sat down slowly on the edge of the chair, my hands beginning to tremble.

  ‘I’m delighted to tell you,’ she went on, ‘you’ve been selected as a housemate.’

  I screamed. It was the best news I’d ever had – ever.

  ‘What, do you mean an actual housemate? Not just a standby?’ I asked when I finally came back to my senses.

  ‘Yes, an actual housemate,’ she laughed. ‘We need you to meet a chaperone at Sloane Square station at eight o’clock on Monday morning. And bring plenty of clothes – you’ll be away from home for a while.’

  When I put the phone down I could feel charges of electricity pulsing through my body. Mum and I hugged and screamed and hugged some more. At last I was going to achieve something special after all the awful things I’d been through. And something that would stick two fingers up at all the people who’d made fun of me in the past and thought I’d never amount to anything.

  I also hoped it would help me challenge some of my demons, particularly my OCD problems. By throwing myself into an incredibly difficult situation I might emerge stronger.

  In the heat of all that excitement and hope, I was thinking, This is the moment my life changes. And it was.