My Secret Life (17 page)

‘I know you said not to come up, but we had to,’ one of them said.

‘We’re not here to have lunch, we’re here to talk to you. If we don’t intervene now, we’re scared of what’s going to happen.’

‘Okay,’ I hesitated, the indignation still evident in my expression. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Leanne, you have a problem and we need to talk about it,’ said another.

I already knew it before they had said it. This was about my eating and I was about to be set upon by five or six women. I took a deep breath, but nothing could have prepared me for that moment when finally, there was no escaping what they were about to say.

‘Leanne,’ one of the girls sighed. ‘You have an eating disorder. And we think you know it’s true as well as we do.’

The conversation that erupted at the utterance of this statement was the scariest and most overwhelming of my entire life. In the thick of it, my friends went on to claim that I had lost a great deal of weight and was, in their opinion at least, emaciated. They told me I was sick and that I needed help. They said I wasn’t myself anymore; that not only did I look different, but that my sickness had changed me as a person too. I wasn’t the friend most of them met so many years ago. A number of them welled up as they talked about how they couldn’t watch their friend starve and vomit her way into a hospital bed or worse, into the grave. They interrogated me over and over, relentlessly pushing for the admission that what they needed. They didn’t get it, not fully anyway. I saw the pain in their eyes and heard the exhaustion in their words. It was the first time I ever realised how far down into my own darkness I had brought them.

Something snapped inside me for the worst. I was scared, cornered and under a wave of guilt for what I had done and was still doing to them. I had made their lives, as I had made my own, a living hell. The demons I battled with overpowered me in that moment and I took the cruellest action I think I ever could have. I laughed at them.

They were right in one way though; I had long since admitted to myself that I had an eating disorder. But overcoming denial is a slow process. I could admit that I had a problem to myself, but I still felt the need to conceal it from them, despite the fact that they knew everything anyway. If I admitted it to them, my control over this situation would be gone completely and I couldn’t cope with that. Since that time, however, I have never forgotten the looks on their faces; the tiredness, the desperation, the hurt, the tears and most of all, the concerned expressions that are imprinted all over my memory of that day. On the surface, my friends’ emotional intervention had very little impact. It would be weeks before I ever went into the doctor’s office and for a while, it even drove me further away from them. Yet the consequences of our actions are not always immediately apparent. It can take a very long time for the effects of such events to show themselves. I recall months later, breaking down into tears with the mysterious burden that hung in my chest about that day. Remembering it all with ferocious accuracy, I wept hopelessly with one thought:
I’m so sorry
.

The truth is, whether it was the late night phone calls, the long-winded talks that would drag on for hours at a time, the shared tears, the endurance of listening to my suicidal thoughts, or simply the many cups of tea that were made; these women, in so many ways, saved my life time and time again. We are a sisterhood of sacrosanct devotion and love that I will be happily indebted to for the rest of my days. I owe these women my life.

Recovery

Coming to terms with your past is one of the most difficult things a person can do in their life. Subconsciously, most of us fear our past; not only is it often filled with mistakes and regrets, but it also stands as proof to the fact that time – our ever looming enemy in this life – is still moving at a rapid pace. Our past is a reminder of how our present will also soon leave us and how the things we do now will fall into that vague realm of our own history. We will analyze that history at some future point under the glory of hindsight and think to ourselves,
why?
The pages of time are long and heavy to bear unless deeply understood and more importantly, reconciled with. More than this, our past is sometimes the only tool we may utilize in predicting our future. And if it is one of regret, we could certainly fall into a paralysis of utter despair and hopelessness.

These were just some of my fears throughout my months of therapy. I didn’t want to look at myself that closely or the past that had come to define me. But what came about in that period of time was a regenerated outlook on the issue of my yesteryears and their significance in shaping the idiosyncratic features of my disease. It was during that time I realised that even the memories we so desperately endeavour to repress can prove to be our greatest comrades as we move in to the future. A renewed concept of hope was born. And as it turns out, hope is the most powerful artillery we can ever use against the frontiers of our own fear.

Inevitably, I resisted recovery to the best of my ability. My doctor had referred me to a clinical psychologist and, not wanting to undermine the suggestion, I went along with it just for the sake of keeping everyone happy. I knew it would be something that would ease the concerns of my interfering friends for a while. In my head, attending the weekly sessions meant a greater stretch of freedom to actually continue with my destructive behaviours. I figured if I could just do what everyone wanted of me, they would eventually realise that it wasn’t working and leave me be, accepting the fact that I would never change and that my bulimia would be a part of me until the day I died.

I didn’t tell my family though and it would be about a quarter of the way through my time in therapy before they ever discovered I was taking such measures. You see, unlike my friends, my family had never applied a term to what was wrong with me. They never made outward accusations surrounding my eating habits and my dramatically altered personality. My mother, prior to the writing of this memoir told me, ‘I just couldn’t find the words. It was obvious something was really wrong; you just weren’t right. I knew you were sick, I just didn’t know what to call it.’ I knew this at the time and though I was aware it would have certainly reassured both of my parents to know that I was getting help, I refused to tell them in case they too came to the same conclusion my friends had. Whether or not they believed I had an eating disorder was irrelevant; as long as they didn’t say it, I could continue to enjoy the comforts of home.

This will be simple, I thought. If anything, it was surely going to assist me in the secrecy of my bulimia. I just had to talk to a stranger once a week and it would be enough to convince the people around me that I was ‘fixed’, thus enabling me to start afresh in the life I tried so hard to keep hidden from the world. Looking for the silver lining was never my forte, as I’ve always been a pessimist, but when this situation was apparently unavoidable. Nevertheless, I resisted my belief in this new development. In life, you generally only get out what you put in and I assumed that these weekly sessions could only affect me if I allowed them to. It was just one more thing I could control in my own mind. So under this logic, I built a fort under which I could bury myself and as such, keep the influence of this stranger and the ammunition she may have at a comfortable distance.

Yet for all my arrogance and audacity, I was a nervous wreck on my first day. I sat down for the first of many times in front of an open-faced woman with an air of absolute surety about her. Her name was Michelle and there was nothing even remotely threatening in her general disposition. But what she represented was enough to wrack me internally. I didn’t like her, I was sure of it. Still unable to admit I had a problem, my friend Ami accompanied me into her office. While I explained in broken plot lines why I was there, Ami served to fill in the gaps and finish with, ‘Basically, it’s very clear that Leanne has an eating disorder and we think it’s gotten to the stage where she needs to talk to a professional about it.’ Apparently not swayed by either of our words, my anxiety was met with unnerving calmness from this woman.

She doesn’t believe me
, is all I could think.
I’m too fat to have an eating disorder and this woman thinks I’m lying through my teeth
.

With Ami having been excused from the meeting at the request of the calm woman who looked at me with shrewd eyes, I decided that I would not come back. It was that simple. This was pointless and once again, I was unsure of why I was even here. The question of whether or not I truly had an eating disorder had bounced back and forth in my head for far too long to remain undecided. Yet here I was believing once again that I was perfectly fine, after writing the words ‘I know I have an eating disorder’ in a diary entry only the day before. Whether or not I did, I was sure that being here was not going to help me answer the question.

As the conversation progressed, however, I found a degree of warmth in her. Though I was still hell bent on handling this situation on my terms and my terms alone, I couldn’t help being drawn in ever so slightly by the way in which she spoke, the fortitude with which she upheld herself and the confidence in the things she was saying. Furthermore, I noted somewhere in my mind, a distinct lack of falsity as regards this environment. There was no couch for me to lie on, no glasses resting on the very tip of her nose, no haughty bookcase full of unrecognisable titles and no pretentiously clichéd questions such as, ‘And how did that make you feel?’ The space was small and private, almost as well hidden as the complexities of my relationship with my bulimia. It felt oddly familiar and like something I could keep in my pocket if I so wished. I left knowing only two things; the first was that I would not return next week and it would be as simple as blowing off my friends, which I did very often now; the second, was that she wasn’t all that bad.

Familiarity is something most human beings are determined to establish in any situation. Without it, we cannot attain that life goal of complacency, which we convince ourselves is necessary in the pursuit of happiness. Like so many others, I was naturally resistant to any imposed change that was beyond my own control. It would mean that I was required to work much harder in any route I took to that holy grail of happiness that we each seek in our own ways. The environment Michelle provided for me and indeed, the natural demeanour of the woman herself, did offer at least some ounce of acquaintance. However, the reasoning that had brought me here still embodied that air of alteration that I felt I just wasn’t ready for.

It’s a very fortunate thing that – for whatever reason, which I don’t fully recall – I did return the following week because I sincerely doubt I ever would have been ‘ready’ for it. It wouldn’t have mattered whether this change occurred then or a very long time in the future because my rather insecure and stubborn nature would have convinced me that it was never the right time anyway. Endurance is a necessity in these cases, otherwise I know I would have certainly hung up my gloves. I had always been that way inclined.

***

I am 13 years old. I have 40 minutes to kill before I must return to the classroom. Everyone else has something to do during lunchtime break; they are either chatting amongst themselves in the canteen, or trotting around the corridors to visit friends and some of them are dotted around the school grounds, sitting out on the sun-drenched grass. I’m tired of sitting at my desk, pretending to do work that I have already finished during yesterday’s lunch break. Instead, I sit in the toilet cubicle, still crying my eyes out and wishing I could be anywhere but here.

I rang Mum only moments ago, begging her to let me come home for the hour and telling her that I was miserable here. I wouldn’t be able to stick this and was going to be unhappy for the next six years. I had heard the concern in her voice but she was still having none of it and told me to just try make it through another day and we would talk more about it when I got home. As I sit here sobbing, I hear chattering girls enter the room outside the cubicle door. Their laughing is high-pitched and gleeful. I stifle my crying as best I can, holding my breath until finally they leave. I break into uncontrollable whimpering once again.

It has been almost a month since I started secondary school. I am the only person from my primary school to come here and with the exception of one girl from my estate, I don’t know anyone. Not that it matters all that much anyway because she is in a different class and we don’t speak or even see each other. Lunchtimes are about an hour long and I never have anything to do during that time. Most days I do my homework or simply read what we have just finished or are about to learn in class. But I can only do that for so long because I never have any homework when I get home and am usually always ahead of the class now. Eating my lunch takes only five to ten minutes and every day, I end up in this cubicle crying and wishing I could go home again, where I feel safe and relieved.

I know it’s breaking Mum’s heart to have me calling her every day in such a state but I just have to. If for no other reason than to just have someone to talk to. I breathe in as deeply as I can, tidying myself up and wiping my tears. I think I must have a naturally sad face because whenever I walk past the main area of the school towards my classroom, a teacher always seems to stop me in my tracks to ask me if I’m okay, I wish they would just leave me alone. There’s nothing they can do to help anyway so asking me such things is pointless.

Safely back in my seat, I open up our English textbook, put my head down and hope nobody will notice me or approach me. English is my favourite subject and as my eyes scan over and over a Seamus Heaney poem, I find some degree of ease in being here in this moment. During class time, I usually feel fine because nobody is allowed to talk and when the teacher asks me a question, I always know the answer. This is because I spend every lunch time studying. Once during a religion class, however, we were asked to assign everyone a descriptive name beginning with the same letter as our own name. If your name was Sarah, your descriptive name would be Super Sarah and so on. As the teacher went through all the students, the class would shout out ideas until the right one was found. When it came to me, I was nervous and didn’t say a word. Someone eventually yelled out ‘Lonely Leanne!’ and a few people laughed. The teacher refused the suggestion and was quick to pick some other adjective, but I don’t remember what it is now. All I can think about is how I am Lonely Leanne.

As I glance over my notes on the Heaney poem, a girl shouts across the classroom, ‘Hey you!’ I don’t realise it’s directed at me so she yells even louder next time adding, ‘Hey, lonely Leanne!’ I look up to meet her gaze and see she’s sitting with all the loudest girls in our class. She doesn’t call me over but continues to shout from her spot against the wall.

‘Who do you hang around with?’ she asks. Straight away, I’m alarmed.

‘Ehm’, I choke, hoping my soft-spoken voice will carry across the room and various groups of girls. ‘I’m the only person from my old school here so I don’t know anybody.’

‘No!’ she laughs. ‘Who do you hang out with outside of school?’

The truth is, I don’t have any friends outside of school either. Almost immediately after primary school, I never saw those girls again and for that summer at least, I was happy with not having any friends because to me, friends brought a whole world of trouble that I was just happier without. But I couldn’t tell her or any of the other loud girls that. If I did, they would think I was weird and I would have no chance of making friends for the next six years. Instead, I list off a few random names, hoping this will satisfy her and that she will leave me alone. It doesn’t and she continues to grin broadly, with the others giggling under their breath.

‘Oh yeah, I know all them!’ she chuckles. ‘They live in Fassaroe, don’t they?’

‘Ehm, no.’ I lie. ‘They don’t live in Bray at all. You wouldn’t know them.’

‘I might. What are their last names? I bet I’ll know them.’

‘I don’t know any of their surnames’ I tell her. This sends the whole group off into an outburst of giggles amongst themselves. A few other groups of girls have been listening as well and are looking at me with blank expressions – probably pity – trying to see my reaction.

‘So then,’ comes her voice once more, ‘you really are lonely Leanne aren’t you?’

I don’t respond and this marks the end of my first conversation with another student. I heard one of the loud girls say through stifled laughter, ‘Ah, you’re so mean sometimes.’ But they all continue in their hysteria nonetheless. Last week, Mum phoned the school to tell them that I was finding it difficult to make friends. Ms Dempsey, the deputy principle and renowned martyr of the school, took me around the grounds to better acquaint me with the place and show me all the things I could do to make friends and feel more at home. She was bright and friendly, and was like a grandmother figure for the entire school. But it was no good and after today, I don’t think I want to be friends with anybody anyway. I just want to be left alone and do my time.

I think about my old primary school and how horrible those girls made it for me. But then, deep down inside, I wish I could go back. It doesn’t matter how terrible those girls made my life back then because at least I was used to it. I’ve heard my Dad say before, ‘Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t’ and now, I think I finally understand it. There is nothing familiar about this new school and sometimes I would rather be back in my old hell than stay in this new one for the next six years. I go back to the cubicle to cry. I stay there until the bell finally rings for class.