BUI

For a really long time I thought I was just my secrets, my depression and my disordered eating.

It was a side of me that didn’t exist out loud; it was my secret.

“I grew up hearing comments about how much I was eating, about how I had a big head, about how after I was born my mum snapped back to a size 2. I got a body complex pretty early on. The idea of having a big belly and chunky arms was 'bad' for the world and that would upset me. But then, when I got upset, I was told it wasn’t something to get upset about. So, I first remember choosing not to eat feeling like a tantrum, something with a root cause.

In my early teens, maybe 13 or 14, I started to experiment withholding from or doing too much with food and my body. I was also quietly fascinated by sex, getting to know my body. I’d experiment eating a lot alone at night, and it was a side of me that didn’t exist out loud; it was my secret. However, in the daytime, I had to exist in a body that didn’t certainly feel that could ever be sexy or desirable. Talking about it now feels almost unfair to the 13 years old me because when it came to the daytime person, I was already noticing that I had to control the way I was seen at school and at home - making sure to not let the worlds intersect too much. In the daytime, nothing could be really wrong, if my parents didn't know.”

It felt safe and routine until someone we were close to attempted to take their life and was hospitalised.

“I think context is also important. First, I’m an immigrant who moved to a mostly white English town outside of London. Making connections with people from all over the world has always come naturally to me, so getting close to people who's cultural or ethnic background is far removed from my own is something that's always come with ease. When I was at school, my friendship group was mostly black girls, but I'd be the only one who'd really go to the “popular white kids” events and I made friends. With these other friendship groups, I was first able to talk about my bulimia openly because these girls were also doing it- it was very unhealthy. I could speak about what I was doing because we were going through the same things, although the way we were approaching it was different. For them, it seemed mostly about appearance, nobody enjoyed what they looked like. We didn't know we were responding to deeper traumas. I didn’t like my body neither, I believed I was too fat, I thought they were all gorgeous, I found myself being sad all the time and I found I could and wanted to talk about that too. During lunch, I would spend some of the time with them. It wasn’t always about how we made ourselves sick. We also listened to music and we’d share all these different ways of being- things I didn't do with my main group of friends and music I never listened to with anyone else.

These relationships were fuelled by negativity and trauma, but I do believe there was love and trueness, we helped each other out to an extent. It felt safe and routine until someone we were close to attempted to take their life and was hospitalised - hiding was harder and everything was very toxic and very intense, I now know and understand we couldn't be there for each other. What we had in common was the possibility of talking about it. I don't think there was judgement, it felt more like we were creating space around a topic so that we could freely speak about it. I remember at one point I thought “Am I doing this to keep fitting with these girls?” I pulled back from them, but it didn’t stop. I just didn’t have anybody to talk about it anymore.”

I never made the connection that self-harming was filling a gap I couldn't ever identify as a gap.

“When I was 16 or 17, I knew that what I was doing was wrong. I hadn’t spoken about it to my parents because I assumed they wouldn’t understand. So, I booked myself an appointment with our family GP and told her: I think I’m bulimic. Her answer was: what’s bulimic? and I tried to explain it. I remember feeling so stupid. I’m a relatively intelligent person but, in that moment, I felt like I couldn’t say a word let alone a coherent sentence. It was like pulling teeth, I was expecting understanding and care whereas I was met with confusion and disgust. It didn’t feel like I was going to a doctor. It felt as if I couldn’t ever change, and that feeling stayed with me for a long time.

I was seen and shown understanding by a teaching assistant at school who noticed I had a pattern of behavior. She didn’t directly draw me out, but she created a scenario where she’d speak about people who practice nervous behaviours. She was the first person who explained what adverse effects came with bulimia. It may have been something she said to every group of teenagers, but it struck a chord with me. Her use of language didn’t feel like an attack or judgement. That’s when I started thinking about ways to help myself, again. For a while I didn’t make myself sick or see a doctor but my depression took a turn and I started to self-harm. I thought bulimia was one thing, and was about my weight and me hating being fat; and self-harm was a different problem around needing release or confirmation I was in a body. I never made the connection that self-harming was filling a gap I couldn't ever identify as a gap. It became a replacement for when I was 'checking out' of my body. A new way to escape, this is something I came to learn later in life in therapy and speaking with counsellors/Guides/Gods.”

Money and access, class and race are major factors in how easily I can get triggered.

“Moments when I was grieving some months ago, I really wanted somebody to offer to come to my house, make me food, sit me up, watch me eat it and let me sleep. This is not how this world works. It hurts me when I’m in that mind frame, an expectant and demanding attitude toward the world, when I can barely muster moving an inch- this life is a co-creator experience. I now believe the universe is in support of my being here, I believe that because I know it starts inside of me. There is a certain combinations of 'stuff' that signal so I know I’m in a bad place. If you ask me what would stop my triggers and help my eating disorder, I will say 200 000 pounds and a yacht. If I got into an intensive therapy program, things would be different, if things were different- I can't dwell on external factors any more. Money and access, class and race are major factors in how easily I can get triggered. I have to choose for my grief and healing to be an insular experience first because of how exhausting it is to be in this world, in this body, I'll walk around and be trigged constantly. Not having the money to gain access to eat how I want to or get the mental health help I need or not having the capacity to factor out my feelings, so I get some sustenance is not mental gymnastics I'd wish on anyone. I still struggle with anxiety when deciding on meals, whether it's the food I buy and eat. I sometimes enter this spiral of maths trying to calculate and figure everything out when all I should be focused on is sustaining my body's existence with food. In light of this I also struggle with certain moral conversations around food habits e.g veganism, in its popular form doesn't seem sustainable or good even though it's marketed so.”

I might not be healed in a way where I’m not going to obsess sometimes, but I’m healing in a way where I love my body, I feel safe in my body

“Presently one of my biggest fears is completely not enjoying food, cooking or eating out. I get like that sometimes and I worry when the feelings linger. But I have a safety net! I’m learning to freely talk about and sit with my thoughts. Even if speaking about it is an individual choice, I personally think it is very important to regenerate conversations around disordered eating. In the past I didn't have the right words and I'm getting better at finding them, personally centring Blackness however, these conversations affect us all regardless of gender, age or ethnicity.

I’m still in recovery. That used to scare me to say, but being a human is scary. Personal limitations around food don't work for me, over the last 10 years I have not followed any of the strict/fad diets. I might not be healed in a way where I’m not going to obsess sometimes, but I’m healing in a way where I love my body, I feel safe in my body and can have conversations around 'why' when I don't. Over the last 3 years, I have been unraveling in this way where I can be open about disordered eating and discerningly share my deepest darkest secrets with practitioners I trust. It doesn’t mean my stories are for everyone, but I'm here to help people learn how to, and be more comfortable having better conversations about the shittiest part of being alive.

The positive side is that I really know when I don’t like something or my Spirit doesn't take. My intuition has been sharpened by this. I've been taught how to stand tall in being a hyperaware, hypervigilant, sensitive human. This has made me trust myself most. Hold my feelings, let them go, and run with love. It can be as simple as taking a moment to just acknowledge how I’m feeling in the present. For a really long time I thought I was just my secrets, my depression and my disordered eating. I thought it was all I had to offer to the world. But it is not. I’d like to be seen as someone who’s kind, maybe not always cute or fun but someone who can make time because I value and understand a being or a things worth. I’d like to be seen as someone who lives life all heart.”