The Year I Went Pear-Shaped (6 page)

Chapter 8: Bread is the devil’s work

Dear Darla,

Because he just kept going on and on about it, I reluctantly told my boyfriend how many men I had slept with before him. He was shocked and we’ve had a few fights since where he's thrown it in my face. Now I feel cheap, how can I convince him that I'm not a slut? Heather, QLD

Dear Heather,

Personally, I can count my sexual partners all on three fingers of one hand but a high number of
sexual partners is nothing to be either ashamed or proud of, it's just a number. Your boyfriend is the one with the issue here and you're buying into it. Stop it. You have nothing to feel cheap about. This whole mentality is a hangover from the days when a woman's worth lay in her virginity. As an extension of that, we now have this ridiculous notion that the more sexual partners a woman's had, the more "used" she is. As if she is diminished with every new sexual encounter. This is highly insulting to all women. We are not bars of soap. Needless to say, the same rules do not apply to men, quite the opposite in fact. The higher a man's bedroom
tally, the more he struts about like a peacock. To kill this stupid double standard, women must stop apologising for, or lying about, their sexual experience. In your case, your boyfriend can only make you feel cheap if you let him. Be proud of your sexual history, it's yours, own it. It has brought you to where you are now. Tell him to
get over it or get lost.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this is all going to turn out to be some kind of feel-good chick's story about how the fat girl loses loads of weight, has a makeover, gets the guy and lives happily ever after. Don’t hold your breath. Sure, I've dropped about 30 kilos in the last 15 years or so but no one's been mistaking me for Twiggy lately, that's for real.

And I've still got at least another 10kgs of extra fat wobbling about all over me which, if I were to believe the ads on telly, is preventing me from living the kind of life where I have midnight beach bonfires with all my laugh-a-minute, good-looking friends, and spending my evenings in uber-cool bars where beautiful women in string bikinis dance to music mixed by people with names like Beats MC and GrooveStyler.

The thing is, having worked on Lush! Mag for the past three years, I've been inside that world and most of the time it doesn't exist unless a camera is rolling. On the off-chance that you do happen to wander into a party that looks like something straight out of a Justin Timberlake video, you'll probably find that most of the people are boring, self-centred twats, focused on nothing but where their next line of coke is coming from. Their cheekbones may be wider than their hips but they are not special. They are not talking about things that are more interesting, or more important, than the things you're talking about.

Believe me, the people you see each week in the trash mags, walking up red carpets on their way to see the premiere of some "groundbreaking" new movie where the lead is played by a large lump of sculptured plasticine brought to life by computer wizardry, often have the personality of sod. I've met celebrities worth squillions who I reckon must need instructions printed on the lid of their pedal bins at home. Yet, if these people get a haircut, or wear a new outfit, it gets more attention than war in the Middle East. Is it any wonder we’re all so fucked up? Is it any wonder most of the women in the western world put more energy into shaping their thighs than shaping history? And maybe all this has something to do with why, at the age of 30 something, I feel like I'm still waiting for my real life to start.

So how did I lose those thirty kilos? It took a very, very long time and it didn't all just "melt away" because I started taking the stairs instead of the elevator; or because I drank a big glass of water when I felt like three kilos of Cadbury's Dairy Milk; or because I ate off a small plate to ‘trick’ myself into thinking I was having more (how thick would you have to be to fool yourself with that one?). The idiots who come up with "top slimming tips" like those clearly don’t understand your average common-or-garden eating disorders, the very disorders that are now as much a part of being a western woman as shaving your armpits. Actually, forget shaving; shaving is, like, sooo last year. Now, the only de rigueur way to rid oneself of "ugly and unnecessary" body hair is laser treatment, just eight excruciatingly painful and expensive sessions means never having to smear wax on your bikini line or take a razor to your legs ever again! Finally, the answer to that age-old question, what do women want? Answer: A permanently neat pubic triangle.

Anyway, as I was saying, the fundamental mistake that do-gooder diet experts make is thinking that overeating is about hunger. Wrong! Inhaling a packet of Tim Tams dunked in a cup of hot Milo, followed by half a litre of ice cream eaten straight from the container while standing at the fridge, is not about hunger.

Fooddicts do not think "hmm, I'm feeling a bit peckish, I think I'll eat 17 slices of fluffy, white bread slathered in a layer of Nutella thicker than a shagpile carpet to keep me going till dinner's ready".

Fooddicts are never hungry. We don't stop eating for long enough to get physically hungry. For fooddicts, food is emotional and telling a fooddict to just stop eating so much is like telling someone with chronic diarrhoea to come away from the toilet because they could stop if they really wanted to, they just need a bit of self control.

With fooddicts, eating is the symptom - not the problem. The real problem lies buried somewhere in the subconscious and until you dig that evil little root out of your brain dirt, you may as well hold onto your "preferred customer" discount card for the local fish and chip joint.

It took me a long time to figure this out. The problem is that knowing it is only half the battle so I still get sucked in when I hear about a new, "this time it really will work" diet. I get lured into the diet myth, for example, "just cut out bread and the weight will drop off" because bread is the enemy. Of course! Evil, wicked Foccacia. Why didn't I see it before?

Another recent one was "just eat loads of boiled chicken and egg whites", then your life will totally transform, handsome strangers will give you flowers in the street, and you'll feel happy, fulfilled and worthwhile.

So how did I do it? Nothing really, I just found that I started to slowly, slowly lose weight once I left home at the age of 20. First, I just moved into a house share, but then I moved all the way to London in search of excitement and all-night, ecstasy-fuelled dance parties. By the time I moved back to Sydney several years later, Mum and Joseph had up and relocated to the Gold Coast. Basically, it seemed that the further I got away from my childhood, the less I binged. I was still trapped in the vicious dieting cycle of starvation, guilt, denial, binge, and good ol" self-hate but I wasn't spinning around it as fast I used to.

Chapter 9: Let’s Talk About Sex

My Dearest Gordon,

I hope you are feeling better. The lady who answers the phones at Channel Five said you had a bout of bad flu and couldn't come to the phone. Then she just hung up which I thought was a bit rude but some people are just like that aren't they? No manners. Anyway, do you remember in my last letter I said I might be getting promoted at work? You didn't send me a reply but I guess you're busy. Well, I got the job! That's what I was ringing to tell you, I had hoped you might be able to join me in a celebratory glass of champagne. Another time maybe. So, now I'm in charge of the whole place. And so I should be after 12 years, I'm the longest serving employee by about ten years. These younger ones just don't have the staying power that people like us do. You're a stayer as well aren't you Gordon? You've played Dr Ramswell for ten years now and I have every episode on videotape. I've probably told you that before but it's true, in fact I recently turned the second bedroom of my
house into my Dr Ramswell room, that’s where I keep all the videos and my other bits and pieces. I've got photos of you all over the door. I'd love to show it to you one day. Anyway, that's all for now. Remember, you can write back to me anytime at the Post Office box number above.

All my love forever, A.

"Darla dahlink, ze problem is zat your parents vanted you to be a boy, and you knew zat even back in ze vomb so, as a foetus already you felt guilty and anxious about zeir disappointment at discovering you vere a girl. Of course, it is only part of ze equation but it contributes to ze insecurity you av about your sexuality."

Insecurities about my sexuality? Or 'sex-you-ah-la-tee" as Tobsha put it.

Here was me thinking that having bedded enough men to fill the Sydney Cricket Ground proved that the one thing I didn't have to worry about was having sexual hang-ups. Christ, according to Tobsha, my list of issues was getting longer than the NSW phone book. Admittedly, she was right about the fact that my parents had desperately hoped for a boy while my mother was pregnant with me. To the point where everything I wore for the first year of my life was blue. Years later, they had admitted it like some guilty secret. Still, that didn't mean I had sexual insecurities and I wasn't about to accept that from the Latvian Midget without a fight.

“Tobsha, that's rubbish. I do not have any hang ups about my sexuality. Ok, so I've had quite a few one night stands in my time but so what? So have a lot of people. And anyway, if I had saved myself for marriage I’d probably end up a 65-year-old virgin.”

Only halfway through my second session but already we were onto the big stuff. So much for the gentle, introductory sessions.

Tobsha worked from her home in plush McMahon’s Point that overlooked Sydney Harbour Bridge. Her office was a renovated spare bedroom. There was a big wooden desk pushed up against one wall with a vase of yellow flowers on the windowsill behind it. On the opposite side of the room was a bed in case any of her clients felt the need to lie down and next to that was an unused fireplace with a basket of dried flowers sitting in the grate. We were sat in the middle of the room, opposite each other in big, comfy armchairs. Between us, on a small round table, was a large jug of water with lemon slices in it, and two glasses.

Tobsha had filled both glasses up with water when we sat down but hadn’t touched hers once in three quarters of an hour. My glass was permanently cupped in my hands and I was on to my fifth refill. So far she'd suggested I had penis envy and sexual hang ups; that I felt guilty about being a girl, and used food as a weapon against myself in the same way a self-harmer uses razor blades. I couldn't wait till she really got warmed up.

“No, of course you should explore your sexuality!” She said. “It iz natural and healthy but your motivation, Darla, you must look at your motivation! Ze crucial question iz vhy are you sleeping around?”

Basically, Tobsha felt that my past promiscuity revealed that at a subconscious level I was desperately seeking sexual approval from men. She felt that my self-esteem was at such a low ebb that I kept sleeping with different men to prove to myself that I was attractive. The problem with this, she said, was that I would never be happy till I looked within myself for approval and stopped trying to get it from other people.

I glanced at my watch. Surely it was time to go home.

"Dahlink, I am going to hypnotise you now and take you back to ze womb, it iz very obvious to me zat many of your issues started here. It iz because of zis zat you av alvays been such a tomboy vis no interest in girly sings like clothes and make up...(what? I work for a women’s mag for Godssake!).... subconsciously, you vere trying to be a boy. But it iz ok because I vill take you back to the womb and I vill speak to the foetal Darla and I vill make her understand zat her parents love her just as much as zey would av if she vas a boy. It vill only be ze very tip of the iceberg of your many issues but I sink you vill feel much better afterwards. And maybe you will use lipstick more, yes?"

Lipstick? I'm sitting through this character annihilation so that I might end up using more lipstick?

“Now, sit back in the chair and keep your eyes on my watch”. Leaning towards me, Tobsha pulled one of those old-fashioned gold watches on a long chain out of her jacket pocket and started swaying it backwards and forwards in front of me. It was like a scene straight out of a very bad movie and I felt a strong urge to laugh out loud. Thankfully I managed not to though, I just kept my eyes on the swinging watch and listened to Tobsha mumbling something about how I was getting sleepier and how my eyes were getting heavier. She said that I wouldn"t be able to open my eyes even I tried and I didn't want to embarrass her by proving that I could so I just kept them shut. From somewhere outside I could hear a baby crying, balling its eyes out in fact, obviously very upset about something but its mother must"ve come along because it stopped after a while. Then I could hear the sea, which was weird because the sea was miles away. The next thing I knew Tobsha was telling me that my eyes were getting lighter again and that when she finished counting to ten, I'd open them. Again, to humour her, I did just that.

"Ok, zat's it for today Dahlink. You did very vell! You vere strong and made a good start. Ve vill av you sorted out in no time. Ok, so I see you next week same time, yes?"

Thanking her, I agreed and got out of there as fast as I could. Suddenly I felt utterly drained and all I wanted to do was go home and put my feet up with a nice cup of sweet tea.

Or maybe a bourbon and coke and a menthol ciggie. Not that I smoke you understand.