Mealtimes and Milestones (8 page)

Bits of it looked dried up and so it didn’t look very attractive any more, but it was absolutely fine otherwise, and it certainly didn’t smell. I threw it away anyway even though I
didn’t want to. I felt really guilty because my granny had made it for me and so I felt quite sentimental towards it. It was even harder because I am particularly worried about her at the
moment: I think she is very lonely, and earlier in the week she sent me a letter saying that she was sorry for making me ill. I just feel so awful that she is blaming herself for my anorexia,
because of course it wasn’t her – life has just thrown its own curve in for me. Throwing a plant away might seem quite an innocent thing, but it just accentuated my concerns.

I had a meeting with my key teacher at noon. She was worried about my neatness in presentation of my work, and that it might be one of my anorexic habits. To be honest I am pretty cross because
I believe that I am just a naturally neat person, that is just who I am, and in the grand scale of things right now, I think it is quite insignificant. Also, because being neat is who I am, I feel
that if I tried to be less neat it would be contradicting the main thrust of the work that goes on in the unit, because it is all about expressing who you really are, and so by covering my neatness
up, and making things messy, I would be going against that principle.

The whole morning just seemed too much. I was upset and confused and I didn’t want to express any of my emotions openly. I took a giant step backwards at lunch and didn’t eat
anything. I was a cannonball dropping further and further back into my dark and deceitful thoughts.

‘Don’t eat, Constance – you know that it will make all of these troubles go away.’

This evening at snacks, for the first time in ages, I felt hungry, and my stomach hurt. Something must have clicked with me. It brought back all the memories of being hungry, the collapsing, and
at that moment during evening snacks I realized that I don’t want to live like this. This small sensation of hope really pulled me through and enabled me to make up my calories for the day. I
just kept thinking of the future and what I want to achieve.

Thursday 4 October

I have really struggled with connections with the rest of the young people this week. I have felt an angry vibe from them. I have felt really isolated and lonely, and
today especially I didn’t speak to one young person. I’ve really drawn back into my shell.

My separation from the rest of the group continued and I didn’t want to talk about it with my parents and we had a very short and awkward conversation, and now I feel so awful for being
direct and saying that I didn’t want to talk to them. I am lost and now I have pushed away the two people who could have offered comfort and security. I do love them both so much. I am a
terrible person.

Friday 5 October

I felt really attacked in Friday Group today because quite a few of the young people were cross that I didn’t eat any of my lunch and this was hard to hear.

I want people to like me, but it seems that I have to eat in order for people to like me, and I can’t let myself do that yet. I’m so terribly lonely. I really want to go home, but I
know that I can’t survive at home and work with my difficulties. I don’t belong anywhere.

Another thing that made my day harder was that I was allocated to two therapeutic care workers,
²³
but I had no check-ins or
catch-ups with either of them during the day. This just added to my feeling of loneliness, it’s like nobody really wants or cares for me. I feel a bit like a stray leaf blowing in the wind,
going whichever way the wind, or my thoughts, take me, without having the support of staff who act as my branches holding me down and stopping me from getting too caught up in my thoughts. I really
need those strong branches right now.

Saturday 6 October

I had a supervised meal
²⁴
with Mum and Dad today. Beforehand we had a talk with my key worker in which we talked about any worries
that were around. These were mine:

My mum didn’t seem to have too many worries because I guess that she has seen it all – the ups and downs of when I have been at home. The times when I was able to
push through the negative thoughts and eat – and the times when I was too weak to even stand up without collapsing.

However, Dad was quite concerned because this was the first time in about five months that he had seen me eat – at home, Mum would usually try to give me dinner before he got home from
work at night.

Both my parents wanted to know what they could do to make it easier, and I wanted just to talk about normal things, like what a normal family would talk about over lunch.

The meal itself was really hard. The voice was really powerful and I found myself needing to struggle more. The voice was telling me that I couldn’t just put a mask over it and pretend
everything was OK. I had to look like I was struggling, every mouthful had to be slow and forced. Having this meal was such a big step, and a step to getting rid of anorexia, but it seemed to hold
on to me even tighter now, determined not to let me get out of its clasp.

If I had disobeyed then I would have upset my only true friend – it may be deceitful but when I work with it then it makes me feel so good and powerful and nothing can replace that. If I
upset it then I must be a really, really bad person.

Sunday 7 October

I only went to church for half of the service today because it was the harvest festival and to be honest I don’t really want to go to church to celebrate food.
Before it started, though, one of the congregation, who I see every week, came up to me and said:

‘My grandson was anorexic, but is coming to lunch today and he’s got through it, and he has just finished university, so just keep going and you’ll get there too like
him.’

I got complete goosebumps all over. It was a very short conversation but her words were just so inspiring and touched something deep down inside me and shone a light on me for the rest of the
day.

I spoke to one of my friends on the phone in the afternoon and she also offered words of inspiration and support. It reminded me what support was out there for me and today I feel like I
actually want to get better, which in itself is a revelation.

Monday 8 October

In Monday Group
²⁵
we played ‘Human Bop-it’ and ‘Honey I Love You’ and I have never laughed so much in my
life, I was actually crying with laughter!!! Then, during tea one of the therapeutic care workers said that she didn’t know that I had such a giggly and bubbly personality. I thought about
this quite a lot, because I wondered why this was, and tried to think of reasons and all I came up with was because my mind is so corrupt and it does really drag you down deeper and deeper so it
becomes increasingly more difficult to be positive and smile.

In the evening I received the most amazing text from a friend which meant the world to me and it felt like hope would never end. It read:

I’m going to finish today with that.

Wednesday 10 October

I had a key session today and I was told that the tube had to be changed and was going to be taken out on Monday at 6.30 p.m. which left me with very mixed feelings.

I am going round in a bit of a circle. Again I’m not ready to have the tube out, but will I ever be ready? Every day that it stays in, I feel more and more reliant on it, and it has been
two months now since the first one was put in, and I’ve had one in for the whole time except for a couple of days in the middle. I know this isn’t the life I want to lead, but if I let
go, then I’m bound to punishment by my mind, and giving in is by far the easiest option.

In the evening I made a list of the pros and cons of drinking. It did help me to put things into perspective but my worries and concerns about the tube coming out haven’t seemed to
budge.

Thursday 11 October

In Creative Group
²⁶
the young people had to suggest something that others in the group could do, something which was outside their
comfort zone. For me it was suggested that I do something more 3D and try and incorporate my feelings into it, because I don’t tend to express them that much.

I made a heart-shaped box with a slit in the top. I then wrote my worries and concerns on a piece of paper and posted it through. I then decorated it with glitter. It was a step, because I was
expressing my feelings, but I still didn’t feel ready to share them with anyone else. Covering the box in glitter also seemed quite symbolic, although I didn’t think about it at the
time, because I often disguise my feelings and mask them over, a bit like the glitter was hiding the misery of those thoughts inside.

My thoughts from inside the box

I had family therapy afterwards which felt really helpful, because we talked about our family dynamics more and how we are so sensitive individually.

My school was brought up too, by my dad. He explained quite bluntly about the reality of me being here. They have already paid lots of money for a school term that I am not even at. In an ideal
world, he wanted me to be back on 5 January when everyone goes back. This really seemed to strike a chord with me. I am fully aware about the money issue involved, but it seemed to mean more
because someone had talked about it directly. This experience also helped me to see how beneficial talking directly can be.

In the evening I was told that I would have to have my supervised meal with my parents on Sunday rather than Saturday, but Dad wasn’t able to do this, so this is going to have to be
discussed tomorrow.

Friday 12 October

In Friday Group, splits and divides among the young people were discussed and how certain members of the group were being left out, and my name was mentioned. It was
suggested that I am ‘bobbing below the surface’. Personally, though, I feel more like a baby bird flapping its wings on the edge of the nest, but just not being ready yet to take that
leap out of the security that I know. It feels too scary right now.

After the group, I was told that I couldn’t have a supervised meal this weekend because the unit can’t do Saturday and my parents can’t do Sunday. This brought feelings up that
I seemed to be open about. Some were my own, genuine feelings, and some were my anorexia’s. I was angry, but actually more frustrated because there weren’t enough staff. But anorexia
has twisted this into the fact that I am not worth enough to people for them to let me have a supervised meal. More importantly, I was also upset because I had really been doing a lot of thinking
about how Mum, Dad and I can improve and move forward from the last meal, so that I go from using the staff’s support to using the support of my parents in an unsupervised meal. So I
therefore felt quite let down.

Saturday 13 October

In the afternoon we decided to go to Hay’s Galleria in London but the Tube was shut, so we had to drive to the nearby town and get the train, which was always going
to be tight, because I didn’t finish my feed until 2 p.m. I could feel the stress rising, especially from Dad, and for the first time I was able to confront him about it. It was scary,
because I didn’t want to upset him, but afterwards I really felt the benefits from being open with him and he said it was only because he wanted me to have the best and longest afternoon out
in London possible. The rest of the day went smoothly and it was a giant leap that I had taken.

Sunday 14 October

In my key session I made three different-coloured bracelets:

They are in preparation for my NG tube coming out tomorrow. The idea is that I will wear the one that matches what I am feeling so that my allocated member of staff can
recognize what I am feeling and help me with it. They will allow me to receive help in the best form and not take me too much out of my comfort zone. If I could just try and get some of these
emotions out, then I wouldn’t need to express them over food, so then I won’t have to have the tube back.