Article on AN

Tabloid style, flowery writing.

"So thin, my insides fell out" (actually it wasn't her weight, it was the other physical effects...)

"I flinched back, whimpering. My heart hammered. "ok just have one spoonful" the nurse said gently, nudging the jacket potato closer to me. "and then you can go"

I shook my head determinedly, lips pressed hard together. Didn't she understand? I couldnt. i never wanted to eat another morsel again.

if i did my hips would develop sexy curves. My breasts would bloom, my skin would glow. and the boys would start to fancy me again. horrific.

I was only 15 but i'd been anorexic for 5 years now, bulimic for a year. thats why i was here, staying at a unit specialising in eating disorders.

Now my hair was falling out, my skin was plagued with bedsores. My illness had even caused my periods to stp. But my increasingly terrified parents and these damned nurses just didnt get the point... i would far rather be like this than be shapely and gorgeous.

you see, i'd been a happy popular tomboy once.

but aged 10 my periods had started, my body had sprouted breasts, a feminine form. The advances of adolescent boys had terrified me. but instead of sympathising, my jealous girlfriends had turned their backs. "slag". they'd hissed. it didnt help that i was top of the class, they hated my for that too. Lonely and scared, i'd started dieting, desperate to lose my hated 7.5 stone curves.

but once i'd started, i couldnt stop. what if i got pretty again? within 2 years i was surviving on apple sandwiches and rasins. At 5' 4" i was a gaunt, weak 5.5 stone skeleton.

that's when i'd had to be hospitalised the first time, slowly fattened up to my natural weight. But back at s"chool, i'd been haunted by constant woolf whistles and taunts again. Ao i'd discovered bulimia. bingeing feverishly on junk food, then throwing it all back up again. Sometimes i'd be sick up to 20 times a day.

so here i was now, back in the hospital, a walking bag of bones. refusing every disgusting meal. "you'll die if you dont stop this" the doctor explained. "or you could end up infertile". I bit back tears. deep down inside i knew he was right. "but i cant", i wept. every calorie threatened to make me the object of lust and envy again/ "cant you see all the damageyou're doing?" my mum wept as dad nodded behind her. "i'll try" i sighed. and i did manage to eat enough to return home two months on. but when i started a course at drama college...."you're gorgeous" lads purred. girls flashed flinty glares/ and i fled, to binge and purge again...

it was like i'd started a ball rolling downhill/ now it was crashing faster and faster, hurtling out of control... I started vomiting up blood, suffered agonising stomach pains. i couldnt concentrate - i had awful constipation and diarrhoea. you're falling apart, mum wept, unable to stop me/

she was right. and 18 months on i was back in hospital, just 6 stone, shaking like an old woman. "you're not getting enough nutrients"the nurse said. a wake up call? time to start eating properly? you'd think so, but i was too terrified. so back home i continued to subject my body to bulimia. "please stop Gemma, mum begged. "or you're going to die". I batted her away. she didnt understand. bulimia was my life now. so i kept bingeing, even when my front teeth began to erode from the surges of stomach acid. and i kept starving myself, despite the searing cramps in my legs and chest.

when i was 20, i weighted, 6 stone 10lbs, i felt dizzy and weak. even a trip down to london with an old friend was exhausting. especially when she took us to a turkish restaurant and ordered us huge platters with kebabs an vegetables. my belly groaned as i ate. It was so disgusting.

back home the next day i slumped on my bed, brippled with stomach cramps. it felt like diarrhoea starting again. "great" i groaned, getting up and hobbling to the loo. but as i sat on the toilet, i let out a shriek. it felt like a knife was stabbing up through my bottom, i pushed and strained. then - pure terror. something warm and pulsing was stuck, halfway out my bottom. i was too scared to look. i wrapped my hand in toilet roll, gingerly felt around beneath me. it felt like a soft, satsuma-sized ball hanging out my anus/ every touch was excruciating. what the hell was it? mum! i screeched, all shame vanishing in my panic. help!

she raced upstairs and clattered in. as i hoisted myself off the toilet seat, she squealed in horror. i stared down at last, saw dark pink flesh sticking out between my lefs. "what is it?" i whimpered. "i think its your bowel" mum croaked. "i think you'll have to try to push it back up". I retched, disgusted by her words. my bowel?. bracing myself on the toilet, i used my hand wrapped in the loo roll and began to push it back up. i clenched and the protrusion went back inside. the pain became a dull throb. then mum helped me hobble to the doctors.

i cringed as he examined my bottom. the shame There was no sign of the lump, but i could still barely sit down. "it sounds like a bowl prolapse - where part of your bowl gets pushed out" the doctor said. "its very rare in young women". "might it be bacause of my eating disorders" i asked. most likely he nodded. so little food had reached my bowels that the muscles there had weakened. when i'd needed to push, my bowel had come loose and fallen out. A prolapse could also mean the walls of my vagina were weakened. "i'm so stupid" i raged. all thse years i'd ignored the warning signs of the harm i was doing. i'd ignored my hair falling out, my sore skin, the cramps and pains. I'd damaged my teeth, my stomach. but as for my bowel actually falling out of me!

I was mortified, at last it hit me, i was literally tearing my whole body apart. "i cant do this anymore" i told mum "i just want o be healthy, i'l eat, stop vomiting, whatever it takes." she nodded back at me, too choked with emotion to speak.

so i limped back home with packets of laxatives to stop me straining, and orders to eat lots of fibre. but justt eating in itself was difficult. it felt so unnatural.

i forced down a tiny serving of cereal, swincing. My belly felt disgustingly full - but i didnt vomit afterwards. "well done!" mum urged. every cornflake stuck in my throat, every slice of fruit made me retch.

yet i persevered. my bowl prolapsed twice more at home. agony.

back at the hospital the final indignity waited. after an enema, i had to sit on a special toilet chair, force myself to prolapse my bowel while doctors watched. I wept, so ashamed. but now id been diagnosed. I was operated on, had six inches of weak damaged bowel removed from ym system. You're lucky, the surgeon told me. "thres no lasting damage to your bowel of vagina". thank god. after all i'd done to my body, i barely deserved it. "but i've changed now." i vowed. "i'll never let this happen again"

i meant it too

three months on i'm forcing down 3 meals a day, i've only vomited a few times.

I'm still on laxatives, its not easy but i'm already up to 7 stone. I'm aiming to tip the scales at a healthy 8.5 stone. and i'm finally dreaming of a happy life without eating disorders. a career as an actress maybe. even love and children sometime in the future.

yes my burgeoning curves still scare me. but i tell myself - they dont make me an outcast. they make me healthy. at the age of 20 i've realised its ok to be pretty, to be fancied. i've just got to learn to accept that."

Reply 1

white_haired_wizard

Yikes...

is than an explanation for why some girls are annorexic? Fear of looking attractive enough to attract attention of boys? Pure fear....? Im not annorexic myself....well, im a 12 stone healthy bloke, but i can relate this in a perverse way, if not slightly appropriate, to this attraction arguement.

I dress down because i feel very uncomfortable in formal clothes, posh clothes, this in case of attracting women...its a fear factor in a way...dress down to look unappealing...its a defence mechanism of sorts - is this something of an aspect annorexic women can have?

Reply 2

white_haired_wizard

I know some may think im talking utter balls here...but its sometimes bad enough having the blond hair, blue eyes stereotype - they tend to stand out of the crowd because of these attributes, and i don't like that, so I tend to dress down...sorry don't want to divert the direction of this thread....i'll keep schtuum.

Reply 3

saz_1989

i had eating problems because i didnt like being fat. i thought thin was attractive. i like attention off guys and i get it whether i'm thin or curvy. my weight loss was all for me, to make me look good in my own eyes.

fortunately now i have the world's biggest ego and don't care about the size of my arse.

Reply 4

puppy

That's such an odd story, well not odd because it happens to lots of people. But it does make you wonder how people can be so different, when there's so many girls trying to grow up faster, and make themsleves more attractive to men, it's odd that so many do the opposite. Ok, so not a helpful insight, just a stream of consciousness.

Also, odd that you hear very few stories about the root of eating disorders in the desire to supress adult characteristics, despite the fact It's well recongised (so I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) by psychologists.

Hmmmmm...

Reply 5

milady

Oh, gosh, that very nearly made me puke. the prolapsing. oh, eurgh.

Reply 6

xXMessedUpXx

puppy

Also, odd that you hear very few stories about the root of eating disorders in the desire to supress adult characteristics, despite the fact It's well recongised (so I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) by psychologists.

Hmmmmm...

yeah

well its one of many reasons as to why eating disorders develop. the one your refereing to is part of the psychodyamic theory. but there other reasons such as boichemical abnormalities, brain abnormalities, genetic factors, conditioning, modelling, and having a distorted view of their self-image.

Reply 7

puppy

xXMessedUpXx

I know, we all took A-Level Psychology :rolleyes:

That's not to say any of them are correct or that any of those theories ought to be kept independent from one another. People won't always fall into such strictly defined categories, neither is it always helpful to impose them on people. Having said that, as I suggested in my post, I think psychoanalytical theory is largely over-looked as a cause of eating disorders (among other things), which is a shame since, in this case at least, it seems to be the most logical.

Ugh, there's something about discussing psychology makes me die a little inside.