Courtesy of New Harbinger Publications
"I've dropped again. I don't feel anything. Apparently my weight is so low for my height that I'm eating myself (brain included). But it just doesn't make sense. It's a sterile, passionless statement … I feel so detached ... I just can't see what they’re seeing. Occasionally I'll catch a fleeting glimpse of myself in a car window or shop door and step back in horror. But then, flesh will grow back and hide the skeleton, and no amount of squinting will bring it back..."
So wrote 18-year-old Lucy Howard-Taylor in her diary while still within the grip of anorexia nervosa. The entries, which have now been adapted into her new memoir "Biting Anorexia" (available in the U.S. September 2009), follow her progression from denying having an eating disorder to admitting she may have a problem, through treatment and finally touch upon the beginnings of what -- she knows now at age 19 -- will be a long recovery. In an interview with AOL Health she describes how anorexia damaged her body, relationships, successful academic record and even her ability to hold a conversation, plus one aspect of her disorder she's not willing to discuss.
AOL Health: In your book you discuss that when you were in the grip of your eating disorder how important it was to appear like a real anorexic, to appear like you were disappearing. Why?
Lucy Howard-Taylor: The level of competitiveness among people suffering from anorexia is extreme. Involved as I was in online pro-anorexia communities, I was constantly seeing other peoples' weights, and I constantly felt myself under pressure to go "further," to "beat" them. Some communities wouldn't approve your joining unless you were severely emaciated. The desire to be a "real" anorexic was a very real one, and still is. I remember treating the hospitalized girls with a deathly reverence -- as though only they knew what it was to be truly anorexic. There are so many people on diets, and eating disorders have been so popularized in the media, that there was the very real feeling that one had to "prove" the genuineness of one's problem -- and that this could only be done through forced hospitalization, or through appearing scarily emaciated. When I first met one of the girls on one of my forums [in person], I was so anxious that she'd think I was faking the anorexia I could barely eat for the week beforehand. Later, she confessed the same.
AOL Health: What happened to your school-life, love-life, family-life and social-life during the year-plus that you were fighting anorexia?
Howard-Taylor: They collapsed. My family life became fraught with arguments. I used to walk for hours just to escape the heat of the house, and the constant attention on my food and behavior. School-life was a little easier, but I withdrew absolutely, and people began not to approach me. I started to get what I would understand later were panic attacks, and I'd retreat to the bathroom for ages. Unable to pay attention in class, and embarrassed by the noises my stomach made all the time, I started to skip classes for the first time. I was in a position of leadership (I was school captain) which made things much harder. I often had to give speeches, and be present at events. When I think of my final year at school (which is when I was sickest), I remember struggling to get up stairs, and little else. My social-life was non-existent. Someone told me that they had stopped asking me out to things because I never came. I couldn't sustain conversations. There was no space at all for a love-life.
AOL Health: How long did it take for your loved ones to notice your disordered eating?
Howard-Taylor: It wasn't noticed for a number of months, by
anyone -- least of all myself. It developed so incrementally that by
the time I was already very ill, the idea of anorexia hadn't really
occurred to me. When my psychiatrist told me that I was very sick, and
that I had anorexia nervosa, I remember registering a strange sense of
shock. My parents had picked up on it before I did, but because I was
so badly-tempered (because of the lack of food over weeks) they chose
to write me a note instead of confronting me directly. I will always
remember the part of it that suggested that I let Mum make an
appointment with a nutritionist "to discuss my ideas on food." There
was a part of me that realized a small problem at that point. From
memory, my friends and teachers only really started to notice when I
came back to school after summer, having lost a lot of weight. Again,
no one directly approached me about it. Some of my friends made jokes,
because they didn't know what else to say. A couple of teachers started
asking me more regularly "how I was," with that significant undertone
that suggests they know something is wrong. A close friend wrote me a
letter, like my parents, rather than confront me verbally. I treasure
that letter. It was the one incident of someone else reaching out to me
outside my family that I remember, and it meant so much to me.
AOL Health: In your memoir you have blocked out the numbers that you
kept track of so diligently in your journal -- the weight dropped, the
weigh-ins. Why?
Howard-Taylor: Firstly, the numbers represent nothing. Anorexia
is first and foremost a psychological disorder, which may or may not
manifest itself in emaciation, or dramatic weight loss. Secondly, (and
I have had ample experience with this on pro-ana forums) the weight
statistics of others will always provide a sufferer with another number
to beat. It's horrifically competitive, and I will not contribute to
that.
AOL Health: Do you mind sharing how much weight you lost and how much weight you've regained?
Howard-Taylor: I'd prefer not to for the above reason. For one
person, the loss of 10 pounds might put them in dangerous territory;
for another it might take 150 pounds. No one is more "truly" disordered
for having lost "more" weight than anyone else. It is enough to say
that I was dangerously underweight, well below the B.M.I. [body mass index] at which hospitalization is suggested, and at constant risk of a heart attack.
AOL Health: What did you eat most days during that time period?
Howard-Taylor: I ate a lot of fruit and low-calorie cereal. I
had cups and cups of vegetable stock, which I liked to think of as
soup. Rice crackers, and anything with a lot of flavor and salt:
mustard, vegemite. A binge would probably have consisted on a few
spoonfuls of cereal, some mustard, perhaps a few grapes, maybe a little
slice of cheese, an olive, a spoonful of yogurt, three nuts, or so. My
"binges" generally involved tiny quantities of a large range of foods.
When I developed bulimia in recovery, my binges were much more
substantial.
AOL Health: You visited nutritionists and psychiatrists to deal with this disorder, but one said, "You don't look anorexic..."
Howard-Taylor: I was mortified. I got out of there as soon as I
could. Seeing this first psychologist was the very first time a part of
me had started to admit that I might have had a problem, and she just
cut me down. The psychiatrist I started seeing a little while later was
an expert in eating disorders. I still see her. She is amazing, and I
am so lucky to have found her. The nutritionists I saw at first were
hopeless, and just told me everything that I already knew about the
necessity of eating healthily. It was the dietitian my psychiatrist
recommended who actually sat me down, went through what I was eating,
and showed me what was wrong with it. I disputed a lot of what she
said, but slowly things started to get through.
Next: A Turning Point: Accepting Anorexia
