Thin (26 page)

When I get off the bus I run run run home.

I take out a box of organic no sugar/no wheat cornflakes from the cupboard and pour myself a big bowl. I sit on the sofa and eat them without looking up, and then I walk back to the kitchen and pour myself another big bowl and repeat. It is dinnertime after all. I walk to the sink and get myself a pint of water. I gulp it down. I walk back to the sofa and sit down. The cornflakes with milk and the water are sloshing around in my stomach. I pull my legs up to my chin and cross my arms. I sit. I sit. I dream it away. Inside there is shouting about the bloating and the sloshing and the volume of cornflakes, but I tell the voice, ‘Leave me alone. It’s done. I’m done with it.’

I put on the television and I lie down with a cushion under my head, and I turn the television up loud.

I am all these different shapes within the space of a week, and I know that I haven’t lost or gained any weight, not an ounce. I know this. I know this now, over and over.

Now its time to restart the game.

BANG.

Rules:
Don’t let anyone find you out
Don’t let them break you down or make you confess
Be straight and simple and above all keep up the act
Are you ready?

1. Survive the role of a perfect, successful advertising agency graduate
Sit still. Now you have a job, you need to push things under. Learn how to set up a meeting room. This involves meticulous detail and is well-suited to those with controlling behaviours. When the pens are lined up then everything is in order. Each chair must be at the same height. Each paper pad must be placed in a straight and perfect line. All equipment must be tested and retested. There is no margin for error in this organized, faultless environment. Check and recheck that the air-conditioning system is working. Listen out for any noise which might interrupt or interfere with this very important meeting. Just keep everything in order.
Check, check, check! Now leave the room in its perfect symmetry and return to your desk. Sit by your phone and wait for any possible problems. Always make sure that you shoulder the blame for any issues with machinery, coffee mis-pouring or photocopying blunders.

‘You’re very good at this,’ they say.

‘You are so organized,’ they remark.

Eat sandwiches at lunch from the canteen. Sit by your desk for as many hours as they need, in front of your computer screen, and don’t go home. Eat takeaway junk food late nights and drink beer at your desk and pretend this is, ‘Absolutely fine!’

2. Don’t let them know that things are getting misaligned
Think of the bathroom silence and run to the toilets. It is safe in the toilet. You can put your head in your hands, and let the tears trickle down your face, and get angry and grit your teeth, and wipe your nose. Make a face. Sigh as you walk towards the mirror, and blame everyone else for making you set up a meeting room, and answer the telephone, and do the photocopying, and get angry in the back of your throat. Don’t spit it out, though. Things are blurry and you still have to go back into the meeting room, pick up the pens, place your perfect paper, talk to the builders, run up three flights of stairs to get some fresh coffee, walk into a meeting of twenty people and fix the video. And in your head, where things are all out of shape, you are thinking, ‘I didn’t survive for this.’

3. Keep up the act when things go wonky-shaped
After the crying and sad faces, agree to do something about this. You need to throw people off course. It will be easier if you at least pretend that you would like some help. Just
make sure that you keep them all at a distance. Listen to your thumping-hard heart as you remember that you said you, ‘will definitely go and see somebody’.

It was a mistake to say it, but now you need to make things straight again.

4. Smile through it
Smile as you spill out your story to a personnel lady who hands you a clump of tissues. Tell her about your old eating problems and how things are unhappy, now the feeling is back in your body. Smile with embarrassment. Say sorry. Say thank you. This is really embarrassing. She thought you were going to say that you were pregnant. She looks relieved. Imagine hard what that would be like and how, if you did get pregnant, it might mean that you wouldn’t have to go to work. Think of all the nice attention you would get, and how people would be happy for you, and send you presents. Think how you could stay at home and stop being ordered around. Snap back into reality and listen as she makes you an appointment with the company doctor.

This is not how it is meant to be. How did I get here? Why am I telling her this? Why did I bring myself to this, when I have been fighting to get away from it?

5. Play along with/play with the professionals
Arrive at the company doctor. Can you see his serious and attentive face? Don’t cry too much, but just enough, so he will take you seriously. Listen to his half-hour of advice:

‘From my experience, it is advisable that you don’t eat some types of foods because they can trigger your manic “up and down” feelings. So I think that you should cut out white bread and sugar. They give you immediate highs and then sharp lows. Does that make sense?’

He actually says you should avoid some foods. Please take
this advice very seriously. Any food reduction is welcome. Say thank you.

Oh, yes please. Thank you, nice man. A real reason not to eat some foods. I knew I should be eating less. I was right. Thank you.

Also make sure you take the anti-depressants he offers for your wonky-shaped unhappy feelings. You are worthy of these pills, which must mean you have a proper problem. No one ever gave you anything like this when you were starving. There is something physical that may be able to be fixed. Then nod quietly when he tells you about the psychotherapist.

Oh no no no no no. Please no more whitecoats. Just some pills, which might make me feel happy and better. I don’t understand. I am over things like that. With foods. I ‘had’ an eating disorder; I don’t ‘have’ one. I told you, remember? I told you about how I got better, and went to Cambridge and was a great success and then came to London and got myself a proper job and made everyone so PROUD of me. They are so pleased with me. I can’t tell them that I have slipped. More secrets. More whitecoats. More funny looks from caring people. No no no no no.

6. Play the good girl
‘OK, then, Doctor.’

Watch the doctor as he flicks through his notes. Make sure you say thank you. Go on.

When I arrive at the house of my new whitecoat there is a woman walking out of the door with tissues in her hand and a wet, reddened face. I wonder what story brought her here and who she is seeing. I stare at her tissues and her wet, red face and wonder why I don’t react like that when I see the whitecoats. Perhaps if I gave up some tears or some tissues, then they would think things are better and leave me alone.

This time, I have ordered the whitecoats in myself. I almost asked for their help, and so there is a conflict between something I think I must need and something I have avoided time after time. I mustn’t let things slip, or let her say or do too much to change me.

I go up the stairs and sit in a clean, richly wallpapered, green room. Things are warm and homely. There are no plastic chairs here. My Chelsea psychotherapist lady is Spanish, and she is beautiful and slim. My whitecoat is sparkling in her designer suit. She asks me how I am. She looks interested and engaged. I can’t think why she would be so interested in me. I remind myself that I am better, and ask myself again why I am here.

‘Fine. I’m good, thank you. I’m fine. Thanks for asking. Yep, thank you,’ I state. ‘Thanks for asking.’

There is silence. She doesn’t react too well to my pleasantries. I want to puncture the air which is expanding between us. I hate silence and stillness, but my lips are locked and my chest is stiff and I start rolling my eyes around the room to search for some kind of distraction.

I spy with my little eye, something beginning with …

She does not break my silence. How long are we going to sit here? She continues to breathe calmly and smile, and she looks right at me.

something beginning with w …

What do you want me to say? I think. I’m not sure what I should say. I do feel fine today. I feel OK, honestly. I didn’t though, not then, not when I was crying at work, or on that particular night or that forgettable day, but now I am here and I do feel OK. But I don’t say it out loud because I am scared of her.

‘What do you want to get out of these sessions?’ She looks at me carefully, trying to work me out.

I don’t want to answer her now because she has annoyed me, I’m not sure why. I get embarrassed when people try and break me down. I would much rather it was the other way. I feel like she is testing me, pushing me and trying to tackle me from all sides.

‘Are you angry?’ she asks. ‘Why have you been feeling like this? How did you get here? What about the beginnings? I would like to know. Can you tell me?’

But I don’t really feel anger, I just don’t. I don’t get hot or fiery, not much. I float in the air, placate, make things nice and I try to make people happy.

‘My childhood was happy,’ I tell her. ‘My family are wonderful and supportive and loving. I really don’t think that it is to do with the beginnings. I wasn’t pushed or made to feel like I had to do these things. I was always like this. It’s just me.’

‘So you don’t feel angry with your parents for things? Most people do,’ she advances.

Now I feel like I am choking. What is there to blame them for? This is no one’s fault.

Please don’t blame anyone. Please don’t put any blame on to
other people. This is entirely my fault. I was made like this, or I made myself like this.

I tell her something with my teeth gritted. I tell her something that I am feeling because I think that is what she wants to know.

‘I’m annoyed at work. I’m frustrated with the photocopying and the tea-making and the smile-wearing.’

‘But it’s not about the work, is it? The work is not the real feelings. How are you really? What have you eaten today? How are things going with food? Do you still struggle sometimes?’

Her Spanish accent rolls off the tip of her tongue and her words land in front of my face.

I can’t believe she mentioned it.

Please don’t mention it. I didn’t think you would.

‘That is FINE. Fine. Everything is under control now. This is not the issue. I have got over that. I put on weight. I got better. I eat everything now. I’m not even that fussy any more. I promise. It’s just that now I eat what people want me to, I don’t have anything to project things on to when I’m a bit out of control, so I get down sometimes. I have lost the thing that made me feel high; anorexia took me above any worry and made me feel like I was removed. That’s all. Why do we always have to go on and on about feelings and thoughts? That is all I do, all day. I think and over-think. My head is whirring like a food processor and it hasn’t got me anywhere.’

Then there is silence again. I have given her my theory and she has given me hers. And there is stalemate.

I go every week and we sit. Sometimes she tells me that I have actually lost weight, which I think is irrelevant. I can’t/don’t/won’t agree, and I don’t like the way she is looking at me and thinking like that. She is actually taking up one of my evenings, when I could be at the gym running
on the treadmill after indulging in biscuits and fatty sandwiches and wine.

She tells me to close my eyes, and try to relax, and to take deep breaths because I am stressed inside, but I stare at her perfect legs and wonder what kinds of exercises she does to keep them like that. All of a sudden I am here being asked old questions and feeling like I want to remove myself from this scene as well.

Silence continues.

I need to say something. I feel like I am letting her down. I don’t want to sit here for much longer like this, leaving work early to see her. It doesn’t feel right any more. I don’t want to be in this place, not now.

She looks at me, and she smiles.

I take a deep breath.

She looks at me and says, ‘Why don’t you make some changes to your life? Do something you really want to do? What do you think about that? You shouldn’t be afraid. If, as you say, this work isn’t for you then take the creative path you have always wanted. I know you have the talent.’

I nod quietly. How can she possibly know that? I don’t want to disappoint her but I know that I would never allow myself such dangerous exposure. What if I failed? What if I tried and someone passed judgement and told me I was no good? How could I cope with reality then? The head-dreams would melt and I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep any more.

‘What things are stopping you?’

I sit and I smile. ‘Nothing. Nothing. It’s a good idea, thanks.’

And so she asks me again and every week I reply,

‘You are right, it’s a good idea. You are right.’