Hannah Brockway

I was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa at the age of sixteen. When I had just turned eighteen, I was admitted to hospital for treatment. After nine weeks on a mental health ward I was discharged, but I was far from recovered.   This is the tale of my continuing battle with Anorexia Nervosa, which has taken over half of my life so far.

My book will be available for purchase in the form of an eBook or paperback.

May

- At the end of the campaign, all names will be added to the Thank you pages. Formatting may take a few days, after which eBooks will be ordered.

June-August

Paperbacks will be printed and posted. Delivery time will depend on the printing and postage companies.

Preview

When I was about 11 I noticed that, if I sat on a chair wearing short shorts, I could see my thighs flatten and squash together. I thought it looked horrible. I first noticed during an orchestra rehearsal and immediately started worrying others would see and think I was fat. Squishing my legs together in an attempt to make them look thinner didn’t work. Looking around at others in the orchestra, I tried to see if their legs had also flattened out, but was also conscious I might look like a pervert, staring at people’s legs. I also couldn’t look down at their legs from the same position as I was viewing my own — directly above — so it was hard to tell if theirs looked the same. Eventually, I discovered that, if I sat on the edge of my chair, with the bare part of my legs surrounded by air, they wouldn’t be able to flatten. I have always sat the same way since unless my legs are under a table where I, and no one else, can see them and feel disgusted.

I was in my teens when I noticed that my quadriceps and the skin above my kneecaps wobbled a bit when I walked. Again I was incredibly self-conscious and worried others would think I must be greedy and lazy if I had fat that wobbled. I had grown up thinking that if someone had so much fat that it wobbled, they must have a lot of it! In fact, I thought having any fat on your body was unhealthy. Even before social media, we were bombarded with advertisements demonising fat, which was reflected in television, movies, and the conversations of our own friends and family. As a teenager observing everything in an attempt to make sense of a world in which I felt I didn’t quite belong, I deduced that having zero body fat was the ultimate goal. The models in advertisements looked like they had almost achieved that. Given this belief, I was horrified when I saw my legs wobbling. I was disgusted with myself and assumed others would be too. I tried to tense my legs when I walked to stop the wobbling, but it made my gait stilted and awkward. Somehow I discovered that, if I slightly bent my knee as my leg met the ground, my muscles would tense enough to reduce the wobble, making it much less noticeable. I assumed that, as walking in this way also caused me to use my muscles more, it would help burn off the offending, wobbling fat. In hindsight, I think the wobble was actually caused by my leg muscles — not fat — moving around as my feet jolted against the ground. Whatever the cause, walking like that became a habit, and still is.

The mental health clinic at Heathgrove Hospital called about a week later to inform us that a bed had become available. I was in two minds about going to hospital. I was terrified of eating more and being recovered — being happy at a higher (healthy) weight was a state of being for which I simultaneously yearned and found revolting. The thought of being at a higher weight in my current mindset was scary and repulsive, so even though I wanted to believe that I could accept myself at that weight, I found the idea of acceptance disgusting. However, hospitals are meant to make you well again, right? And Maisie had said Heathgrove was a good place to go. While her own attempts to treat my food restriction had been harmful, I still believed that, as a doctor, she would have reliable intel on the hospital's treatment program. I figured they must have really good psychologists and methods that would help me see things differently, so I would be able to eat without feeling guilty and hating myself.

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I was also proud that I needed to go to hospital, that I had been so good at losing weight that I had made myself sick enough to need hospitalisation. It was truly a triumph to have demonstrated such willpower when exercising and restricting food. Though I didn’t want to die, I felt that dying from AN would be the ultimate triumph, a hero’s death. I understood why warriors in books and movies set in ancient times wanted “a hero’s death” on the battlefield. The other main positive, in my mind, about hospital was that I would find out who my true friends were. Surely only my true friends would want to visit me. I was so insecure I doubted that anyone liked me very much. I felt my friends endured my presence but wouldn’t miss me if I wasn’t around. This would put my friendships to the test.

All profits will be used to cover:

- the time to write, edit and advertise this book

- advertising costs

- printing costs

- self-publication