I was crying all night. How could she say that? Am I bigger than my mum? I was only 12, becoming a woman, feeling insecure in so many ways and so vulnerable. I couldn’t yet transform those attitudes into strengths. I was never either big or had any problems with my weight. But that moment has changed my life.
I decided to eat less and less. I started the restricting stage of my ED. My weight was dropping, and I was getting thinner. But, once happy and in the heart of every social gathering, having lots of friends, I started to back off. I was weaker and weaker. I was exercising a lot, eating nearly nothing and, eventually, looking like a skeleton. My weight dropped to 40 kg, with a height of 170cm. I lost my period. I had no one to talk to. My mum didn’t understand me. She just wanted me to eat more.
But I was in a mental breakdown. I was freaking out if I wasn’t hungry within 30 minutes after anything I ate. I skipped most of my meals. I also exercised as crazy. I even signed up for the light athletic club and trained five days per week with national champions. I was super strong but slowly becoming a shade of myself.
Did anyone bother? I didn’t even know what was happening to me. There were no therapists or anyone who would direct me there. We lived in a small Polish town, Walbrzych, in southwest Poland. The era of the internet wasn’t there. The eating disorder didn’t exist as an illness. You had to suffer in silence.
‘You must eat”, I heard. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t eat.
The situation lasted three years. I was at the end of my third year in College. And I remember that day when my mum told me, “You can go to the UK to visit your auntie for three months”. As I was very exceptional with my grades at school, the school agreed that I should finish a month earlier, and I went to the UK for three months. I wanted to hide my anorexia in front of everyone. There was only me I could trust. There was only me who could make me survive this horror.
As I changed the environment and didn’t want anyone to mother me, I started eating but exercising even more. I replaced no eating with daily running. There was no excuse, pity, or sorry for you, child, nothing like that. Since I was a little girl, my life has depended on me and only me.
My mum divorced when I was only four years old, but I still remember my dad throwing my toys from my room. Then my mum met an alcoholic, who was beating her and tried to abuse me sexually. But that night, when he planned his rape, and he was touching me all over in my bed, I stood up and left the house. I put on my school clothes over my pyjamas, and went to school. I was eight years old. I survived. He didn’t rape me. He lived with us for another two years, and when he beat my mum that she nearly died, she got rid of him. But when I told her about the bed incident, she said, “Edek is like that.”
My life depended on me, and I always ensured I lived the best of my life. I never gave up and never allowed anyone to break me. I finished school with the highest grades and lived without shame. I never blamed nor will blame anyone. Whatever happened to me was an experience that made me a super strong and cool mum today. A mum that doesn’t take any bullshits and who has a smashing relationship with her kids. I love my two amazing teenage kids with my whole heart.
But let us go back to the story.
What happened in England was a shift in my mind. I started having moments of no control. When my auntie gave me a box of Mars bars, I could eat five at once. I started having moments when I didn’t have control over my eating. Because no one ever treated me for my anorexia, and I wasn’t aware of the re-feeding phase, I was terrified.
I was eating a lot or nothing, plus exercising and burying tons of calories. My sick coping mechanism set off. And it lasted till the end of my college and through the University. It lasted over eight years! Enough to build an unhealthy pathway in my brain. Enough to kill.
You would think that yes, but you were the best student regardless. Let me tell you what happened at the last year of my college. In spite of being one of the best student, I missed 200 hours of school. My physics teacher helped me to hide it from my mum. She signed every single absence “Kasia, What is happening to you?”. I was waiting for my mum to go to work so I could go back home. So no one could see me. I was in the re-feeding phase unknowingly. I saw myself as a massive person, as a failure. I was no where like my false beliefs. I was myself. I was Kasia. Regardless of anything. But, I was in a state of a mental mess, was avoiding people, avoiding social gatherings. I have changed from an extrovert, full of energy person, to a full of insecurities shade of myself. I had no one to talk to because I didn’t share my problem with anyone, even my close friends. I felt ashamed. I didn’t scream for help and thought that eating disorder was only my personal issue, my fault, my fight.
Oh, If only I knew myself today! I’d be back on my feet in no time.
University was the worst period of my eating disorder. I was anorexic and bulimic. Those stages shifted, and I had to learn to live with the vicious cycle of eating disorders. I could walk all night and go to the University completely drained. Walk all night to lose calories. To stay in control.
I lost control over my eating. I couldn’t control my eating attacks or no eating days. It was a rollercoaster. I was suffering in silence. Silence. The fact that I managed to do my master’s degree was a miracle. But that was thanks to my learning talents. I excelled in maths, physics, chemistry, languages, and economics. I passed all exams with good grades and made money by teaching and helping others. I was always full of energy and a passionate and life-loving person. I had many friends and never gave up in life. But I suffered in my Uni years. I felt lost somehow. My lack of self-esteem showed off. And I didn’t know how to cope. There was no support around, and I never told anyone about my problem. If only I could open myself and talk to my friends. But I never did.
I never got a single penny from my mum, so since the age of 14, I have been working, teaching maths, chemistry and English (After I came back from the UK, my English was perfect). I passed my A levels in English, Maths and Polish and chose Economics at The Adam Mickiewicz Szczecin University in Poland. I dreamed of Economics Academy in Wroclaw, but my mum told me to “work as a prostitute if I wanted money”, as she wouldn’t give me anything. But my grandma, who loved me more than anyone, let me come to Szczecin and live with her and her sister. My grandmum was always there for me.
If you think that you get an eating disorder because of your parents, because of abuse, or because of bad experiences, this is not entirely true. Your bad experiences may trigger ED, yes, but it is simply a genetic thing. You are prone to this beast. Accept it, and never blame anyone or anything for your Eating disorder. Period. My eating disorder was a form of self-harm, coping mechanisms, and a very nasty neuropathway, which settled in my brain. That’s why it took me so long to fully recover.
But do I blame my mum or my father? No. I felt quite a responsibility for my mum. She didn’t have a good life and tried to cover any bad moments with denial.
Today she is happy because I’m happy and she knows I love her. Did we argue? Oh yes. I was mad at her. How would I not be? But, after the words had been told, after years of being angry at her, I took care of the little girl inside me. And We became friends with my mum. Because no matter what, she loved me with her heart. Her childhood was bad and I promised myself to stop this trauma. My mum gave me a birthday card only last year with the words “I’m sorry”. I didn’t expect that but I can only say that only kindness and love can heal all wounds.
I am going to continue with My story now.
After Uni, I met my future husband and future ex-husband, and there was a moment when my life shifted. It was the next stage of my life when I became completely free from ED for over five years.
The Power in You 