Ese* is a 24-year-old woman who’s had a rocky relationship with her body for as long as she can remember. She talks about the role her mother played in giving her an eating disorder, and how her brother basically saved her life.
This is Ese’s story as told to Itohan
My mum had always been skinny. From the pictures I stumbled upon, she looked like she hadn’t had a single child, even though both my older siblings were in the picture with her.
For the longest time growing up, my mother blamed me for her weight. Nothing too serious, but she’d make snide comments about how her last pregnancy was the most stressful one and how her body hadn’t been the same since then. Then she’d talk about how I wasn’t even supposed to be born, but for some reason, she got pregnant with me five years after she had my older brother.
Whenever she went on her “I miss how my body was” rants and started blaming me, I never knew if I should apologise or not. On one hand, I knew I didn’t do anything wrong. On the other hand, she felt very strongly about it. I remember thinking about saving up money for liposuction, hoping it’d make her feel better. That’s how much it bothered me.
Not long after my 13th birthday, her comments shifted. It was no longer about how I ruined her body, but about how I was ruining mine. I wasn’t the skinniest girl at the time, but I thought I looked normal for my age. Turns out she didn’t carry the same sentiment.
My mum watched what I ate like a hawk. I couldn’t even have crackers without her talking about calories and insisting I needed to go on one diet. When we went out together, she’d point out skinny girls and talk about how I should aspire to look like them. I was miserable, and I wanted it all to stop. This went on for years, and I was sick of it.
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I was about 19 the first time I decided to starve myself. The “baby fat” they told my mum I was carrying never left, so it intensified her efforts to make me lose weight. I’d wake up earlier than I should to exercise before school. Then she’d pack me a salad or something similar for lunch. After school, I’d come home to exercise some more before dinner. I was constantly tired and barely sleeping. In all of this, I just wanted to lose the weight, maybe then I’d finally have some peace. The exercise and diets weren’t working, so I tried something different.
I can’t remember when I started skipping meals, but I know it became a habit. I was attending university from home, so my mother monitored my meals. Even when my friends invited me out, I’d decline because it was harder to skip eating around them. Every day, I used a measuring tape to track the size of different parts of my body. I documented it all so I could monitor the weight loss. After a few weeks, I started dropping weight. My mother was ecstatic. It didn’t matter that all I ate was water and crackers every two days or that I hadn’t used the stove in weeks. What mattered to her was that I was losing weight. I think that was the first time she spoke about me without disgust, hatred, or blame in her voice.
I had kept up that behaviour for almost a year. Food started making me uncomfortable, and the thought of eating made me want to throw up. I was weak most of the time, and eating food and gaining weight terrified me. I thought all was well until I fell sick.
They rushed me to the hospital because I collapsed. There was nobody at home except for me and my brother. He’d sent me to buy something for him, and as I walked to the gate, I collapsed. He said he thought I was joking at first, but when I was unresponsive, he took the car and drove me to the hospital. When I opened my eyes, I was hooked to an IV machine. A few minutes later, the doctor came in. He said I was dehydrated, not consuming enough vitamins, and my PCV was low. I also had malaria, and because of how weak I was, I had to make sure I ate enough before taking my medication.
I didn’t realise I was crying while he spoke until my brother pointed it out. After the doctor left, my brother started asking questions about how things had gotten to that level. I planned to ignore him, but he didn’t rest. When he tried to hold my hand so I’d look at him, the sleeve of my hoodie rolled up, and he saw the scars on my hands. I remember the frightened look on his face. He asked me if I was dating a guy who did that to me or if I was hurting myself. I couldn’t answer, I just cried.
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Later that day, our parents came to meet us in the hospital room. When they told my mother the diagnosis, the first thing she said to me was, “Don’t use this as an opportunity to get fat.” I don’t think she expected my brother to hear her or care enough to respond, but shouted at her. He said it was irresponsible of her to think that way when I could have died. She looked so shocked and stuttered, because she couldn’t come up with an answer, then left the room. I couldn’t stop crying. I’d always wanted to stand up to her and tell her to get out.
Even though I couldn’t do it, it was nice seeing someone defend me. That’s why I told my brother everything. I told him about the comments, the forced exercise, the eating disorder, and how losing weight was the only way I knew to make her love me. He was disgusted. When I was done, he left the room and confronted her in the hallway. He screamed at her, called her a murderer, said he was ashamed to call her his mother. My father was confused, but after my brother explained to him, he was livid too. He came into the room and apologised to me for not being there to stop it. He told me what my mother did was wrong. I cried so much that day. I couldn’t believe that my family was on my side.
It’s been about four years since I landed in the hospital. When I was discharged, I moved in with my older sister because my brother didn’t want me to stay in the house with our mother, but they also didn’t want me on campus with zero supervision. My brother paid for my therapy sessions and encouraged me to build a healthy relationship with food again.
I’ve gained some of the weight back, and I’m trying to be comfortable with how my body looks now. But some days, I hear my mother’s voice, and suddenly I’m 15 and hating my body again. A couple of months after I was discharged, she apologised for hurting me. She said she thought she was doing the right thing for my health and didn’t know it would end up that way for me. I’ve been trying to forgive her completely, and maybe I have. But I can’t forget the damage it did to me. I won’t say I love my body yet, but I tolerate it. It does what it needs to and takes me where I need to go. Maybe one day, my sentiment will change, but for now, this is where I stand.
Editor’s Note: The image and names in the story have no relation to the subject
