physical condition, because I recognised, and didnât want and didnât like my too-thin body, because I didnât purge by conscious choice, because I was still eating, however limitedly, I thought that I was different. I realise now that this was partly because of my own misconceptions about the nature of anorexia, and the people who fall victim to it, but this is also the way theillness operates, by deception, by a long series of constraints that tighten so slowly that theyâre barely noticeable at all.
I thought, for so long, that I didnât have anything in common with these women, and I sometimes think thatâs the biggest tragedy of all. Because if Iâd only recognised this earlier, before eight entire years of illness had gone by, I may have found the help I needed sooner. I may have been able to stave off my hunger before it managed to establish itself so fully and firmly in my life. I might, by now, be well.
One woman had slipped discs in her lower spine from vomiting, another had chronic bladder infections and damaged kidneys. One had had reconstructive surgery on her oesophagus because the juices of her stomach had been leaking into her lungs. Three women in their mid-twenties â myself included â had osteoporosis of the hips or spine.
One morning, about a month in, I realised that Iâd been witness to the slow display of a quietly unfolding beauty in these women. That each week they grew more lovely. Some of this Iâm sure was purely physical â the too-thin amongst us became less angular, our faces fuller, skin and hair alike lost their flakiness and pallor. So too our clothes looked better-tailored on our bodies. But it was more than this. Iâd watched them all uncurl their tightened shoulders, unhang their heads, untuck their knees from underneath their chins. One woman, whose every word had seemed, at first, like it was being dragged out from herchest began to joke in a beautifully acerbic way, her mouth unpinched and her whole face softened around it; another had grown a laugh that shook the ceiling. This, I thought, is so much like a second adolescence, each time seeing a woman, glorious and gorgeous, emerge from somewhere underneath a brittle and anxious body. I went to a book launch one evening, and was told that I looked like a cherub with my newly-rounded cheeks.
I still knew that I would write about it later, and kept a vocab list on the back pages of my notebook. Youâve been deskilled, it says, do some down-arrowing, take a helicopter view. And all of these rules you taught yourself.
Shortly before my discharge I spent a Sunday in Thirroul, driving the hour-long coast road alone, a solitude I hadnât had for weeks. I was visiting three of my friends, all writers, who were staying in a barely-stable cottage on a cliff for the weekend. I felt relaxed on the road, I shouted along to songs with my windows wound down, and spent the afternoon sitting on the grass, watching the ocean. We took photos at lunch in a local café. The two boys went for a swim, and we two women talked about bodies, about illnesses, and about transition, about how hard it is to change. My friend hugged me when I left and I couldnât stop thinking, the whole way home, of the lamb sandwich sitting in my stomach, how weâd laughed at the waitress when sheâd cleared the plates and said Too much bread is too much bread, you know?â
I didnât know how I could bring what we did inside the hospital out into the world. I didnât know if Iâd be able to keep visible the things weâd given names to, the things we had made clear. With symptom reduction comes space, I had written in my notebook, but I didnât know if I could grow to fill the space I was discovering, if Iâd be able to stay vigilant each day. I still donât know. I still, sometimes, am left bereft.
But what I hadnât expected was the heightened sensitivity when I