I am coming up to my 45th birthday. I see this age as a milestone, further along the road to 50, yikes! I think its time I started sharing my story, I have a lot to say on this subject. So please, relax, sit back and use your own judgement to discern whether any of this information could be of help to you or a loved one.
Chapter One – First Date – The early days…
I weighed myself for the first time in 1988, I was 8 years old, almost 2 years younger than my youngest son is. I don’t remember the specific figure the scales produced, however I definitely do remember thinking something was wrong with it, wrong with me. I can remember that so clearly, 36 years later, how that felt on that day, and to be honest I think I will always remember it. This was the start of a life-long relationship, me and the weighing scales. I spent the rest of this particular day exercising, it was a Saturday and we had no school, remember I said I was 8 years old. We were living in a pretty big bungalow at the time, a fine long hallway to run up and down. The sad reality was that I needed have worried too much for that was to be the year my family lost absolutely everything from a financial perspective, and of course from a pride perspective also as a result of this. Food became more minimalist in our home and as this continued my frame became lighter. I can also remember one day in my rural school I either genuinely had forgotten my lunch, or I pretended I did as there wasn’t anything in the cupboard that morning when I searched for something for my lunchbox. When my teacher realised I didn’t have any food with me she proactively asked all of my classmates to give me something small from their lunchboxes to make up a lunch for me. Remember this was a rural school and my class was very small so it wasn’t as if I received 30 food donations, it was more like 5 and they were all very gratefully received. My teacher also said “We’ll fatten you up for Christmas Avril” which I am taking to being a comment directed towards me possibly being on the lighter side at this stage, who knows. This was the time of Beverly Hills 90210 starting and Tina Turner successfully launching her solo career, I day-dreamed constantly of a happier reality while watching these talented artists. Months later we fled our home unable to pay our way, the exercise friendly bungalow, and we took refuge in my Grandparents home in County Cork, we were homeless.
We were so fortunate at that time that my Grandparents took care of us and that included plenty of food. In my new school I found myself in a class of about 30 girls, I had been in a mixed rural school where the entire school was about 30 students! Exceptionally conscious of other girls who all seemed thinner, smaller, had smaller feet (I have always had big feet), prettier hair and more beautiful sounding names. I had just gotten into consistent eating thanks to my grandparents highly predictable eating schedule when I was landed with a substitute teacher, who was without question actively eating disordered. She spoke to us at an obsessional level about the dangers of McDonalds and fried food. My Nana used to cook me a fried egg treat “egg on a raft”, she nearly fainted one evening which I told her I couldn’t have this for my supper as much teacher had said that fried food was very dangerous for our hearts (I was 9 years old at this stage). This might seem like super boring detail however all these themes join together and what do you get? The makings of one big, horrible, life-long, ugly, relentlessly cruel, incessant, soul destroying EATING DISORDER. And if you think that’s an exaggeration then ask anybody with one, trust me on this. Thankfully this Teacher was a substitute as I mentioned and our “Proper Teacher” came back, phew. I don’t remember her mentioning food, what a relief! She even stayed around to be our teacher for the entire 4th class. My Father got work in the UK and made pretty decent money, it was huge money in comparison to typical wages at the time. This meant that little extras started popping up in my day things like coleslaw in my sandwiches, and being given 50p to get something in the shop on the way back to school after lunch. Genuinely at this particular time I don’t think I was worried about what I ate, nice to have the break. I remember my Dad baking scones, they were small ones and my parents used to freeze them. My mother would defrost them and we would then heat them under the grill and savour them with butter and jam. My Dad is a brilliant Cook and Baker. Food, food, food, nothing else matters as Metallica say, nothing but food and loads of butter, yum! 5th and 6th class don’t bring up any food specific memories for me, I was very active and I ate anything that was available to me. I was very healthy looking and my body was developing quickly, this included my chest which led to a bullying incident, where I was targeted by boys we were match as pen pals with due to the size of my chest. It was my Father who advocated on my behalf to the boys school and an apology resulted from that boy and his school as far as I can remember.
Fast forward to secondary school and my body image came rocketing up again for one reason, boys. I had enrolled in a mixed secondary school and the boys made comments on me constantly. My breasts developed young, giving these boys unlimited teasing ammunition with the term Knockers being used at a cruel level. To top it off my skin was very sallow and they used to call me derogatory names. Result = my hyper consciousness of my body image. It was a miracle I could concentrate on any of my school work. Plus, I was actually very good at school, another reason to tease me. Tease is too mild a word really but it’s the best I can think of right now. I remained very active physically and took part in school basketball. Guess what though the boys could look down at us from the viewing area and sneakily find ways to pass comments without the Coaches hearing them. Lambs to the slaughter. Then of course there were the girls they looked down at from an admiration/non-teasing point of view, I wasn’t one of those girls though, I never have been. Back to food and during that part of my basketball days I don’t remember being overly worried about my weight. I don’t think this worry necessarily went away I just think it was probably over-shadowed by bigger worries like the boys shouting down at me during an important basketball match and in front of all the school. Not to mind this was after me scoring a winning basket. The day of our parent teacher meetings we were playing basketball to demonstrate the school sports to our parents. The boys were around and of course so were our parents. I was totally thrown by my parents being in attendance that I played absolutely rubbish, I was used to not having supporters for me specifically on the sideline, my Dad was working abroad and my Mum was very busy with the house and us kids. I was going mad I didn’t play well in front of them, I had genuinely wanted them to see how well I was doing at the game. At the time basketball was one of the best things in my life, I learned how to steal the ball from the opposition and sprint down the court to score, an amazing feeling! I did this over and over and over again. Back to exercising in hallways, I was practicing lay ups in our tiny hallway, not to burn calories but to blitz my skill level to a whole new ability for the game.
Sept to Dec of second year I played the absolute best basketball of my life, mainly playing point guard for my team. School was a bit easier, I had more of a handle on things after getting through 1st year. Those 2 areas, basketball and school (at least the subjects I liked such as Spanish) if they could have been sealed in a safe container it would have been ideal, however that was not to be. The influence of others was always present and their comments continued. Added to that was the peer pressure to go places I didn’t want to go to and do things I didn’t want to do. One group I was in had a very dominant girl as its Leader. In some ways I felt safe around her as nobody messed with her, in other ways I was afraid of her as nobody said no to her. She would show up at where I was babysitting and demand to eat all the treats in the press, I would be mortified then when my Aunt who I had been babysitting for would come home and everything she had left for me had been eaten. She would also show up when the weekly shopping would be delivered to the house with a particular passion for chocolate spread. We’ll get back to this at a later stage but she literally demanded we do what she wanted and you meet her today and she’s the nicest woman possible, give me strength! I very happily carried on with basketball until the following February 2 events happened that would have a huge impact on my basketball journey……
I am just going to take a quick break for now Dear Reader, but I’ll be back and we are approximately in 2nd year of secondary school with plenty more to come…
So where was I? Oh yes, basketball. One Friday night after a full school week plus probably 3 to 4 basketball training sessions I was downtown with a friend, just hanging around. We spotted 2 boys from our school that we knew, and we went over to them. We were just chatting and messing around and one of the boys teased me in a good-natured way (made a nice change!) and I jokingly went to kick him up the backside for what he had said. Anyway, I slipped in all my bravery and went over on my ankle. I thought I was fine until I went home that evening and fell asleep on our comfy coach in the Kitchen. When I woke up from my short sleep my ankle was throbbing and was pretty swollen, I was shocked. Anyway it was a sprain and I rested it for a few days, missed a basketball match in the middle of it all also. I was devastated missing the game and to top it off there was no such thing as sympathy from Coaches in 1994 they were more likely to be pissed off with you for missing a game than sending you well wishes. I can’t remember was it my first training session back after this injury or further down the line but I do remember what happened next. I was standing across from another player for the jump ball and we both jumped and the other girl landed awkwardly on me while I once again went over on my ankle. I could practically feel my ankle rip in two. I was in severe pain. One of the coaches filled mop bucket with cold water and stuck my foot into it. I was doubly upset to see my new Patrick Ewing basketball boots being submerged into this dirty bucket. One of the girls’ Dad dropped me home and I hobbled in the front door. My Father was furious that the club hadn’t done more to look after me, he took me to our GP who recommended we go straight to CUH. There they told me I had a very badly sprained ankle and would have been better off breaking it. We got home late that night, I think we stopped off at a chipper (the things you remember). I went to bed that night with pillows under my cast to make sure I didn’t do any damage and the next day I got to hang out at my Grandparents House all day and I loved that part of course. Nothing at all stayed the same with my Basketball Life after this, I definitely had potential, and it was shattered. I found it so hard when I returned to the game, who had replaced me was still the first choice and that’s even harder as you can imagine. My fitness wasn’t the same and I was nervous of my ankle, of course I was. That Summer I was picked for trials for the Cork Basketball Team, and I made a mess of the trials themselves. I was just so nervous that I couldn’t get into my rhythm, so where along the way I had lost it. This all is hugely relevant to my weight background also as the less basketball I was playing the bigger I was getting. I had always had such a healthy appetite and I’d say I was eating roughly the same but not running it off on the courts. I didn’t pay too much attention until I did if that makes any sense. I used to wear a best with navy wrangler jeans that I had and a girl used to say Avril you don’t need a belt with that pants, you really don’t need a belt with that pants. Yeah, thanks for the reminder any chance you could phrase that even a little bit tactfully? Food was definitely starting to reemerge as a theme. By the time Summer of second year was over I was heading into 3rd year with a pretty different body type to 12 months previously and lots of comparisons to come with all of the other girls around me. Thankfully I did have a friend or two that were so kind and compassionate and I’ll come to them later, one of them is still in my life today, I am extremely fortunate!
The start of third year came and I was definitely BIGGER in my school uniform. I was moving in between 2 groups of friends. One group I was much more comfortable with, and over the course of the year I would gradually drift away from the other group thankfully. MY CBT Therapist said earlier this year that CBT is about making sense of things, well I think this writing is probably helping me make sense of stuff that has deeply impacted me. Back to school and all the Teachers straight away spoke about the Junior Cert, how important it was and how critical it was that we study, I immediately started to worry.
Third Year memories are populated by feelings of being big, fat, bigger than the other girls. These feelings were unintentionally reinforced by a close male friend of mine. He would talk about the girls he “fancied”, all of whom were undoubtedly very slim. I preferred talking to him about what we normally chatted about, football. In fact, football was what had brought us together as friends in the first place. I would be out on the road playing football with my baby brother every day. What’s more, I could tell you what was going on in the Premier League at any point in time. Why was that? I loved spending time with my Grandfather, who spent most of his day on the couch watching TV, more to the point, watching football. Back to my friend’s comments on the other girls, on reflection they had a massive impact on me, I put value on what my friend thought and said, simple as that. This is very likely to have resulted in me thinking “You have to be thin to be liked”. Relating this back to me at the time I felt big and maybe even fat (I wasn’t, I was a healthy size 12-14) therefore according to the previous logic I couldn’t be liked? Very harsh indeed.
Were there any positives from this time? The close friendships with the 2 girls I mentioned have lasted the test of time, the friendships remain and I am exceptionally close to one of them. School subjects such as Spanish, History, Science, Geography and Business Studies I found interesting. I did find Maths beyond hard though and Technical Graphics was hilarious with the Teacher sitting the 3 girls down the back of the classroom. Result? We couldn’t hear a word he said and had to sit the pass paper, definitely not honours. Very sadly both of my Grandparents passed away that year. My Grandfather had been ill for a number of years however his death, on New Year’s Eve, was unexpected. My Grandmother followed him about 3 and a half months later, a stroke brought on by a broken heart. My Grandmother lived for about 4 to 5 weeks after her stroke, my Mother would visit almost daily and I would mind my siblings. This was a time where I learnt to comfort eat (I had probably made a start already but this time it was the real deal) lots of my attentional focus went onto food. That was probably easier than taking a step back to reflect on my Grandmother gradually passing away, and me doing my best to mind my siblings at home when I should have been studying for the Junior Cert.
That June I sat my Junior Cert exams, I did eat and rightly so and with playing less basketball I inevitably became more and more “healthy/round” looking as I saw it. I continued to compare myself with all other girls around me, their size and what they were eating. I became friends with some newer girls too who didn’t worry so much about their size and that was a comforting relief to say the least. I spent the Summer mainly with these girls and got ready to start fifth year having decided to skip transition year, always in a rush!
I started Fifth Year that September and a few weeks later we received our Junior Cert Results. I did pretty well, considering I had lost both of my Grandparents in that exam year. I liked the students in Fifth Year, the year I had left had quite a number of bullies and teasers, this new group were such a welcome relief! I left basketball, I had enough of the dynamic, of feeling like I couldn’t play as well as I used to and to comparing myself of course to the other girls, so that was that.
Soon enough into Fifth Year I decided to restrict what I was eating. I decided to give up eating lunch, as you do! There you go an entire meal, just like that. I convinced myself and others who would listen to me that having a big bowl of muesli in the morning and an evening meal was sufficient for me, even with the usual amount of walking I was doing plus the swimming I had started to do regularly. I walked to school, it took about 20 minutes, I walked home for “lunch” (no lunch now in my case), I walked back to school afterwards, I walked home from school and I walked anywhere I was going that evening then such as swimming (more exercise) or to a friends house. Myself and the friend then would likely go for another walk! I started to lose weight, who wouldn’t all things considered. People gradually started to notice and when they would pass as comment that I was losing weight I was absolutely delighted, it was working! A brain scan would confirm if I had one that every bit of the reward network in my brain was lit up like a Christmas tree as Dr. Judson Brewer says. I continued, I persevered, less and less food, more exercise, more weight loss. I proudly announced to my parents that I didn’t want any sweets that Christmas, I wanted fruit juice. I don’t think they saw any harm in this I genuinely think they thought I was just trying to be healthy. Then the ultimate happened, my close male friend noticed I was losing weight, BINGO, I was over the moon. I really valued what he thought and he was saying I was losing weight, I couldn’t be happier. Before all of this started and the previous Summer when I ate really well I would think I was fierce healthy looking as they say, I am not quite sure. I was quickly starting to come away from this number and as the months went on I dropped right down the weight numbers. That was when my parents suggested I speak with the Nurse at our local GP practice which I did. Nobody mentioned the word anorexia, a few weeks later I was in the very light range range and a few short weeks after I became dramatically underweight. My body changed drastically, my sister is 5 and half years younger than me, she was 10 at the time and some of her clothes fit me. I started to wake up very early in the morning (I was obviously hungry) and my concentration in school was in no way the same. The school asked the Civics Teacher to have a chat with me, this didn’t help at all I just felt like she was criticising me and she definitely didn’t “get it” far from it. Our GP recommended I go on Prozac, it was relatively new at the time, my friend in our Science Class who I trusted a lot told me to be very careful with Prozac so I didn’t bother taking it. My poor Father one night got so frustrated said “For fuck sake, we will be buying you a coffin next, people will think we aren’t feeding you”.
So, what did I do?
I thought I was in “trouble” then, upsetting people because I was so so so thin. I started to binge. The first time was just probably regular eating but I hadn’t eaten properly in so so long, the second time was a bit more, and more and then I built it up and up to the extent that I was eating regardless of feeling completely full. I did this for an entire Summer (Summer 1996) and by the time that September approached I had rocked back up to a healthy weight again, however it is such a pity this was done by bingeing as this habit of bingeing remained and is there at more times than I care to admin in this present day. Today I can very easily binge if circumstances lead me to doing so. Back to the story, we are right up to sixth year of secondary school now, a year filled by bingeing and towards the end of the year the discovery of laxatives. I took a laxative overdose before my exams started (purely with the objective of weight loss, nothing else) and just like the bingeing this now meant I had another eating disorder tool at my disposal which I would use over the years that followed. I managed to hide the laxatives from my parents at the start however eventually they would find out, the GP was visiting a bit too often with “stomach cramps” so the news broke about what I was doing. I did my Leaving Certificate, over exercising, under eating and overeating (followed by laxatives), my 17 year old body didn’t have a clue what was going on I’d say.
