You said at the time there were lots of arguments at home. What was family life like?

Strained.

Was it around eating?

Yeah very much. Because aside from that our family is usually okay, thought we have, I have tiffs with my brother or sister, well I used to when I was younger and you know maybe my parents would argue about the washing up now and again. But generally it was good. But the eating disorder completely changed things and I became really tense and really awkward, and meal times when all the family sits together, supposed to be you know really happy, chat about how your day’s been or you know if you’re at breakfast what the day’s going to be like, but it just wasn’t like that anymore, it was like the focus was on me, what’s Annabelle eating, is she eating enough? Let’s try and cater for Annabelle. What do you want eat Annabelle? Will you eat this? Will you eat that? And you know sometimes my Mum would say, You’re not leaving the table until you’ve finished that she started making me drink these supplement drinks, and I think she was just so frustrated; she was almost trying to force them down my throat. She was like, You’re not leaving the house until you have that. I’ll ground you It was, hard. It was really, and it was really upsetting for everyone I think.

I think I would have told myself to not feel ashamed that you’ve got an eating disorder. And not blame yourself. To get, to ask for, help. And don’t feel afraid about asking for help and don’t feel embarrassed by it. To use everything that’s available to you, like the B-eat websites, the B-eat helpline. Online chats they’ve got now, they’ve got a lot of resources. Read self-help books which I didn’t read. And know that no matter how bad or good your situation is, like if you’ve got disordered eating then you have got an eating disorder and you do deserve to have treatment. And never, you know think that you didn’t, you didn’t do it well enough, or something.

And to value, I wish I’d valued my health a lot more, and thought about that, and thought about how serious it is. Because I completely, do you know I just thought it’s not serious, you know. Like some people are thin. But you know three of my really close friends they’ve passed away, and they were eighteen, nineteen, and twenty two. And that’s, that is how serious it is.

Oh gosh, so many, I mean so many things go wrong. Well I think the cold was awful. It was like right through to your bones, it was like no cold I’ve ever felt before, and it was just like cannot get warm kind of cold.

I remember I used to like burn myself in a hot bath every day because it would relieve me from feeling cold for two hours, because I’d like be burned basically. And also, but then getting in a bath itself wasn’t comfortable because it was hard. And that all, I remember like my, like the bones that are around my bum and like, on the bottom of my back were like so protruding, it was just so, like I couldn’t sit on a hard seat. I couldn’t sit on the floor like, I remember sitting on the floor, I had to put like cushions if it was a hard seat, I’d have to put big cushions on there. Like I’d just wake up with bruises just because I’d been lying on a bed, I’d get bruises and sores, like really painful sores all over my back.

What else? Oh I had like a really bad back. Like because I couldn’t, and my back had lost so much muscle that I it was really under so pressure holding my head up, and so, but I couldn’t stand up or walk for very long because my back would ache so much I’d like keel over. And I had a lot of physio on my back for it, to like make it get better. I got headaches also because my, because my neck wasn’t holding my head up very well either because it was so weak. I just felt like generally weak and dizzy walking around. I had to wake up about five times during the night to pee which is really funny, but apparently it’s a symptom, because you like, you lose loads of muscle so you like lose bladder muscle as well, which was annoying, especially because I didn’t sleep well either. That’s another thing; I just didn’t sleep well at all. I was just exhausted. Yeah it was, oh, yeah horrible.

We all sat on a table. There was, well there was a supervised table and an unsupervised table. And the supervised table was for people that were either really struggling with their meals, or they’d just come in. It was like the default setting where you go in, you go on the supervised table. I was on there quite a lot. And on the supervised table it’s obviously supervised by a member of staff and then there was probably about maybe three eating disorder patients. And if there was more they’d have another member of staff. And it was one to, one to three was their, the minimum.

So yeah they’d sit and they wouldn’t make a, they wouldn’t just like sit there and, they’d like chat so it was fine. But they just, they were just there for support and, and to make sure that you’re not hiding food or throwing it out of the window.

And there was an unsupervised table where you could sit with anyone, you could sit with um people with, you know they didn’t have eating disorders; you could sit on your own if you wanted to, sit with a member of staff,, and it would be a lot less formal. And you’d just eat and get on with it. But on the supervised table you’d have to wait for the last person to finish, and you’d have to ask for permission to leave the table or to get your dessert, things like that.

And how did you find the meal times?

I found them quite stressful. Especially when I knew it was like a difficult meal that involved maybe a fear food or something. I’d find it very stressful and it was, I felt very self-conscious being supervised. I did. Even though they weren’t making a big deal necessarily, I just feel like, Oh they’re watching how I eat. I’m really struggling with this, but I don’t want to say anything to upset anyone Yeah this kind of thing. And when it was like the last person, you had to wait for the last person to finish, that was quite awkward, whether it was me or someone else, it was always quite awkward, you were sort of sitting there like, So..

And I think on the non-supervised, it was better but I think I was a bit, I mean I was quite a misbehaved one, and I would get up to mischief and I think that’s why a couple of times I was moved back onto the supervised table.

And you said you had that sort of the health scare and that was a big factor?

Yeah. I think it just really, it brought me, I don’t know; back down to earth or something. Like it made me realise that your health is just so important, you know it really is your wealth and I think previously I’d kind of just taken it for granted, or not cared, I thought it just doesn’t matter. But it really made me think, you know, it’s, I, anything’s worth, I, I’d go to any lengths just to improve my health. Yeah.

And you were told that you have to also start putting on weight so that your fertility won’t be affected?

Oh that was a huge factor. Because yeah obviously I haven’t had any periods for years, and my gynaecologist was just like, she did a blood test and she said, your hormones are just like really low. Like indicating you’re going through the menopause. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is really scary Because that, above all in life, it sounds really strange, but my like goal above career, above everything, I wanna have children. And I guess it just made me think, you know, I have to, I have to have children, I have to do this. And I have to put on the weight. If that’s what I have to do, I have to do it.

Yeah. I, well, I ate very like slowly and methodically. I’d eat everything separately, I’d cut it up into little pieces which I’d get, always get told off in hospital for doing. I’d have to eat at certain times. I’d have to what else did I do? I liked eating with certain cutlery and bowls. I’d have to, well I’d have to weigh things out, I don’t know if that’s a ritual, or just something that I was doing to count calories. But I can’t remember what else I did. Yeah I think that was it.

Okay. Do you remember for why you did that?

I don’t know, I think it was like, I think I started off because I thought if ate slower I’d feel like I was eating more. And I’d feel less hungry. And kind of make it last longer. But then it just became a kind of like, I just felt safe doing it. I just felt like I’d rather do it this way, I don’t really want to, this is how I do it, and I’m a creature of habit and I like doing it this way. And that applied to everything, like the bowls, the forks, like, I don’t know, yeah, strange.

So it just became your thing that you just did then?

Yeah. And another thing I used to do is I used to hoard food. I didn’t used to eat it; I just used to keep it in a drawer in my room. Like anything, like if I went to somewhere and there were like little mini pots of jam or, sachets of sugar, or pots of milk, or biscuits that you get in a hotel I’d take them. And I’d put them into a drawer and hoard it all. I think maybe my thinking was that at a later date when I could allow myself this food, it would be there. So I wouldn’t have missed out on an opportunity. But I never got to that stage, and they just went off. But I just used to hoard food.

Tell me a bit more about the first time you went to the GP?

Okay the first time I went to the GP again it was quite an old fashioned GP I think he was quite old in his ways, and he was a bit arrogant. And my Mum said, Oh she’s very thin. She’s not eating And he said, Well go on then, let’s weigh her

So he did my weight and height, and my BMI came out as very underweight. It was, it was really quite underweight, but he said, he said to me, Annabelle, do you think you’ve got an eating disorder And I said, No And he said, Well I don’t think she’s got an eating disorder He said, There are lots of people that just stay at this weight for their whole life, and your daughter must be one of those people. She’s just a very petite girl. She’s very slim for her age, very petite. And she might fill out when she’s older And he said, But, but I think you’re just he told my Mum that she was being over, like over worrying and over protective, and that she should just leave me alone. And of course I agreed at the time, I was like, Great I was like, I told you Mum, overreacting

And so I went in. I remember, I remember this place so distinctly it was, I mean it was only, it was 8 years ago. But I remember going in and I was, I don’t know it was just such a surreal experience. I was pretty terrified and I was, I couldn’t believe how, what did I do to get here? I remember the staff going through all of my belongings and searching me and searching my suitcase and I was just like, Oh my Gosh, I’m like in prison or something. Like it’s weird And meeting all the other people on the unit and still thinking, What am I doing here I met the other girls with eating disorders and I thought, Oh my Gosh, they’re like real anorexics, but why am I bundled with them? Why am I not? I’m not like that. I’m not I’d, I shouldn’t be here, I don’t deserve to be here. And it was, it was hard actually, it was really hard being in treatment.

I think it took me several months to accept that I had a problem. Even when I was in hospital, even when I was admitted to hospital. Because, and I think it made me, what made me realise was that I just found eating so difficult and gaining the weight, it was so, it you know, I was absolutely crazy, you know I was in tears over I don’t know a potato or something. And it was a very, very slow process. A lot slower than I thought it would be. I had, in my mind I thought in three months I’d be out, and I’d be able to eat all the things that I used to eat, and I’d be at a healthy weight, and I’d be all happy la-la-la, that’s the end of it. But unfortunately it wasn’t like that. I ended up staying there for 18 months, because I just kept taking one step forward and then a few steps back or, you know it wasn’t a straight line.