When I was 18, I decided that I would be happier if I got fit. I was already fit by the way, but in my mind, I needed to look as if I was chiselled from granite. Nothing else would do. Thus began a decade of self-abuse in the form of starvation and chronic over-exercise. Initially I got fitter, and then I got more and more unfit as I starved myself almost to death. Did I get happier? Absolutely not.
When I was 19, I knew that I was in trouble. Something was very wrong. I couldn’t eat. Anything I did eat had to be burned off through exercise. I hated myself and I wanted to die. To this day, I cannot give a reason for why I felt like this, but I just did.
It took me 10 years to recover. 10 years of my life that I could say were a waste, but which were really a journey to where I am today. A journey with a happy ending might I add, but only because I got help.
A doctor told me I had anorexia and then we had a row about she wanting me to eat a Mars bar. At first it was fine – I had a diagnosis. Then came the embarrassment, guilt and shame. Wasn’t this a girls problem? Lads didn’t get this. What the hell was wrong with me?
During my journey through recovery, I met many other boys, teenagers and men who were struggling similarly, many of them in secret and on their own, loads of them on bodybuilding websites. Their guilt and shame was palpable. ALL of them wanted to beat it though but many of them couldn’t bring themselves to get help. The shame and stigma associated with it was overwhelming for these guys.
The 1 in 10 figure that is frequently mentioned does not reflect the extent of males with eating disorders. Statistics can only be based on data. Data can only be based on the number of people who do present for help.
Ask a person what an eating disorder is and they’ll most likely say anorexia or bulimia. It’s far broader than that though. In my mind, anybody who abuses food to ‘numb the mind’ has, at the very least, disordered eating but, most likely, an eating disorder.
I think that men are able to hide it better than women though. There can be lots of very healthy looking people with eating disorders. While they look healthy on the outside, they are dying on the inside. Gyms are packed with lads trying to achieve the Adonis look. There’s nothing wrong with being fit, exercising and taking care of yourself. I do now. I even compete in a sport – something I thought I’d never achieve (more on that in a minute).
However, when the health and fitness regime becomes your life, there’s a problem. I’ve known people who cannot socialise (e.g. go out on a Saturday night) because it will interfere with ‘the programme.’ Only competitive athletes or those who make a living from their physique need to do this and they only do it at certain times during the year (competition season for example). Elite athletes live extreme and, often times, unhealthy lifestyles. So do fitness models. We ‘ordinary’ folk don’t need to.
Sport, or rather my inability to excel in it, was a huge problem for me growing up. Consequently, I always felt less than other lads my age. They were better than I was because they were better athletes. Perhaps this excellence is another expectation of males today that can drive them towards eating distress.
People in distress tend to find some coping mechanism. All coping mechanisms become destructive eventually. It’s extremely tough to look deep into yourself, deal with whatever issues are the root cause of your eating disorder, let go of the coping mechanism and start living your life as it should be lived.
If I hadn’t sought help back when I was 19 – twenty years ago – I’d be dead now. I’d have died in my mid-twenties at the latest. I weighed in the ball park of 40 kgs when I was 24 and had severe osteoporosis.
Today I’m alive and healthy. Am I happy now? I think so. I’m certainly happy with who I have grown to become. I have the same stresses and woes that everybody does but I can deal with them properly now instead of relying on my coping mechanism.
If I could offer any advice it would be to seek help. No man is an island.
