It was the spring of 1998. I had gone to University in the autumn of 1997 (Lancaster) and I had enjoyed the first term very much. However this spring it was clear that something was not right in my life. I was now working weekends at at a retail store in Preston, and so coming home every weekend to do this, which I liked as I could see my parents.
When I went back to university after the summer holidays, I started to feel more and more alone. The people that I was with on my corridor had turned out not to be the friends that I thought they were. We were also looking for a place to live for the second year at University and sub consciously this was a big worry as I didn’t really want to live the people that was choosing to live with, although I did not know that at the time. Other aspects of my life where also going wrong at the time. My brother and his fiancee had moved into my parents which made me feel I had no space, I managed to get into the first team for my cricket club, which you may think was a good thing, but looking back this meant that I was no longer playing with my friends, which is one of the reasons you do these things and things were still not good at University. Looking back now, the people that were on my corridor were actually bullying me and making me feel not wanted and isolated. It made me feel like I was back at school being bullied like I was then by many, which was a bad feeling to have. After leaving school and going to 6th form college all of the bullying stopped, life was great and it seemed as though the days of feeling crap because of several idiots had gone. When it came back at University I think that made it very hard to cope with.
I think that to counter all these problems, I needed something to focus on. Like many most anorexic people will tell you, I made this thing food, mainly because it was one thing that I could actually control in my life. I couldn’t control anything at University with the people that I was living with, with cricket I was a youngster with a lot of older men (not that they did anything wrong) and at home I had lost my personal space. I had nowhere to go and so the more I felt like this the more obsessed I became with food.
It is strange really. You would think that someone who is anorexic wouldn’t want to eat anything, and would try and keep as far away from food as possible. Well you would be wrong. I wanted everything possible to do with food. I wanted (and still do) to make every bodies meals (including my own or what little I did have) and I loved walking round the supermarket for food shopping (I still do but that is more now because I enjoy cooking and like to buy different foods to try). An anorexic wants to be involved in all aspects of food, as long as they don’t have to eat it of course, and that was me.
Anyway, at the start of the summer holidays in 1998 I weighed about 11.5 stone. Fairly healthy for someone of over 6ft. Throughout the summer the anorexia kicked in, and I lost more and more weight. Another funny thing is that you would think that an anorexic would be unaware of the fact that they are loosing weight but that is not the case. You know full well that you are frighteningly thin and underweight but you consider the alternative (eating!) to be even worse. Family and friends were constantly telling me I was to thin and needed to eat, and everyone showed great concern, but still I keep starving myself. During that summer a typical days food would have been, slice of toast and jam for breakfast, pasta snack break (low fat of course!) for lunch, and a healthy ready meal for tea with one or two pieces of vegetables. My average calorie in take for about 4 months was 750 calories per day (average for someone my age and height at the time is about 2600 per day). By the end of the summer of 1998 (September) I was just under 8 stone.
This continued into the first term at university where things got worse. I had to move out of the house that we were renting and move back home with mum and dad and my brother and fiancee I missed lectures as I had to eat at certain times.
Late September something changed. I decided that I would go to the doctors. I think it was this day that I was actually fed up with feeling like I did. I wasn’t living I was existing. I went to the doctors at and he diagnosed me depressed and anorexic. I was on medication for depression and was signed off work. It is a well known fact that you cannot start recovery, until you have admitted that you have a problem, and that day was the beginning of recovery. For sure it did get worse, but that day was the turning point.
By Christmas of 1998 I was now around 7 stone. I had lost nearly 5 stones in 6 months. I was weak and could hardly do anything as I was to frail. This made me feel worse because doing nothing only made me sit and think of the situation that I was in.
One of the things that I could do was cook. I started cooking all the meals for the family, even for Grandad, and enjoyed doing something with my life, that stopped me thinking about my problems. Through seeing the dietician, the doctor and the psychologist (who were all fantastic) along with a councillor from the university (if you ever read this Daphne you were fantastic. Thank you so much for your support and help) I was on the mend and starting putting on weight gradually.
Regaining my social life was a problem and in many ways still is. Having not seen so many people for a long time it was hard to get back seeing people. They also find it hard and often walk on eggshells with me all the time. At first this was a good thing, but later it just annoyed me. Only 3 people actually treated me the same throughout my illness. They were my mum and dad and by best friend Ian.
By the summer of 2001 I was back to a healthy weight and although food was still a big part of my life, I was happy and enjoying life again. Therefore I thought that it was about time that I got my life sorted out. I started my PGCE course in Geography to train to be a teacher. After this year I then got my job as a Geography teacher in the Ribble Valley where I also teach a little Food Technology ironically. I then met my wife in the summer of 2003 and we married in 2005. You will be glad to know that I am now 11.5 stone and it doesn’t bother me at all. In fact I have recently started a mass eating regime in order to gain a further stone as I want to be a little heavier.
If there is anyone out their that is reading this and they are anorexic, just remember you have too much to live for. You have the choice to make of whether you want to live or die. It sounds harsh but it is that simple. It is up to you which choice to make. I made the right one and I just hope that you can do the same.
