To read this blog in order start at July right at the top of the blog archive and progress down in order. This is an account of my battle with anorexia and bulimia

Wednesday 20 July 2011

1996

In the beginning of the year Mim and I travelled down to the Blue Mountains for a holiday. We stayed in a motel in Springwood, which was a lovely little place. We had an absolute ball. We spent a fair amount of our time shopping, as females do. One of the things we liked to do when clothes shopping was to try on the most unsuitable items of clothing in the change rooms then take a photo of what we looked like. I often went for the skimpier little outfits because I knew I would never wear them in reality. I was extremely skinny then and these clothes made my sticking out bones a lot more prominent. I didn’t notice at that time though.
We went to visit Charles and Lana one night for dinner. Apparently they noticed my weight loss and made comments on how grey and lifeless my face looked. My cheeks were sunken in, and my whole body was out of proportion. We didn’t stay there very long.
We had fun the next day shopping in one of the biggest shopping centres. As we walked around the shops I was starting to feel ill. I didn’t mention it to Mim because I thought it would go away. Perhaps, I thought, I was hungry. So I ate. Actually we ate
all day. I tried not to let it bother me, but it did. I had to make excuses to go to the toilet so I could get rid of whatever I ate. The pain in my stomach was not getting any better, and when we arrived back at our motel all I could do was rest on the bed. I was up all night vomiting, genuinely sick. The pains in my stomach were unbearable. The only thing I could link it to was the amount of times I had made myself vomit that day. The following morning I woke up feeling better. I tried to stomach a bread roll for the sake of making it seem as though I was truthful about feeling better. In actual fact I felt weak and yuck. I didn’t want to disappoint Mim though and I was hopeful the pain would disappear. We were heading into Sydney for the day. We had planned it out earlier where we could go and what we could do. Both of us really looked forward to this day and I wasn’t about to ruin it. We hopped on a train and got as far as Penrith before I felt extremely sick and faint. We got off the train and waited around for a train to go back to Springwood. All I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and disappear. I had never felt like this before and it was scary. We made it back to the motel where I grew sicker and weaker by the minute. Poor Mim was at her wits end about what to do. She spoke with the owners of the motel about getting a doctor in for me. She then phoned mum for her advice. The owners were very helpful and worried about the situation. Eventually a doctor came out and looked over me. He was another one who said it could be my appendix. He said if I didn’t improve through the night I would have to go to hospital for fear of dehydration. Mum was phoning the motel every five minutes by this stage wondering what was happening. In the end she made the decision that we both needed to be home as soon as possible, then went ahead to book plane tickets for us. This decision did not impress me at all. I knew I would be better by the next day but no one believed me. So that was it. We caught a plane home to Tamworth. Sure as I knew I was much better the next day. I felt so bad for Mim though. It was my own fault that I got this sick and as a result I ruined our holiday.
Harley, my kangaroo, had grown bigger by now. He was beginning to hop out of his “pouch” more frequently now. This annoyed mum in some ways (although I could see how much she loved him). It especially annoyed her though (in a funny way) when he chewed the dried grass tied around the necks of mum’s ceramic cows. Being it her house she decided Harley could no longer stay here. This broke my heart because raising him was one thing I was successful at. But, I had to respect mum’s wish and soon found a home for him. He was going to some people, Jody and Jim, who lived 30kms out of town. They had kangaroos already in their rehabilitation yard so Harley was actually better off there. I was given the opportunity to visit him as many times as I wanted to so I took them up on this offer.
The first time I visited was only a couple of weeks after I had given Harley up. I stayed for 3 days and Jody and I did fun stuff including bird watching in the bush at night, driving, and chatting. Naturally I thought Jody was a fun person to be with. I had a few other weekends up there and we got into discussions about my eating. What I couldn’t figure out was that she knew I had a problem before mum or myself even told her. I talked a bit about it with her, then she brought mum into the equation. She started referring to mum as a co-dependent person. That mum was dependent on Mim or me. All things she had to say about mum were negative. At the time, I listened and took in what she was saying. The only reason I did was because it made sense. Mum didn’t like us to do anything without her, she always relied on us (especially Mim). She used to ring me anywhere up to 5 times a day at Jody’s and it seriously drove me up the wall. Jody had absolutely no relationship with her own mother, which is why I think she interfered in mine and Mum’s. After a few visits there mum was becoming really determined about stopping me from going there. I went against her wishes and went in spite of her. I needed to get away, or so I thought. I came back to unfriendly comments from mum and I couldn’t figure this out. I didn’t understand what was so wrong about me going to see how Harley was progressing. Eventually mum came clean about why she was upset about me going to see Jody. Apparently Jody used to ring mum up and gloat about the good times we had when I went up
there. She told mum how I talked with her about my eating, and that she thinks she is the only person I would own up to. The worst part is when she told mum that I said Jody is a better mum than mum is. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I did talk about many things with Jody because often it is easier to talk to an outsider about feelings than to those closest to you. I never ever said anything in the way of Jody being like a mother. This really saddened me and it made me totally understand why mum disliked me going to see the woman. I didn’t know how to convince mum that what Jody said was a lie. The only practical way to prove it was to ring Jody up then and there and confront her. Confrontation is and always has been my weak spot, but I really let her have it. There was no way I was going to let her say such viscous things to mum. The conversation wasn’t a very nice one, and after it we rarely spoke again unless necessary.

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