Thin

by Grace Bowman

  And now you have got another of your cronies on board. A lady who makes me write down everything I eat. She makes lists of things that I should eat, and I don’t eat them. What is the point of that? To make me feel humiliated? Well done. You have humiliated me. I don’t think anybody is laughing. The worst thing is that the lady is so nice. I don’t do nice at the moment. I’m sorry. So you are all there, looking at me, observing me, trying to work me out and I’m not really interested. I can’t look at any of you any more.

  Everybody stares, and sometimes I don’t even notice. People are always around me; they don’t dare leave me on my own. They watch me sip my soup, looking on and devising ways to try and feed my little body. I am seeing only inwards. Inwards is absorbing. Outside there is nothing for me. Nobody gets it, only the insides understand. They are not even being nice to me, you know. A lot of the time there are people screaming at me. They tell me that I have messed everything up. I have caused this big dent in the family. I just want them to ignore it. Why can’t they just ignore it? I will get it fixed for them. OK, all right, sorry. Yes, I take the blame. Just don’t bring it up, please. Don’t mention how you can’t work, think, sleep, even eat, for God’s sake, with this on your mind. I am not used to this. I am a nineties child. I don’t expect to be fed; I opened the door with my own key when I came home from school. Can you believe it! I made my own meals. And now I cut and chop in meticulous detail. Everything I make is quite beautiful.

  The highlight of my week is going to the supermarket. It is a frantic, heart-pumping experience. I am on a high. If only I were let loose on my own, then it would be uncontrollably good. I could spend hours finding out more about my specialist subject. Put me on Mastermind. I would memorize the contents of the entire supermarket. At the moment I am forced to rush around and pretend I am not interested. Do you know what it feels like when the extra low-fat cottage cheese is missing? They don’t think of people like me and our needs. My stomach rolls. And the trouble with the supermarket is that I have to bump into people I know. There is no room in this squeezed-up town. More starers. Last week someone hurtled up to me with her trolley, her face full of pity.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Head tilted.

  I hate the concern. It’s so embarrassing. They seem to think I have failed. I reply mechanically, I project what they want to hear. I don’t want to make any more people worry than is necessary. I disconnect from the thought.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  Mum strides up behind me and pounces. ‘No, you’re not. What are you talking about? She’s not fine and she’s not OK.’

  Lady with trolley looks taken aback. She didn’t need to hear. People don’t. Not when they are in Sainsbury’s. They don’t know what to say. Embarrassed well-wisher has not expected this response and says her pitiful farewells. It is really humiliating. There you go – I have engaged with a feeling. You must be pleased. My eyes even heated up so much I almost cried. I never cry in public. I almost exposed myself. I almost let them prick me. And I don’t fight back when they shout at me because I can hardly open my mouth any more – words slice through my throat.

  I cried today. I won’t tell you I did, like I won’t really tell you what I think, but between me and me, today I really cried. I don’t cry because I am not sure I will be able to stop. Like if I lie down, I might not be able to ever get up again. Like if I eat … well, you know … where are the limits and where are the edges once you decide to let go?

  So, Dr Whitecoat, what do you make of me?

  This is I.

  Eight

  I have seen the photos of me. They show me them, to help me see better. All I can see are the fat bits. Their mouths fall open.

  ‘How can you?’

  How can I? That’s what I see. I suppose the rest of me doesn’t look particularly pleasant but that is why I cover it up. They don’t usually take photos of me, anyway. They probably don’t want to indulge me, not in any respect. The other day I found some trousers that actually fitted me. Mostly things are hanging off my hips, which is annoying because I can’t really go shopping, but these size six trousers were perfect. I couldn’t believe it – I had halved my size. Size twelve made me feel far too big. Not allowed! But six! Even though I bought some nice trousers, Mum wasn’t happy which is unusual because we have always loved shopping together – but not any more. They are some black, thick, velvety trousers. I will have to wear them every day because I do not have any other ones. Size six!

  I stare at photos of me aged six years old. I was so pretty then, and so thin. I wonder if I was always going to have fat thighs and hips, or if I could have avoided it. I turn the photo all around to look at the different angles of my childhood body. If only I could have made myself eat less, or exercise more, then maybe I would have had thin thighs now. I should have tried harder in PE, like my teacher said. I should have tried harder at cross-country running. In fact, maybe I should do some running? If everyone stopped watching me for a second, then I would get some space to run. I would like to run long distances, so I could forget myself.

  I can’t really find a proper image of me, which is frustrating. Every mirror seems to tell a different story. In the changing rooms I shrink and grow from shop to shop. They are trying to fool me. I know their tricks. They make me appear taller and thinner, longer, more stretched out. I like to look at other girls in the changing rooms and examine their shapes, so that I can compare them to mine. It helps me think about how I must work harder to be more like them. I am sure that my real, true, perfect shape is out there somewhere, and one day I will get it, and fit into it, and be happy in it, and things will feel better.

  It is just better to be lighter. I am sure that many people feel this. You feel so much clearer, as if nothing weighs you down. You can almost stop the thoughts of anything bad or scary (except the food, of course). You float along, and all the other silly fears evaporate around you. I know I don’t entirely see straight, but it’s the clearest sight I have had for a long time. It’s unimpinged on by other things – there is one direction and one focus, and everything else has sort of melted away.

  The doctors and the well-wishers try to make me see things through their eyes, as if mine can’t be trusted. I can’t let that happen because I can’t see round the corner of their plans. With my way I know where I am going; I know that with every pound/stone/kilo/ounce that comes off, things feel better. The other way will feel bad. It will feel worse every day with every extra pound/stone/kilo/ounce that they make me put on. They will have to make me do it, because I won’t concede.

  I don’t usually like breaking the rules like this. I don’t like getting told off. I got told off once or twice at school for putting on make-up or for wearing a round-necked jumper instead of a V-necked one, and I didn’t like it. I tried to smirk and smile, and be disobedient to fit in, but I didn’t know how to do it, it’s not in me. Now people are treating me like a naughty girl. I let everyone down. I ruined their plans for me. I made everybody cry. But I didn’t mean for it to happen like this. I am not very good at fighting with the outside. The fight is inside, and it is with myself.

  My English teacher from school even calls me up at home and asks me why have I done this to myself (people do, they can’t help but wonder). It is really embarrassing because I was always a really good student. He sounds vexed because I have spoiled things. The school sent me a book token with a special bookplate: a prize for being the best English A-level student. I wonder if they gave it to me as a badge of sympathy. I stuck the bookplate into a new, crisp, hardback book, but I don’t seem to be able to read it now. My teacher is kind, but I don’t want him to be like that, full of sympathy and confusion because I am quite clear, not confused. And he asks me, ‘How did this happen?’

  And I tell him, ‘Well, the doctor thinks it is because I am a perfectionist.’

  I think that this is a good interpretation of me, and one which my teacher will be pleased with (clever girl, I think to myself),
but instead he says, ‘You wouldn’t think you were a perfectionist, not by looking at your handwriting.’

  Then he sort of laughs a bit, because he is uncomfortable (I think), but he also thinks that he has made a good joke. I don’t laugh, because I think he is right; I don’t dot the ‘i’ on perfection and perhaps I should try harder to do so. I really should work on my handwriting. Then we say goodbye, and I think that this is all mixed up. I have left school, and I should be at university now. Then my teacher speaks to my mum, and it is embarrassing, for him to be talking to her about me, because I am no longer a school girl; that girl in the uniform is behind us both.

  ‘Get well soon,’ he says.

  ‘I will,’ I say.

  Nine

  The plan is as follows:

  Exercise = 40 minutes a day

  Reading = 2 hours a day

  Television watching = 8 hours a day

  Eating = 20 minutes a day

  Sleeping = 10 hours a day

  Thinking = 2 hours a day

  Cleaning = 1 hour a day

  I don’t like to be disturbed. I like to be in this place, at this time, that is how I like things. Please do not try to move me. My Cindy Crawford aerobics video keeps me sane, and yet I have to practise it while everyone is out of the house because they think it is damaging me. I alternate between the two forty-minute workouts. I know the entire sequence, every word that is said and every beat of the music:

  ‘This exercise is really great for this little muscle in here’ (model points to top of thigh, I point to top of my thigh), ‘and one, and two … and twenty.’

  I think it must be one of the better videos, because you actually feel it deep in your muscles. I don’t dare try any other tapes in case they don’t work, and then I will have wasted my exercise time. I think that if it hurts, it means that it must have some impact. NO PAIN – NO GAIN (or weight loss, in my case). I feel such satisfaction when my muscles ache and pulse with pain, and when it feels as though I am tearing my heart out. It is the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing I think of at night. I think about it all day in between, too. I don’t understand why they try and stop me doing it. I am making myself fit. I sometimes wonder if they know that I start exercising the very second they leave me on my own. As I watch the car pull away, I jump into my cycling shorts and press ‘play’. Sometimes they seem to come back just to check on me. This is so frustrating. I have to stop the tape, pull off my trainers and hide them behind the sofa, run to the bathroom, wipe the sweat from my face and pretend I have been lying there on my bed (like the way they want me to be), doing nothing. They want me to do nothing, so that I don’t use up any energy. My bottom is hurting from the hours I have spent lying and sitting down. I need this workout to refresh me. I need this to make me feel something, otherwise I feel disgusting and heavy and flabby.

  They prefer it when I read. ‘Reading is motionless,’ they tell me. ‘Reading can help you relax.’

  I sit there, pen in hand, analysing the text. I do not relax when I read. I think of achieving. I think of how I need to be better, and know more and be more intelligent. I now have doubts about going to Bristol University where I should be right now. I was only going there because of its Olympicsized swimming pool and the gym’s easy access – all so I could make sure I got plenty of exercise. I know they say I won’t go to university anyway, not even next year, but I don’t think like that. I can’t think like that, like I can’t eat chicken and potatoes. I have been reading about Cambridge University. This seems like the ideal place for me. Now this illness has happened to me, it must be this way for a reason. If I have to be away from university for a year, missing out on all the things that my friends are doing, then when I go, I want to go to the best place possible. So I sent away for the prospectus. The college at Cambridge that I like has a gym actually on site – it’s ideal! Of course, they are all speechless. Mouths drop. Eyes bulge. Tears form. They don’t even congratulate me on making such a brave decision. They almost refuse to take my application form to school to get a reference from my old sixth-form head of year.

  ‘Of course,’ they say, ‘we will have to ask him to mention your illness on the form.’

  ‘Of course!’ I say.

  My form is perfect. I have typed and retyped and retyped and retyped it. It is neat and tidy and faultless. He can mention my illness if they want, but my perfect form to Cambridge is in the post.

  I tell them not to interfere. When they start to meddle I just step up the pace. They can’t understand the way I order things. I like things in order. Faultless. I like things done in a special way, or I get into a panic. It is the way I am. I have always been a person of routine. I am a creature of habit. It makes me feel better. I like to know how my day is planned. I know it all inside out. They don’t like this at all. They want to be part of it and so try and give me suggestions of things I should add to make my life more normal, more like theirs. I think this is their way of dampening their own guilt. It’s like my kind of control isn’t acceptable. You can hear it in the voices of strangers when I tell them I don’t drink tea or coffee and, ‘No thank you, I don’t drink alcohol either.’

  They find it too difficult. They can’t understand how I can possibly be so restrained.

  ‘Don’t you miss food?’

  ‘Doesn’t this cake smell lovely? It would taste so good.’

  No thank you. Blocked out, blocked out.

  They convince themselves that I must break off from time to time. I must give in and join them in their weaknesses and addictions. But I never break! Really, never. I never give in. They can’t imagine. They try, day after day, to be like me. That’s the irony. Of course, they don’t admit it, but they are constantly fighting their own battles against the biscuits. It’s what we are told to do. It’s what we should all be doing. I am just doing it to a further degree.

  I will stop this when I am ready. I don’t know how, because I don’t really think in that direction at the moment, but I am sure there will be a way out when I am ready. They think I am like other girls and boys who have eating problems, but I don’t see myself like them. I didn’t realize it was such a big thing. I had no idea about anorexia before this or even what it meant. I never aspired to it. I never thought about it before. It is not like I wanted to join this club. Anyway, I am carrying on as normal because I can. Everyone seems surprised. But I have to carry on as normal because that is what I know. This is tiring. Thought is tiring. It is easier to just keep going forward, bit by bit. And to eat my medium-sized tomato to fill me up in the afternoon.

  And so the scenario goes something like this.

  Dr Whitecoat: ‘How about it if Dad were to make you some cottage cheese on crackers before you go to bed?’

  I shrug my shoulders and force a reply. ‘I can’t.’

  Mum starts to cry.

  Now Dr Whitecoat has made my mum cry and this makes me feel so sick.

  ‘I can feed myself … you don’t understand … I’m not a child.’

  I hardly consent to the words; I don’t like talking to him because then he thinks I am playing along. I hardly move my tongue. I force it back into my throat so that the words get stuck on my lips. My mouth hardly moves.

  Dr Whitecoat shifts and smirks. ‘You realize that you won’t be going anywhere if you don’t get better. To tell the truth, I highly doubt that you will get to university this time next year. And to think of applying to Cambridge, that is surely the worst decision! Have you thought of going to a college closer to home? Then you could continue to come here and Mum and Dad could keep an eye on you.’

  Bang. Bang. Bang. Degrading, disgusting doctor, white-coat. He makes me explode.

  ‘I’m not staying in this fucking shithole and I’m sick of your fucking interference. I can sort this out myself. It is so demeaning to sit here while you talk about fucking cottage cheese …’

  I stop myself. Who cares about cottage cheese? They think they know my patterns so w
ell that now they are trying to adopt them for themselves. They are trying to talk in my anorexia language. They really have no idea.

  Their other tactician is the nice-lady-dietician. She tries a different approach. Dr Whitecoat isn’t very popular, and he only talks about the feelings side of things, whereas nicelady-dietician is supposed to get to the nitty-gritty of the food business. So this time, it is another hospital and another corridor with brown plastic seats and old ladies. Nice-lady-dietician is a mother; she talks of her two children (who haven’t wrecked their families and who do eat their Christmas dinner) and their successes. Her daughter, who I went to school with (but we don’t mention that), is at university, and she is studying to be a doctor. She is lovely and jolly, and probably fatter than me and very happy. I am glad for the nice-lady-dietician’s jolly daughter, but I am very pleased that I don’t have to eat the nice-lady-dietician’s dinners. I have to sit on some scales, which look like a big potty, and the whole place smells of wee. I can see why they are doing this to me. They want to degrade me. Perhaps they think that if they sit me here like a baby or an old person, I will feel humiliated into eating. It only makes me feel sick and cold and dirty. I want to get out of my clothes and lie in a boiling hot bath and forget this. I let them do it, only so I can be left alone.

  I have made some pretty patterns in my food diary. I have to write down everything I eat and drink. This must include all things such as laxatives (I don’t use these – I am not even sure what they look like – but I wonder if I should). No one believes me when I say it anyway. The nice-lady-dietician is, of course, impressed by the accuracy of my diary. Amazingly, I have managed to do this most difficult of tasks. It feels like school in a boring, easy lesson with a patronizing teacher.

  ‘Well done, you,’ she says.

  I have correctly charted each hour of the week with perfect regularity. I have used the blank page very creatively to make her happy. I don’t like to disappoint. Give me a new challenge and I will rise to the occasion. My diary looks like this: