drop and my jeans getting looser. I was a mess of emotions I couldnât even start to acknowledge. Compared to the breakup, anorexia was bearable: the discomfort of being hungry all the time was nothing compared to the twisted pain in my heart. And anyway, I felt very badly in the wrong: I had been rejected and it was my fault. Not allowing myself to eat was a start.
I canât honestly trace the line between a diet and anorexia. There must be an invisible threshold, and I donât know when I crossed it. I suppose this is the heart of the matter: why most people can go on a diet (and either keep the weight off, or regain it) while others spiral into the madness of a full-blown eating disorder. All I know is that once it started, anorexia very quickly took off. In all the buried hurt and shame, it seemed I had found something that worked. I could control this. And the self-annihilation accelerated from that point on.
When I started university I weighed 133 pounds. When I left I weighed 77 pounds.
* * *
My memories from Oxford are broken and intense. When I look back, I can tell which year it was not from events or the actual date, but from the way I was feeling.
First year: party animal, lots of boyfriends, not much work, getting stoned on weekends with friends at Balliol and Corpus Christi, starting to lose weight, looking good. Second year: much thinner, joining the gym, a few close friendships, more alcohol than food. Third year: withdrawal into the library and my rooms, exercising obsessively, working constantly, reading, writing poetry, eating almost nothing, a lot of doctorâs appointments.
That downward spiralâof my body, my mind, my grip on lifeâwas visceral, unlike anything Iâve ever experienced. Itâs exhilarating and terrifying, watching everything fall apart. I had rigid control and no control. I donât know what I was thinkingâI wasnât trying to starve myself to death; I donât remember a game plan as such. I didnât want to die, but I knew I was badly caught. I didnât know where it would end.
As well as feeling trapped, I was also in pain. With zero fat, either normal subcutaneous body fat or energy food fat, youâre constantly fighting for survival. All anorexics speak of the cold, and I found those winters in Oxford unbelievably hard. Just now I checked the Met Office website out of curiosity, to see if the recorded temperatures for those three Decembers in the late 1990s were any lower than usual; of course they werenât. So why was I colder than I ever knew it was possible to feel?
I recall one night at a friendâs birthday party at Maxwellâs, a cocktail bar in the center of town. It was crowded with students and well-heated but the cold had penetrated my bones, and I simply had no insulation to keep me warm. I froze in a turtleneck and jeans and boots surrounded by friends in sleeveless tops and skimpy dresses. It had taken all my strength to come out, and I tried to stay, but I couldnât concentrate on any conversation and the tips of my fingers had gone numb. Finally I slipped out into the dark night and walked the two miles home alone along the main road. I could have taken a bus or a taxi, but that would have been âfatâ behavior. Anorexia is a process of constant self-punishment: small everyday cruelties, an inability to be kind to oneself or to say, Youâre tired, youâre cold, just get into a warm cab . Back in my flat at the student block on Iffley Road I ran the hottest bath I could stand. I still remember how it hurt to sit down, because my tail bone stuck out and grated against the bottom of the bath, and my elbows and knees were sharp against the sides. I was covered in livid bruises from the slightest knock. That night as I lay in the scalding water, pale and paper-light, I thought of my friends back in Maxwellâs getting drunk on jugs of Sea Breeze. That was a turning point, of sorts,
I canât honestly trace the line between a diet and anorexia. There must be an invisible threshold, and I donât know when I crossed it. I suppose this is the heart of the matter: why most people can go on a diet (and either keep the weight off, or regain it) while others spiral into the madness of a full-blown eating disorder. All I know is that once it started, anorexia very quickly took off. In all the buried hurt and shame, it seemed I had found something that worked. I could control this. And the self-annihilation accelerated from that point on.
When I started university I weighed 133 pounds. When I left I weighed 77 pounds.
* * *
My memories from Oxford are broken and intense. When I look back, I can tell which year it was not from events or the actual date, but from the way I was feeling.
First year: party animal, lots of boyfriends, not much work, getting stoned on weekends with friends at Balliol and Corpus Christi, starting to lose weight, looking good. Second year: much thinner, joining the gym, a few close friendships, more alcohol than food. Third year: withdrawal into the library and my rooms, exercising obsessively, working constantly, reading, writing poetry, eating almost nothing, a lot of doctorâs appointments.
That downward spiralâof my body, my mind, my grip on lifeâwas visceral, unlike anything Iâve ever experienced. Itâs exhilarating and terrifying, watching everything fall apart. I had rigid control and no control. I donât know what I was thinkingâI wasnât trying to starve myself to death; I donât remember a game plan as such. I didnât want to die, but I knew I was badly caught. I didnât know where it would end.
As well as feeling trapped, I was also in pain. With zero fat, either normal subcutaneous body fat or energy food fat, youâre constantly fighting for survival. All anorexics speak of the cold, and I found those winters in Oxford unbelievably hard. Just now I checked the Met Office website out of curiosity, to see if the recorded temperatures for those three Decembers in the late 1990s were any lower than usual; of course they werenât. So why was I colder than I ever knew it was possible to feel?
I recall one night at a friendâs birthday party at Maxwellâs, a cocktail bar in the center of town. It was crowded with students and well-heated but the cold had penetrated my bones, and I simply had no insulation to keep me warm. I froze in a turtleneck and jeans and boots surrounded by friends in sleeveless tops and skimpy dresses. It had taken all my strength to come out, and I tried to stay, but I couldnât concentrate on any conversation and the tips of my fingers had gone numb. Finally I slipped out into the dark night and walked the two miles home alone along the main road. I could have taken a bus or a taxi, but that would have been âfatâ behavior. Anorexia is a process of constant self-punishment: small everyday cruelties, an inability to be kind to oneself or to say, Youâre tired, youâre cold, just get into a warm cab . Back in my flat at the student block on Iffley Road I ran the hottest bath I could stand. I still remember how it hurt to sit down, because my tail bone stuck out and grated against the bottom of the bath, and my elbows and knees were sharp against the sides. I was covered in livid bruises from the slightest knock. That night as I lay in the scalding water, pale and paper-light, I thought of my friends back in Maxwellâs getting drunk on jugs of Sea Breeze. That was a turning point, of sorts,
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