We return home to Sydney. I stumble my way through years 11 and 12. The science teachers question why I am studying Physics and Chemistry when my heart is so obviously not in it. They advise me to study the humanities and arts because it is well known at school that these are what I excel at. My maths teacher quizzes why I struggle on with advanced maths. Why am I killing myself? I want to scream: ASK MY PARENTS! I am studying these subjects because my parents want me to. These subjects are my magical path into medicine…if I can manage to pass them well enough!
And I do manage to pass my Higher School Certificate. My Grand Pa dies on the day that my final result comes out. Somehow it doesn’t impact me like Grand Ma’s death did. A war starts in the Gulf on the day my result comes out. It all drives home the point that the world keeps spinning regardless of my results. People are born and die. Wars start and end. My life has the same significance on this Earth as an ant has in a zoo.
But off to University I go.
I start in pre-med. My parents are relieved. They can hold their heads high. I am the good daughter.
Uni is fine. For the first couple of years, I am not involved in anything that is not directly related to my education. I go to Uni. I attend lectures and practicals. I go home or go to work in the newspaper shop. At home I pretend to be preoccupied with my Uni work and spend all my time in my room. On weekends I work in the newspaper shop and keep putting my money away.
Then I suddenly re-notice how ugly I really am. I am round and black and ugly. I am so repulsive that I want to beat myself with a hairbrush all over again. Grand Ma was right in her assessment of me: Fat. Black. Ugly. Why does this hit now…who knows?
So I start dieting. I stick a photo of Kate Moss on my wall. It has her vital stats: 5’7”; 45 kg; tiny bust, waist and hips. I compare my own stats: 5’4”; 60 kg; round bust, waist and hips. Round Thighs. Yuk.
Dieting is wonderful. It gives me focus. It eats up all my spare energy. I know the caloric content of every morsel of food that passes my lips, or even crosses my path. I guzzle Diet Coke to keep my hunger pangs under control. It doesn’t work.
When I am really good, I can manage to get through a whole day on one apple and a few black coffees. No sugar. No milk. 2 calories per cup and enough caffeine to burn off my giant ass. Only it never seems to.
I join the gym and spend at least 3-4 hours there – daily. 2 hours before Uni and 1-2 hour after – every single day. And I start to shrink. 5 kilos fall off in a blink. But then my body goes into starvation mode. It thinks it is in a famine situation and refuses to lose weight. I add an hour of walking to my daily exercise regime…but I stay stuck at 55 kg. The expert books assure me that this is because I am losing fat and increasing muscle – and muscle is supposedly heavier than fat.
I start to expunge my body of any foods I put in. Every time I eat an apple, I swallow 60 laxative pills. I know it is 60 because I buy a pack of 120 that says “Take 2 with water when required. Do not exceed 8 pills a day.” I take half a bottle a day. It clears out my insides completely. The difficulty is that I am awake all night in the bathroom with terrible stomach cramps. This disturbs my parents and often when I emerge from the bathroom, my mother is waiting outside to tell me that I am disturbing my father’s sleep. I am sorry. And angry. And sad. I try to make no noise at all. If I could die I would be perfectly silent.
The laxatives are effective. They break the famine barrier and another 3 kilos fall off. Then I get stuck at 52kg. At around this time I am studying biochemistry. I learn how to ‘trick’ my body into losing weight rapidly. I apply the basic rules and pretty quickly, I am down to 46kg. My ass is still huge though. When I see myself in the mirror, I see a small dark head, reasonable arms and upper torso and a HUGE backside and thunder thighs. Kind of like a turkey.
I look at Kate Moss’s body with great yearning. I want to be as slim as she is. But what do I do with my giant butt and thighs? I also determine that if Ms Moss is 45kg at 5’7”, then I should be considerably less at my shorter height of 5’4”. Maybe 42kg? Maybe 40 kg? Maybe less? 30 kg would be perfect.
I am so obsessed with my weight that nothing else matters. The scales become my hourly companion when I am at home – which is most of the time when I am not at Uni or working. I have the perfect excuse for not seeing my few friends – meeting them will affect my diet because they always seem to be eating. So I do not meet them. It has nothing to do with my parents’ restrictions on my social activities. It is all my choice.
If the scales register an extra 10 grams, I panic and become inwardly hysterical. I swallow entire bottles of laxative pills. I become very ill. With no substance in my gut to act on, the pills lead to horrific cramps, nausea and intestinal bleeding. I am fascinated by this. I can feel the pain in my body, but it has started to feel like it is someone else’s body. I am watching myself from the outside. A fat pig. I yearn for this body to fade away. It would be so much easier.
On good days, when I eat nothing and drink only black coffee, I have little physical energy but plenty of caffeine buzz. It makes me terribly irritable and my ears ring, but I feel virtuous and I applaud my will power over my body. On days when I succumb and eat something – even one piece of bread, I bash my head and scream at myself internally.
But soon the hair brush doesn’t hurt enough anymore. I cannot cry. I cannot feel anything. I want to feel something. Anything. I remember my Uni surgical set and marvel at how sharp the scalpel blades are. They slice through flesh so cleanly and before I can even feel the pain, the blood starts to flow. And it is real. I watch myself slice through my wrists and up to my elbows in rapt fascination. Not deep enough to actually kill myself – I am a coward – but enough to antagonise the nerve endings and get tiny rivulets of blood flowing. I chide myself for not being brave enough to do it properly and finish off this mess that is my body. And when the clean sharp sting of pain takes over and my tears start to flow. I watch myself crying. I cry silently because I do not want to disturb my parents. After I have cried for several hours, I fall asleep.
I watch myself do all of this. Crying is exhausting. It helps me to relax and then I can sleep for 24 hours without waking. My parents don’t seem to be bothered with my sleeping episodes. At least I am at home –under their watchful eyes – abiding by their rules.
After one of these cutting episodes, I always wear long sleeves for the next few weeks. I don’t want people to think I am crazy because of my cut arms. I need to wear long sleeves anyway because I am so cold all the time.
I get to 40 kg, but my damn ass will not shrink. My nose looks huge on my face. And my ass looks huge on my body. At night I like to caress my clavicles and rib cage. I can feel all my ribs. It comforts me to count them. Each one is perfect in its shape and position. I think about cracking one and pushing it into the soft lung tissue underneath. It would be so easy. But I don’t have the guts for that kind of pain.
My vision starts to flicker sometimes. One day I as walk home after work, I realise the whole world has gone blue. Having studied in the subject area, I understand that my retinal cones are playing up. It seems the red and yellow cones are not working so well. Perhaps they need more energy than the blue ones. Or maybe all the cones have stopped working and my rods are trying to pick up the slack. Surely then the world would be black and white. Who knows?
I find that a few blocks from home I am not able to stay upright any longer. I sink to my hands and knees and kind of crawl / drag myself along the footpath to get home. Luckily no one walks past to see me in this state. A few cars driving by slow down to look, but they probably think that I am a junkie, having a bad drug episode or something. I do not care what anyone thinks right now. I seem to have an infinite will to survive, because otherwise I would just lie down and die right now. Maybe I just don’t want to be found lying on the street.
I pull myself into the house after overcoming the challenge of putting the key in the lock and actually turning the damn thing. My parents do not notice me entering. I crawl into my bed and fall asleep. In my sleep, I wake for a few seconds at a time and am aware of my mother standing over me, checking my breathing or stroking my head. I register that she is worried and I return to my coma-like sleep. I try to wave my hand at her to convey that I am fine but I do not have the energy. If only I could sleep forever. It would be so peaceful.
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