Anorexia

Back to the Anorexia film.

Back to Ruby's Room.

Ruby talks to Matthew about Anorexia.

Ruby: Hi welcome to ruby's room its part of the BBC headroom campaign, and each week we raise awareness of mental issues. So this week we are talking about anorexia, which is short for anorexia nervosa. And it's about people who really control their weight and appetite to a very dangerous level. If you have anorexia you might use slimming pills you might use exercise or you keep your calories to a really bare minimum. Ok come on.

Interview

Ruby: Did you at a certain age just stop eating?

Matthew: Well when I was a child, I was a happy little child until my parents...

Ruby: Yeah, we're all happy little children

Matthew: Until my parents took us from England, which is lovely, to apartheid South Africa which is horrible. It was as a response to how awful I thought everything was that I sort of turned inward and started developing a real relationship with food and got really over weight.

Ruby: Was it a protest?

Matthew: It wasn't really a protest; it was more like the only thing that was comforting. And then when I got to seventeen my hair grew out, oh hair, when I had it. My hair grew out I started to feeling better looking better. But I still felt overweight so I started exercising and dieting.

Ruby: Right

Matthew: So what I did was instead of using food as a reward I started to use not having food; that was the reward

Ruby: That was the reward, how clim were you? I mean...

Matthew: Well I went from 11 and a half stone to 6 stone 6 pounds. You have a completely skewed perspective, so if you, particularly if you've been overweight; when you look at yourself and there is no weight there you think that's pretty cool, that's pretty good.

Ruby: What does it feel like, or are you just out of your mind?

Matthew: You're out of your mind

Ruby: You're out of your mind?

Matthew: Constant exhaustion

Information

Ruby: Ok there's no single cause for anorexia. It could be combination of family, social or cultural factors. It could happen because it makes you feel like you have control over some part of your life. Or it could be a self esteem issue, you know you see in those magazines, those stick insect models and next to them you'll always feel fat. Or you could have a history of anorexia in the family. Or else its emotional stress; you know there's something at work, you lost your job or your relationship ends. Or you had early physical abuse.

Interview

Matthew: With me what happened was I was still going to work and one morning I went to work and started crying. I went home and at that point I realised that I was really ill. But also knew that there was only a small healthy part and this much larger anorexic part.

Ruby: So let me just figure this out, so there's this little healthy part saying you better eat something and there's a bigger part that's a tyrant?

Matthew: Absolutely

Ruby: And it says no you're not going to eat?

Matthew: yea because the way that it works it's a mechanism. It's like something that automatically closes the door. That's all it can do, so all it says, all it can say is don't eat, something terrible will happen if you eat. So when somebody is crammed full of calories; inside they are screaming because this thing is saying this is a terrible thing to happen. That was my predicament that I knew that I was ill but I couldn't just sit down and start eating, and so I looked inside myself deeply inside myself

Ruby: Whatever was left

Matthew: And realised that there was this thing that I didn't at that point know was a mechanism, I just knew that there was this part of me that was running the show. And I knew that it liked me exercising and what I said to it, I negotiated with it.

Ruby: Out loud or inside your head?

Matthew: No, inside my head just between the two of us and I said for me to be able to exercise I have to be able to eat I need to have some fuel, and to that extent the mechanism sort of accepted that

Ruby: And you were cured, from that moment on?

Matthew: It's a process, it was a process, it was probably about 6 months

Information

Ruby: One in two hundred and fifty women and one in two thousand men develop anorexia at some point in their lives. Eating disorders in males seem to be increasing. Anorexia most commonly starts in late teens. And while anorexia can often be rooted in a desire to take control of your life, the chemical changes in the body affect the brain and make rational thoughts almost impossible.

Interview

Matthew: For many years I absolutely sealed out the experience, people who knew me at that time, I never talked about it. Disorder recovery isn't so much about cramming your self full of calories so that you put the weight on; it's about integrating that weight so that it stays.

Ruby: The object isn't to gain weight the object is to get rid of the voice?

Matthew: Yes, yes, gaining the weight is obviously necessary to be healthy

Ruby: And is it synchronised so that the more you gain weight the less the voice is?

Matthew: Absolutely

Ruby: Wow

Matthew: And that's why I never, despite the various things that have happened to me, I have never been anorexic again. It gives you a very dynamic approach to life. When I came back it was like coming back from being dead, and so you have a wonderful energy a wonderful joy.

Information

Ruby: Your first step is to go to your GP who would refer you to a Councillor, a Psychotherapist or a Psychologist. For more information go to b-eat.co.uk. Ok, see you next week. Bye Bye.