Zoë, co-founder of The Fementalists, has lived with anorexia for many years. Here, she opens up about her battle against the illness, something she still fights to this day. She also debunks some of the common myths around the illness using her own experiences.
WARNING: Zoë’s story contains themes that could trigger.
My name is Zoë and I’m a semi-recovered anorexic. I first developed symptoms that would eventually become full-blown anorexia in my mid-teens, during a period of extreme stress at home and school. By the time I left for university I was already in its grips, but things took a dramatic turn for the worse once I left home and was left in charge of my own life. All those meals I’d been forced to eat at home were no longer a problem and I could now exist on a diet of tea alone. I lost a lot of weight very quickly and instead of being horrified, most people were pleased for me, congratulating me on my new, slim body. Of course, this just made matters worse.
By the time I finished my first year, I had developed a full-blown eating disorder. Things then got even worse when a friend tragically died that summer, which pushed me even further into my disease. By the end of the summer holiday, I had lost a third of my body weight and was unable to eat normal meals. Actually, I was unable to eat anything that I hadn’t prepared myself, so I took over all the cooking duties in my house, cooking tea for four people every night and barely touching my portion.
Everything became obsessively measured, from the calories I was taking in, to my weight, to the exact weight and calorific content of everything I put into my mouth. I was permanently cold, but was elated at this new sense of control I felt over my life.
Looking back, for me, my anorexia was about several things all at the same time.
Firstly, it was about control, about having the ability to feel powerful in a world that felt uncontrollable and chaotic. Managing what I ate and my body weight was the sole thing I felt I could control in a world that had already shown me its ugly side, with experiences of abuse and sudden death taking away any sense of agency I had externally. If I could control my body, at least I wasn’t forced to face the reality that the world is essentially a chaotic place where bad things do happen. By restricting my food and measuring my food to the milligram, I could pretend that I was powerful and in control.
Secondly, my experiences of abuse, trauma and bullying had taught me that being visible was dangerous. I believed that if I made a fuss or was difficult then abuse would inevitably follow. So I decided to take up less room, to physically be smaller and so less visible, in the hopes that this would stop the abuse from ever happening again. I also wanted to ‘fit in’ more. Not because I wanted to be ‘cool’, but because I truly believed that if I looked more (what I thought of as) normal, then I wouldn’t stand out and would pass through the world unabused. I made myself meek, small and quiet in the hopes that I would be spared ever having to live through that again.
Thirdly, I sought perfection. All through school I had been praised and pressured for being smart, which culminated in a sense that I was supposed to be perfect. The perfect student, the perfect daughter, the perfect girlfriend, and ultimately, the perfect body. I think being raised in a Catholic school also complicated matters as I came to believe that fat equated with sin, particularly the sins of greed and gluttony. In my warped mind, fat was the visual manifestation of sin, and so being slim was being closer to perfection. I also think that media narratives that shame women for having visible fat closely parallel these ideas and compounded the problem, though for me they were not the main cause. This obsession with perfection only got worse after the sudden, tragic death of my friend.
Convinced that I was lucky to be alive, I strove to be the ‘best’ that I could be in honour of him. And best meant thinner. I wanted to have the perfect life because of the crushing sadness that came from the realisation that he would never have more time, so I should live for both of us. I’m sure for some people living a life that honours someone is a good, positive thing, but for me it was deeply destructive as I now owed not just myself ‘perfection’ but my friend too. Being ‘fat’ was now dishonouring him in my twisted little world.
These are just some of the reasons why I think I developed anorexia in the first place, and they are some of the more common reasons that other people I have spoken to give as well, but my story is mine and it’s important to recognise that everyone’s is different and has different causes and triggers. My story is not a universal one.
Eventually, after having dropped out of university when I went back after that awful summer, I began to see that perhaps my way of looking at things was flawed. This is especially brought home to me when a close friend ended up spending 6 months in hospital because of her anorexia. I’d love to say that I’m fully recovered now, but I’m not and to an extent I think anorexia will always be part of my life (not saying this is true for everyone, at all.) At times of stress I fall back into my old coping strategies – for that is what anorexia is to me, a faulty coping strategy – and the anorexic ‘voice’ in my head comes back. Despite it, I now live a reasonably happy life, have a long-term partner, my own flat, a first class degree, and friends. No, my life isn’t ‘perfect’, but I’m trying to abandon my perfectionism and just be happy.
Anorexia is a frequently misunderstood mental illness. Despite being the most deadly mental illness, misconceptions about the illness abound. Below are some common myths about anorexia, contrasted with my experiences.
Myth: They’re just doing it for attention.
My reality: To be honest, attention was the very last thing in the world I wanted when I was most ill. I wanted to disappear and be unnoticed. The idea of attracting attention was horrifying to me. I also hate this myth because it suggests that people are unworthy of attention anyway. If people were so desperate for attention and care that they were literally starving themselves and risking death to do so, surely they are in need of it!
Myth: It’s about looking more attractive (to men).
My reality: As above, for me the idea of becoming more visible was the exact opposite of what I wanted. I also find this idea that it’s all about pleasing men deeply sexist and heteronormative – not everything women do is for men!!
Myth: It only affects teenage girls.
My reality: This is just factually wrong. Anorexia can affect anyone, whatever their gender, and irrespective of age. In fact, the numbers of men and older people with it appears to be rising.
Myth: That anorexia is about vanity/being beautiful/body image.
My reality: Hardly! For me it’s a very faulty coping mechanism for coping with the world.
Myth: All cases of anorexia are caused by diet magazines/sexist media.
My reality: The role of the media and diet industry definitely have their role to play, and this shouldn’t be ignored, but my anorexia really wasn’t mainly about this, but, as I said, was a bad coping mechanism. I think the media and diet industry just made my anorexia worse, but they didn’t cause it.
Myth: All anorexic people think they’re fat.
My reality: This isn’t always true. Sometimes I knew that I was very small, but for me it was just that I was still too big even at that size, rather than thinking that I was fat per se. On the other hand, there have been times when I look in the mirror and all I see is fat, everywhere, it’s the only thing that I can see. I think this one varies a lot for different people and there isn’t one universal rule.
Myth: That inspirational ‘love your body’ and Marilyn Monroe pictures will cure us.
My reality: These things never did anything for me. I’m not a silly little girl, but an adult, intelligent woman. If anorexia was that easy to cure, I would have done it by now!
Myth: You can tell someone has anorexia just by looking at them.
My reality: Sometimes when I was my most mentally distressed was when I was at higher body weights. Many people who are not underweight are still anorexic and shouldn’t be dismissed. It’s a mental illness, not a body size. On the other hand, not all slim people have anorexia!! Finally, there’s the idea that once you gain back the weight then you’re magically cured... if only. Recovery is a long and hard process that’s about much more than weight gain and physical size.
Myth: That if you see someone eating/if someone enjoys eating then they can’t be anorexic.
My reality: I never hated the taste of food, in fact I actively enjoyed some of the food I ate, it was just a problem that I didn’t eat enough of it and had very restrictive and controlling behaviours around it, as well as other eating disorder behaviours.
Myth: That with enough willpower you can just snap out of it.
My reality: Like any other mental illness, ‘willpower’ and ‘just snapping out of it’ do not work. Anorexia is a serious and potentially deadly mental illness, not some kind of fad.
Myth: Anorexia is just an extreme diet.
My reality: My anorexia comes with a whole load of other mental symptoms such as obsessions and compulsions. Most people do not spend every waking hour of their lives thinking about their diets, however extreme, but when I was extremely ill all I could think about was food and starving and lbs. Also, as I’ve said above, for me it was a bad coping mechanism, not a diet.
Zoë blogs at: http://zedkat.wordpress.com and is on Twitter: @stfumisogynists
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