I looked about eighty years old

Transcript

Host Jamie: Hi friends, Jamie here. Before we dive in, I wanted to remind you that I will be hosting an online event this fall on Sunday, September 25th. The theme is major life changes. I will be joined by our prior show guest sister, Monica, Claire. I'll give more information about the event at the end of today's episode.

So stay tuned. And one more thing before we begin, I wanted to give you a heads up, Piet and I are shifting our episode content ever so slightly. We're going to include interview style episodes on themes and topics that are relevant to women's lives. We think those will come out about once a month, but it's not a fixed thing.

So most of our episodes will be women's stories, but every few weeks we're gonna offer up a conversation that I've had with an insightful person. 

Okay, that's it. Now onto today's episode. Most weeks on 'If You Knew Me', we walk into the heart and mind of one woman. Our guest can choose to share her real. Or to stay anonymous. This week, we hear from Mary. That's her real name.

Mary is an academic. She teaches at a renowned international university in Europe. She spends many of her days thinking about how human behavior affects our planet. Mary is also a mother and a wife. All of these facts that I just shared about her seemed all but impossible feats. When Mary was in her teens and her twenties as a girl, she dealt with her chronic and sometimes scary home environment by controlling something within her reach: what she ate and how much of it.

Mary is Irish for many years. She felt isolated as the island that she lived on. Today she lives on mainland Europe and feels very much on steady ground. Mary's story is entitled 'I looked about 80 years old'. 

Mary: If you really knew me. Yeah. It's a difficult question because there's so many different facets to, I guess who I am and that layering of me as a being over time that I could, you know, focus in on. a number of different dimensions or, or of facets in a conversation like this.

But I think, yes, some of those aspects are more visible and others are quite invisible and yeah, one of them more invisible aspects of, of who I am. Relate to some significant trauma, I guess, that I experienced and lived through as a young girl, growing into an adolescent. Um, so particularly around, uh, developing a pretty severe, uh, eating disorder.

So what they call anorexia nervosa, but that also being. You know, linked with and, uh, shaped by anxiety disorder and yeah, I guess childhood depression really that at that point or stage, wasn't really identified perhaps as readily as it could be today. And there were a number of events, uh, preceding the development of that.

And I was about maybe nine years old when it started to really kind of take hold of me. Um, and yeah, a number of events in my life that preceded that, um, that led me. To need to find a way to control what was quite an, an uncontrollable or what felt like a uncontrollable situation or environment. 

I guess that coupled with a particular type of personality where I was always a very sensitive child, very in tune to other people, my mom always told me it was like a, a sixth sense.

I could go into a room and read a room and spot the person who might have been sad or spot the person who, you know, something recent had happened to in their life. And, uh, so I had that kind of level of sensitivity as a young person growing up. And then, um, yeah, there were several concurrent things going on in my young life that.

Yeah, we're quite negative or, um, Led me to dark places. my parents were breaking, their marriage was breaking down in a very, um, Yeah, coercive and unfriendly way. And there were some other events that had led me to be and feel unwell as a child. Um, so this eating disorder. It started as this kind of voice in my head around, um, needing a, a kind of feeling to need to control.

But over time it, it grew and grew into like a separate person. Um, like someone in my head. That would not allow me to enjoy pleasure that would not allow me to enjoy food. Um, that became very much coupled with an obsessive compulsive kind of. Yeah, voice, I guess in my head where, um, I fixated on certain things in the environment.

Um, so it was very much coupled with what they call OCD and OCD is much more complex than the common understanding of it. It can involve like really, um, dark kind of repetitive thoughts. Um, and you have to do things with your behavior to avoid, Those thoughts materializing further, but the, yeah, the anorexia developed out of that and it kind of went on for a good while without much notice.

when I look back on that time, it's quite a blur, but I just remember, like, I was a very outgoing child. social and so on. And gradually just became much more introverted. Um, became like addicted to exercise would go on these really long walks after school, um, would, yeah, it was constantly hiding food and not eating it.

And it was really when my granny saw me after maybe six months. Before she hadn't seen me, which is quite a long period for her, that she was the one who called up on my parents and said, there's something wrong with this child. I need to look into it all while my parents were going through a separation

and then I just remember, um, my mom. Uh, I had just started secondary school and my name was called out in the Intercom. Everybody was looking at me strangely by this stage. I might have been like under five stone, um, at like five foot six in height.

It'd be about 30 kilograms, I guess. Which 30 it'd be about 70 pounds maybe.

 so I was really not looking well. I looked really unwell. I had all these strange kind of behavioral patterns going on, like an example being, I wouldn't sit on a chair. Um, I would hover on the chair. um, I would run an, would constantly walk up and down stairs.

So a lot of pacing and strange activities going on. Um, and yeah, it was, it was like I was in a trance for a lot of the time.

and yeah, very worrying obviously for everyone in my environment. 

but my name was called out on Intercom at school one day and I went down and my mom was waiting. By the office.

And she literally took me, put me in a car, drove me to nearby city where they had, uh, children's hospital for mental health. so kind of institution. 

 it was a kind of really old building, um, place on the top of a hill. So it looked like something maybe outta Harry Potter or something like that. It had a big tower in the middle. Um, and yeah. It was, uh, I think it had been, um, a religious building before, and then it was converted into this, uh, children's hospital over time.

So that just gives you a context of the kind of type of , um, setting it was

 When I got in there, there were doctor, a couple of psychiatrists and then some psychiatric nurses. And, they were trying to talk to me and I just kept saying, I want to go, I want to go and got very, very upset and wanted to leave the place and was trying to run out.

Mary: And I just remember my mother crying and then themsedating me with something. And then when I woke up, I was in a room with two other girls. one girl had a condition. I, I don't even, I've never known what it was, but she was definitely not present.

And then, um, there was another girl that also had an eating disorder that was in the room as well. And I was put on bed rest. So if you're a very, Low in weight, they would put you on bedrest and your day was basically, you'd have these meals brought into you. You'd have somebody sit beside you and watch over you while you had the meal you'd be wanting to move, but you couldn't really move at all.

Um, people followed you to the toilet, watched you every, it was like 24 hour watch. (reordering ends here) () I ended up staying there for like, I think it was five months and slowly they managed to work with me to, get me towards a place where I went up to about maybe a hundred pounds.

and then I was allowed out when I reached this particular weight and that's what, that was their kind of method I remember coming out the first time thinking I'd never be back there again. Um, and yeah, sure. And behold, I was only out a few months and there was a lot of, I guess, negative stuff going on in my life, everything I kind of knew and took for granted was kind of becoming undone

so in the end, I, yeah, I did stay there for, in and out for quite a number of years.

 

Mary: I was nowhere near out of the woods, so it literally took a few months and I was brought back in. And the same process again, and then eventually let out again, another few months back down to square one again, back in again

And then after that third time, they said, okay, this isn't working, so we'll have to try a different intervention. We'll won't bring her back into hospital and try and, uh, Help her from afar. but that, really didn't work out at all. I became so ill that, I was rushed into hospital 'cause they thought I was gonna have cardiac arrest and.

Die basically.

and then after that point, my parents decided to bring me to, a much more kind of national level hospital, like one of the main psychiatric hospitals in the country. I was in there in a kind of adolescent ward in a big, adult, psychiatric institution that was about, uh, Three hour drive from my parents' house

in the meantime, my parents had actually split up and my mom had moved my siblings to a different town and back then where we lived, like it wasn't usual for family breakdowns to happen

and so on as It was just something that was becoming more normalized

 so all of that was going on in the background. and then I was up in this place in Dublin. And it was so frightening and scary and I actually got worse from it because there were quite a number of people in the unit I was in with eating disorders and they were, it was like they were all competing with each other around it.

It was very, very strange place to be, and it didn't do me any good at all.

 but as it turned out, my parents' insurance ran out, so I had to leave anyway.

And, then came back to our home town and. yeah, it, the same thing was going on again again and another kind of moment where I ended up in, in hospital my Gran had brought.

a guy that, you know, had done a lot of pilgrimages and stuff like that. And, he had like gloves of, what were meant to be Padre Pio. Um, who's the guy who had the stigma match and so on. And she was bringing her like older kind of religious friends in to try and see if, uh, they could help me at all, you know, but, I remember just being so lost and really like me, the person that's me, who is trying to fight this.

Disease, I guess, and this, and it really was like having another person possessed in your body. And my gran used to call her Annie. So Annie for anorexia and, uh, like Gran saw it as trying to almost like expel this Annie out of me, you know? 

I remember, and yeah, like after that, just getting up and going to the bathroom and just seeing my face.

And I, I looked about 80 years old. I was so thin and haggard. I remember my younger sister coming in to see me. And she liked gone through a growth spurt and she looked like a teenager and she was, you know, getting on with her life and. Making friends in the new town and all of that. And I was just like, I don't want to be like this anymore.

I can't do it anymore. so it was like the first time that my own self was trying to break through in, in so long. I really just wanted to get better. And now it was a long process after that, but that was kind of like a turning point, I guess, in that. being told that I could have a cardiac arrest any moment and yeah. Like lots of things are happening to my body. Like all. The veins in my legs were like bursting and stuff. And I, my whole legs were just purple. So my, my body was just starving to death it was starting to eat its own tissue kind of, so it was not looking good at all.

 I just was like, I can't do this anymore. I don't want to die. And I, from that point on, yeah, I ended up going back into the, the children's hospital. Um, And working really hard with the nurses and the staff to get better.

And yeah, it wasn't an easy road at all. It was a long road,

 all in all from the first time I went into hospital to when I eventually left, it was about four and a half years, but that was the in and out the in and out. But from that moment, when I went back in deciding I needed to get better, I think it, maybe it was another two years before I was fully better and back going to normal school, making normal friends and not.

Seeing psychiatrists every week

I was living in the hospital for quite a while, even, um, until I gained the weight, obviously. And then the plan this time was, was that I would start school, um, and still live in the hospital, but go to school from the hospital and then eventually. Try and go to school from home.

 it wasn't a clear cut recovery. Like after I recovered from what was the eating disorder, Started getting into drugs. I was like robbing things. I was just like turned into this crazy early party girl who was like, you know, having a great time, but really just engaging in a lot of self-destructive behaviors as well.

Um, and that went on for quite a few years. Really probably into my mid twenties, I guess. Like, I, I did manage to do really well in school and get, you know, first class honors bachelors and all that, but I was. Constantly, you know, in these, kind of worlds of yeah. Like, but what was great fun, but also very extreme you know?

it was only really in my late twenties that I fully, fully recovered from all of that, I guess. Um, yeah, along the way as well, some pretty destructive relationships, I guess, um, where it took me quite a while to.

Figure out my worth

I guess, and to. Be very kind of settled in, in who I am, um, and have the confidence to advocate for my needs

 I had to go through many journeys after. To, to build confidence

 So there was, um, an incident of, you know, kind. Sexual abuse. That was a stranger, which is quite unusual. Um, and that my mother really noticed around that time, that that was the first time she saw me shift from what was a very outgoing, happy. Engaged child to somebody more increasingly withdrawn and anxious.

And, um, yeah, it really manifests in a lot of kind of anxiety disorder that would've started around that time. And that was around the time of me being about six or seven. Um, and it's only because my sister was the only person I told about that because, um, the person who it happened with had told me if I told anybody about the incident that he would know, and that bad things would happen to my family.

So I was petrified and I thought that this person could see everything I was doing. And like I thought he could see when I was going to the toilet. I thought he could see when I was talking with my family, I thought, and I developed. Real anxiety. Um, and my sister shared a room with me and she would see that I was awake looking at the window and she told mom, oh, Mary's scared of the man.

He was looking in the window. And mom was like, kind of really worried about this and trying to figure out what was going on. And I. My mom felt that her concerns weren't being heard seriously. And that caused a lot of, um, disruption, I guess. there was quite a time period between that. And when I eventually got very seriously ill with anorexia, so maybe about two and a half years, but it was slowly developing, I guess

I remember in the first meetings, when they brought me in. To the hospital, um, with anorexia and then revealing, they were going back to this incident and they were saying, do you remember this? And, and it, my whole memory had blocked it out completely. It was really strange. And it, it was, it, it took like some time for me to be able to engage with it.

And for me to be able to. Work out the connections, I guess. And I was still constantly afraid that there was always something watching me and yeah. I was always afraid to go to the toilet, things like that so there were definitely connections made between, you know, the initial events proceeding. the illness that, um, you know, were difficult, I think for the people around me to understand and see

 when I was getting more and more well, and that building of narrative, that's so important to recovering, I guess, from trauma.

Um, yeah, I did a lot of work with. Different therapists around that, you know, I still do work today. Um, the narrative is always ongoing and making sense of it

 I always wanted to be able to help other people going through a similar situation. I remember when I was. You know, really not in a good place, this young, really beautiful kind woman coming into the hospital and just coming by my bed and sitting there with me and chatting with me and.

She told me that she had been very sick with anorexia and that she had nearly died from it. And now she was better. And she was, you know, working in jobs she loved and she had a child and all of this. And that just gave me such hope to think that you could actually be normal. That's all I used to say all the time.

I just wanna be normal, and to live a normal life and. You know, to not be living in an institution to not spend all day every day, like worrying and, um, Freshing and obsessing. Um, and yeah, I'm very lucky and happy to be able to say that I recovered because a lot of people don't and they continue to battle visible or invisible forms of eating disorder.

throughout their lives

 I think the fact that I got it so young as well, um, helped with the recovery because like once you're over 18

and so on, nobody can put you in a hospital

 you have to make that decision yourself. But the nature with anorexia is it really has this.

It's kind of almost like it creates a veil around which you can't make those decisions because it's like it hijacks you, you know?

 Um, it wants to survive. It's like a parasite in that way. Like it wants to survive inside you and, yeah, it turns you against yourself,

today, I'm very happy to be able to say I have a very normal relationship with food. Like I do, you know, focus a lot on healthy eating and, Various aspects of that, but I absolutely allow myself many treats and don't feel bad about it. Um, there is still an element of when I'm under stress, I need to be able to control.

My food. And I need to know that like, if I'm traveling and things like that, I, I always want to have the right food with me. So I would be, I would seem maybe a little bit fussy to some people, but I'm absolutely much like in a better place and more relaxed. I guess with my, yeah. With my body. like, I focus on living well and living healthy.

Like I've taken a lot of drugs and alcohol and everything over the years as well. So I had to kind of move my way out of lash as well. And I think the aim is to be balanced, to be healthy, to, you know, Live in a balanced way. and I think that, yeah, maybe for the last 10 years I've been achieving that, which is for me a huge achievement and something I enjoy very much

I did end, end up going and training to be a yoga teacher when I was trying to, you know, finish my PhD and I found that experience really. Really great for, you know, just connecting with my, myself and my body and engaging in, in that practice regularly, which I do. Um, so all part of a kind of broader effort to.

To have a wellness approach, I guess, to my daily life, which involves balance. And that means not being restrictive. Um, but seeing things abundantly and that involves allowing yourself to enjoy food, to enjoy good food. I'm lucky in that my partner is a really good cook, so, he's always, uh, trying out new vegan and vegetarian stuff so that, yeah.

So we're like really enjoy our food today and yeah, I, I can happily say that

I think a lot of women and men who maybe haven't had full blown anorexia, or, nearly died I think that many of us struggle with food and with our bodies, in many different ways.

 it's a way that,we can have to control things, but. That remembering that, part of loving yourself is to Have a balanced approach to that, but not to allow that critical voice to take over and to really interrupt your life.

Host Jamie: Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode.

Mary is a mother, wife, and researcher. She and her husband truly enjoy making innovative vegan dishes. You can find a list of incredible resources related to anorexia, eating disorders and healing on the 'If You Knew Me' blog. Just find the link to our website and the show notes. 

As I shared at the top of the show, we will host a live online event on Sunday, September 25th. And we would love for you to join us. It will be our first event with a prior show guest. our theme is 'Major Life Changes' and our special guest is sister Monica Clare. Sister Monica is an Episcopal nun who has a TikTok following of over 170,000.

She's been highlighted by Oprah Winfrey and the New York Times. If you've been listening to the show for a bit, you probably remember sister Monica's story. It was episode 10. Sister Monica grew up as Claudette Powell and in her mid thirties, she made a pretty radical decision to leave her life as a struggling actor in Hollywood and join a religious community.

This fall, she'll share more of her personal story with us. There will be time for open Q&A, and you can ask her any question you like. So sign up for the newsletter and you'll receive a discount code. And if you are a patron of the show, you'll receive a free ticket. So go to the show notes and sign up to receive date and time details by getting our newsletter.

This podcast is produced by me, Jamie Yuenger and my husband, Piet Hurkmans. Thanks so much for listening to 'If You Knew Me'. We'll be back with you next week.