other faxes daily. We signed up for long distance telephone dealsâonly 20 cents a minute to the U.S.âand we got email accounts back when they were quite the newest technology.
Ten weeks later, as we were planning our reunionâI was going to fly out to New York for Christmas, then Laurie would fly back with me for New Yearâs in OxfordâI received an airmail letter out of the blue. He said this long-distance thing âwasnât working,â that he needed a girlfriend who was around, that it was better for both of us to make a fresh start, alone.
The hurt was indescribable. I stayed in my college room for five days straight. I remember I drank water straight from the tap and sat on the floor by the window smoking duty-free U.S. cigarettes. I didnât go out to lectures or to the shops (it was the first time in my life Iâd gone without food). I donât remember crying, just feeling completely blankâI couldnât get my mind around living without him. Then I took a shower, unlocked the door, and set about destroying myself.
Chapter 6
Things Fall Apart
H ow can I describe those years in Oxford? I wonât begin with the beauty of the âdreaming spiresâ or gambling trips down the River Cherwell (Iâm no poet, and anyway itâs been done much better in Brideshead Revisited ). Nor will I go on about the books I read and essays I wrote, the inspiring lectures and the libraries, the University Parks, the lanes and colleges and pealing bells . . . They are all locked up inside, woven into my memories of Oxford, but they are not part of this story.
Those three years, from the ages of nineteen to twenty-one, should have been a time of growth; instead they were a time of shrinking, of near collapse. And yet I remember them as happy. It strikes me now as strange, that I was colder and hungrier than Iâd ever been in my life, but I remember being happy.
The spark that had been ignited by the end of my relationship with Laurie caught fire. With my fundamental lack of self-belief, I blamed myself. I turned the pain inward; I despised myself for getting rejected, so punishment was the next logical step. I believe this is what self-harmers do: cut themselves on the outside in order to relieve the pain inside. I understand the impulse very well, although I have never deliberately injured myself. (I write this, and then a few days later I receive an email from a psychiatristwho reminds me that âanorexia is also a form of self-harm.â God, that makes me feel uneasy.)
Starving myself was a way of coping with the pain I felt, and a way of controlling myself. Clearly I was too much for Laurie. Too talkative, too emotional, too fleshy. In short, too fat. I believed this, despite the fact that I was average height and weight, slap bang in the ânormalâ section of the BMI charts. Photographs of me aged nineteen show I had a nice figure.
I had no way of dealing with my emotional chaos, so I found a physical solution. Of course none of this was clear to me then, but I wasnât thinking straight. I was thinking about Laurie all the time. The overwhelming feeling was one of abandonment and humiliation. I hated myself, not him. (Iâve never been able to hate him.)
Self-starvation does a good job of muting everything. When youâre eating so little, you donât have any reserves left over to get emotional or dramatic about life; mine became a pretty low-level existence. And yet itâs also hard work: being constantly hungry requires focus; you mustnât slip up and eat something, you mustnât give in and show that you need food or a hug; you mustnât allow your appetite to get the better of you. You donât deserve to eat.
When anorexia starts, itâs like any normal diet. You lose weight gradually, steadily, a pound or two a week. Itâs satisfying to see your efforts pay off: a simple game of cost and reward. You resist the
Ten weeks later, as we were planning our reunionâI was going to fly out to New York for Christmas, then Laurie would fly back with me for New Yearâs in OxfordâI received an airmail letter out of the blue. He said this long-distance thing âwasnât working,â that he needed a girlfriend who was around, that it was better for both of us to make a fresh start, alone.
The hurt was indescribable. I stayed in my college room for five days straight. I remember I drank water straight from the tap and sat on the floor by the window smoking duty-free U.S. cigarettes. I didnât go out to lectures or to the shops (it was the first time in my life Iâd gone without food). I donât remember crying, just feeling completely blankâI couldnât get my mind around living without him. Then I took a shower, unlocked the door, and set about destroying myself.
Chapter 6
Things Fall Apart
H ow can I describe those years in Oxford? I wonât begin with the beauty of the âdreaming spiresâ or gambling trips down the River Cherwell (Iâm no poet, and anyway itâs been done much better in Brideshead Revisited ). Nor will I go on about the books I read and essays I wrote, the inspiring lectures and the libraries, the University Parks, the lanes and colleges and pealing bells . . . They are all locked up inside, woven into my memories of Oxford, but they are not part of this story.
Those three years, from the ages of nineteen to twenty-one, should have been a time of growth; instead they were a time of shrinking, of near collapse. And yet I remember them as happy. It strikes me now as strange, that I was colder and hungrier than Iâd ever been in my life, but I remember being happy.
The spark that had been ignited by the end of my relationship with Laurie caught fire. With my fundamental lack of self-belief, I blamed myself. I turned the pain inward; I despised myself for getting rejected, so punishment was the next logical step. I believe this is what self-harmers do: cut themselves on the outside in order to relieve the pain inside. I understand the impulse very well, although I have never deliberately injured myself. (I write this, and then a few days later I receive an email from a psychiatristwho reminds me that âanorexia is also a form of self-harm.â God, that makes me feel uneasy.)
Starving myself was a way of coping with the pain I felt, and a way of controlling myself. Clearly I was too much for Laurie. Too talkative, too emotional, too fleshy. In short, too fat. I believed this, despite the fact that I was average height and weight, slap bang in the ânormalâ section of the BMI charts. Photographs of me aged nineteen show I had a nice figure.
I had no way of dealing with my emotional chaos, so I found a physical solution. Of course none of this was clear to me then, but I wasnât thinking straight. I was thinking about Laurie all the time. The overwhelming feeling was one of abandonment and humiliation. I hated myself, not him. (Iâve never been able to hate him.)
Self-starvation does a good job of muting everything. When youâre eating so little, you donât have any reserves left over to get emotional or dramatic about life; mine became a pretty low-level existence. And yet itâs also hard work: being constantly hungry requires focus; you mustnât slip up and eat something, you mustnât give in and show that you need food or a hug; you mustnât allow your appetite to get the better of you. You donât deserve to eat.
When anorexia starts, itâs like any normal diet. You lose weight gradually, steadily, a pound or two a week. Itâs satisfying to see your efforts pay off: a simple game of cost and reward. You resist the
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