My Secret Life (21 page)

My eating disorder didn’t make me powerless to its effects. I did. I didn’t want the responsibility and in many ways, it’s just easier to let someone else control you. The truth is that when you come to the realisation that no one is ever really in control, life becomes much easier. I’m not in control and neither is my eating disorder, something much bigger is. All I have to do is finally take responsibility – for this borrowed time I’ve been given, this transient existence. And I think I’m ready to do that. I’m ready to take responsibility for my own borrowed energy.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future and I know it’s not going to be perfect. But for now, at least – finally – I can hope once more.

Yours as always, Leanne

Regeneration

As stated at the beginning of this memoir, I have never liked the term bulimia. This is mostly because the phrase cannot fully encapsulate all that I have detailed here to you, dear reader. Such a small word surely cannot be sufficient. Quite simply, it’s just not enough. Similarly, neither is the word ‘recovery’ because, it does not always have a definite beginning or end; not to mention how everything within those two bookends is a muddled haze of complexity. To be frank, bulimia – along with any eating disorder – does not end with recovery alone. Recovery in my own mind at least, is the time in which you heal those psychological wounds that were created by the disease itself. It involves catering to the emotional scars left behind and finding peace with the memories you can never forget or change.

Within recovery, I began a long and arduous process of regeneration. While recovery alone was the psychological reversal of all that she – the vicious creature that inhabited my brain – had brought me to believe, the process of regeneration saw me attempting to rebuild the life that I had sacrificed for her. Moreover, it was the process in which I sought to rebuild myself. It was as if I had been dead, as if I somehow had to resurrect myself from the ashes of my own destructiveness. My biggest fear with letting her go had always been that without her, there would be nothing left of me. And in truth, this was nearly the case. Nevertheless, I had to cling to that hope that there was still something there to save, something worth the life my bulimia had almost ruined.

It’s extraordinarily difficult to know where to begin in reconstructing a lost life from the foundation levels up again. One of the first steps was to find reconciliation with my past and the painful memories that had kept me trapped for so many years. I agonized over those ancient diaries, remembering the bullies and the true extent of all the damage they had caused. There was one memory, that I dwelled on more than others in my pursuit of long overdue resolution with that past.

***

I am twelve years old. Primary school is coming to an end and while I’m scared of what’s to come this September in a new school, I cannot wait for the summer to commence. It will be two months of torture-free bliss in which I can enjoy the freedom of comfort and security.

The girls in school were particularly bad this week. After one argument, none of them were talking to me anymore. I had nobody to talk to at lunchtime while the boys played desk football and in the end, I had to stay inside the school during yard time. That was why I had become a prefect. It was so I could escape their refusal to be my friend and maybe even pretend it wasn’t happening.

I used to be best friends with one of the girls, but now she is one of those who weren’t talking to me. We were the best artists in the class and could draw anything. She was also good at Gaelic football and I liked the way she wrote. It had been an instant connection. We can’t be friends the way we used to be because then she will be excluded like me. I won’t ask her to do that because no matter how bad I feel, I wouldn’t like to think that I’m causing anyone else to feel this way too.

Today I came home crying because the girls have been telling lies about me and saying bad things. When Mum asks me what is wrong, I can’t bring myself to fully explain because I don’t want her knowing what the girls in school say about me. I don’t want her to ever think those things about me and it’s best that the idea is just never put in her head at all. I run into my bedroom, unable to watch as she too starts to cry. This upsets her just as much as it upsets me and it breaks my heart. As I heave and sob into my pillow on my bed, wishing there was something I could do to change everything and stop Mum from crying, I hear Mum talking in her usual, loud phone voice. Walking out of my bedroom and leaning over the banisters of the stairs, as I’ve done so many times on sleepless nights, I hear Mum yelling down the phone through broken tears.

‘I just don’t know what to do anymore,’ she cries. ‘It’s gone too far and I just can’t watch her go through this anymore.’

I assume that she has called my grandmother and is telling her how hard this is, hoping for somebody to throw her a maternal life-jacket. I return to my foetal position on the bed where I cry even harder because I am making Mum’s life so hard on her. It goes quite downstairs, except for Mum’s stifled sobbing into a seat cushion in the sitting room. I try to be as quiet as possible, tears still flowing down my cheeks. I don’t want to make this any worse than it is and hearing me upset will surely make Mum worse. Within about ten minutes of hearing Mum on the telephone, the doorbell rings and I bolt back to my place atop the stairs. When the door opens, I can hear violent outburst of crying fill the hallway. Leaning over a little further, I watch as one of the girls from school and her mother pass the bottom of the stairs and make their way into the kitchen with Mum. I’m terrified of what is happening and start to shake from head to toe.

‘Leanne,’ Mum calls. ‘Babe, come on down for a minute please.’

I burst into renewed and heavier tears, as if this is the first time I’ve ever cried in my life. When I reach the kitchen, all three of them are still standing. My friend’s mother looks at me briefly through watered eyes and starts to weep uncontrollably. She can’t look at me for very long and begins to address my mother again. Everyone is crying; my friend, her mother, my mum and me. There is a raw, red mark on my friend’s arm where her mother clearly dragged her into the house with a tight grip. She and I do not look at each other, but both cry silently as we watch our mothers’ exchange.

‘I just
had
to call,’ my mum bleats out, still red and puffy in the face. ‘I just can’t let this go on. If only you knew what it was doing to her.’

‘No, no,’ my friend’s mother interrupts. ‘I’m so glad you did. I’m absolutely mortified. I was only today giving a seminar about bullying in the workplace. I never had any idea my own daughter could be doing it in school. I’m so sorry. I’m just completely mortified.’

‘She’s not the ringleader, but we need to do what we can and I’ve just reached the end of my tether. I don’t know what to do anymore.’

The two women are hysterical and grip one another in an awkward hug as they cry it out. My friend’s head is bent right down to the ground, but I can still see how her forehead is crinkled with lines of worry and distress. I cry too. On top of everything, I now feel guilty that I have caused such chaos among everyone. If only I could have kept my mouth shut about it all and nobody would be as sad as they all are now.

‘Leanne,’ my mum whimpers as she wipes her face. ‘Why don’t you go upstairs and have a chat between the two of you.’

At these words, my body goes into shock and I am temporarily glued to the floor upon which I stand. I feel like I’ve been set on fire and my heart pounds in my chest so violently I think it will jump out of my throat. I don’t look at my friend because I’m scared to. Instead, I start to make my way up the stairs and can hear her following behind me, as well as Mum fiddling with the kettle in the kitchen.

My friend and I sit face to face on my bed, both of us crying and obviously embarrassed by this whole situation. I try to take a deep breath but it feels like my airways have been disconnected. I try to prepare myself for what is about to come. My friend is going to give out to me. She’s going to tell me that I’m really in for it now. What happens next is the biggest shock I have ever had since meeting those girls. My friend breaks down even further into tears, trying to catch her voice.

‘I’m so
sorry!
’ she blurts out, looking at me for the first time since she entered my house. I’m so taken aback that I don’t say anything at all.

‘I’m so sorry, Leanne! I really am. I didn’t know what to do; you know what the girls are like. I was just scared because if they didn’t do it to you, they could do it to me or whoever else. I know that’s no good now but I really am sorry. We used to be best friends and now I’ve ruined it all. I didn’t mean it and I didn’t realise how bad it had gotten until today. I’m really sorry, please don’t be mad at me. You’re my best friend and I never meant to hurt you.’

With this she breaks down once more, cut off by her own heavy sobs. She buries her red face into her hands and bends forward, covering herself over entirely. I cry too and for a while, nobody says anything. Amidst all the tears, there’s just no room for talking. When we both calm down slightly, she can’t look at me again.

‘It’s okay.’ I whisper.

‘What?’ she looks stunned and almost doubles back on herself.

‘It’s okay.’ I say again, a little louder this time. This time she has heard me and once again, crumbles under her own crying and covers her face again. As I watch her deteriorate again in front of my eyes, a strange sensation starts to take over my body. The damp cloud that hung over me lifts ever so slightly. Not knowing what else to do I lean forward, wrap my arms around her and hug her as tight as I can. She grips my arms in return and together we cry for what feels like hours.

It feels like the longest cry of my life and the next time I look at her, I see the friend I thought I’d lost.

***

In an ideal world and a perfect story, this event would have been the turning point in the bullying. Although my friend never participated in the bullying again, whenever the girls were acting up or giving me a hard time, she merely abstained. Knowing her own fears now, was enough for me and I never held it against her. But the bullying continued right until the end of sixth class and I never saw the girls again after that time. The vulnerability with which my friend exposed herself that day touched a part of me so tender that to this day, I often wonder where she is in her life today and if she’s happy. I hope she is.

I had forgiven her in an instant. I had seen all my fears and all my pain splashed across her tear stained face and I had forgiven her before she even asked it. Children are simple that way. It doesn’t take much to bring out the best in them and the concept of ‘forgive and forget’ is never better exemplified than with a child. Doing just this as I’ve gotten older, however, has become gradually harder. The scars that my childhood bullying imprinted on me became old war wounds that were integral to the shaping of my character. For years, I carried them on my skin, terrified that at any moment they could burst wide open again and everything underneath would bleed out.

Not long before I started therapy, I had been walking along the seafront when I saw one of the girls who bullied me and some girl whom I did not know. She was within 20 yards of me. I remember how my body seized up at the sight of her and I got a lump in my throat that threatened to burst under the pressure of the moment. Walking by her, my eyes met hers for a rather prolonged moment. Taking me in, there was no trace of recognition in her eyes and they drifted away from me and on to the next passer-by. She didn’t even recognise me, she had no idea who had just passed her so casually on the street. I recalled thereafter feeling a surging sense of anger ensue. I thought to myself,
How dare she not know me. How dare she not know the face she tortured so much and for so long
.

Michelle once described this as though I was walking around with more than just one person in me. On top of the teenager I had become, I held the hand of the little girl I was then. She had never left me and in everything I did or thought in later years, she was still there and we faced it all together. Her presence wasn’t the problem; the problem was just that I hadn’t been taking care of that little girl well enough. Moreover, I believe that it was around the time that I got sick that I let go of that little hand. I forgot all about her and abandoned her for the darkness within. She represented everything in my past I so desperately wanted to forget and for this, I was scared to have her in my life. There could have been only one remedy for all the pain. I had to forgive my past. Only in doing this could I truly discover the unblemished beauty of the person beneath it. We would do it together, that little girl and I. And I swore to her that I would never let go of her hand again. I would keep her with me always and protect her from all the bullies in the world.

I would not be alone in doing this or anything else for that matter. There came a point through this process of regeneration that I had to re-evaluate my relationship with God; or at least, what was left of it. In hindsight, God had never left my life but rather, I simply did not allow a place for Him within it. Throughout my illness, I’d had my doubts of what this ‘God’ idea truly entailed. More than anything that came before and even after this period of my life, nothing tested my faith quite so much as my bulimia. It called into question the certainty and enduring power of my own faith. For the most part, I think I then felt like God had abandoned me to my misery. Of course the reality was the complete opposite of this, which I learned in time, but being caught in the undertow of my own sick ocean lead me to find faith only in God’s apparent indifference. I had many quarrels with Him and for a long time both during and after recovery, had to search deep within for any chance of reconnection with the spirituality that once guided me through life.

This involved dwelling – for months on end – on the purpose of God in my life, the true extent of my belief both in his presence and his power and finally, whether I felt ready to open up that line of connection once again. I began attending mass again; something that I had almost forgotten about entirely while being sick. The institution of Catholicism did not govern the internal flame I fought to keep burning, but it definitely helped. If not for the resurrection of my faith, then at least for that lost sense of spiritual community shared between so many people.

You may use the terminology of ‘God’ quite loosely here, as my idea of what the very word means has broadened greatly since my bulimia. Spirituality, a higher being or a cosmic force, whatever your own interpretation, it makes very little odds to me because whatever it was, I have found a common ground with it once more. Somewhere inside, something more compelling than my thoughts and more moving than my emotions was reawakened. It was like finding an ancient fossil buried deep in the earth of my very being. Finally, I had made my peace with God.