Claire Beeken - MY BODY, MY ENEMY - My 13 year battle with anorexia nervosa

It’s hot, and I’m wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt tucked into my school skirt. It is a long pencil skirt, and I look like a pencil – I really do. I’m in a stinking mood all day, and can’t concentrate in lessons because my mind keeps turning to what’s going to happen later. I walk out of the school gates towards Grandma and Granddad’s feeling sick, but the thought of Fibre going back to the pet shop propels me along. ‘Hello,’ says Grandma when I walk into the kitchen. ‘Granddad’s in the shed.’

The shed is really a garage which Granddad has turned into a workshop. It is made of grey corrugated metal and has two big windows which face the house but are obscured by the apple trees. As I walk towards the shed, hard little windfalls slide under my shoes and make me lose my footing. The entrance is round the side, and as I walk through the open door, I am met by the smell of sawdust, oily rags and Granddad’s pipe. I can see that the double garage doors at the back of the building are blocked by shelves laden with tools and rusty tins oozing sticky stuff. Years later, when I see the film Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Kreuger’s den reminds me of that shed. ‘Hello, darlin’,’ grins Granddad, looking up from the most beautiful hutch I’ve ever seen. He’s left a few nails for me to knock in, and I dutifully go over and hammer them in. Then, without a word, he shoots the bolt on the shed door – and what I dread most happens.

Afterwards, when I go back into the house, I can’t manage the egg and chips that Grandma has cooked for me. I demolish the Mars Bar which Granddad gives me though. I always eat his Mars Bars in a particular way. I unwrap the top half and press my thumb down on the chocolate coating until it cracks and the soft centre starts to ooze out. I like to see the chocolate mash between my fingers. Then I start to pull bits off it and stuff them into my mouth as fast as I can. As I force each piece down my gullet, my hand is poised at my lips with the next bit. Sometimes I eat so quickly that I swallow pieces of wrapper. I don’t enjoy the chocolate, I don’t taste it; I just eat until it is gone, and so fast that I often feel sick. It is a ritual – when the Mars is finished, the bad thing is over.

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