1993-1994 was just a trip to hell. It takes less long to go there than to come back...
In autumn 1993, I was extremely underweight (BMI around 13.5). I was still living at my parents'. I had started to eat less and less, on top of working out most of the time.
I had tried to go the university in Rheims for a few weeks, to prepare my following year in Sciences-Po. Again, I hated the whole thing. Rheims was an awful place, just like the small town I was coming from (same region, North-East of France). That damned region with its appalling weather... nothing but damp cold ugliness. Because I was underweight, the weather suddenly became a major issue. I was cold all the time. I was also seriously depressed _ the lack of sunlight was taking its toll. I don't think this condition was triggered by losing weight, it just became obvious. It had already been there, rampant for years.
What I remember the most from those days are sentences, what people said. They would hit me like arrows.
The first time my mother got worried about me being a skeleton must have been in late October. She had a doctor come to our house, surely when my father was not around. I'm not sure if I had gotten the flu or something that could have been the main reason she would do that. It was not my usual GP, it was a male substitute. We were in the living-room and he started talking to my mother about me like I wasn't even there or if I was too dumb to understand what he would say.
That, coming from someone who claims to be a health professionnal, was in my opinion highly inappropriate. Unless it's a very French way: being careless. He said: "Have her take her top off so we can see if she's really skinny". Next sentence, he dropped the word "anorexia".
Again I have to wonder: can someone you've never seen before, who doesn't know ANYTHING about you, really make an accurate diagnosis? I don't think so. Above all when it comes to mental health.
After that I don't know what happened, but in November I ended up at the local hospital for some exams. They said my heart was not functioning properly and kept me in for a few days. They had me see a cardiologist... I strangely remember the different accents I heard. I remember they put me though unnecessary, potentially harmful, exams. Clearly, none of them had a clue about anorexia. This was the health system in 1993 in France. And they were already bragging about being the "best health system in the world"...
I went home for a few weeks but I burnt my ankle very badly. I had fallen asleep on an electric heater. I couldn't feel anything anymore, my whole body was numb. I remember I had cuts all over my hands. I wouldn't cut myself on purpose, I was just too skinny to feel anything, including pain. My skin had turned into cardboard and I was extremely clumsy. The tips of my fingers and toes were purple all the time, sometimes black. This never went away, even now with a normal weight I have this temperature problem, it never came back to normal.
Again, I had to go and see my GP (no recollection of details there). She sent me right back to the hospital. I banged my head again the wall of her office, tried to jump off the cab in which my mother and I were while it was running. Ended up in the same hospital. Two days later, I escaped, ran back home. 5 km with a half dead leg. The burnt on my ankle had turned into an ulcer. A nurse came home every day for two weeks to change the bandages. She was kind. She would talk to me in a very human, rational way. She once said: "You know, it's not good to be too skinny, you run out of energy quickly, you can't do anything". We talked about food... for the first time I felt like someone listened, someone cared. She was really helpful. I also remember having thought: "Why does she do that, this job?". My ankle was painted in yellow iodine, and the wound was 7cm long, with a hole fill of pus in the centre. It didn't hurt at all, but it looked gross an smelt awful. I was really sorry for her. That's probably one of the few times I got aware and ashamed of my own behaviour...
My ankle eventually got better. Some weeks went by. The end of winter killed me a bit extra.
At the start of April 94, my mother begged me to get in the car for an appointment with a "specialized doctor". I thought it was odd, then I saw my father standing in the hallway waiting, with his usual pissed-off look. He surely had much better to do. I got in the car. Not willingly. We drove to Rheims. Again. Another hospital. I hadn't eaten anything for days, just drank a cup or two of coffee every day. As I smelt a trap, I had them stop on the way to buy oranges. I ate three or four of them in a row during the trip. Like if it would change anything...
When we reached the endocrinology service of "Maison Blanche" Hospital , they took a blood sample right away. Then they wanted urine, not the easiest thing to get in this state. My mother and I had to wait in a huge, extremely cold room. Wait and wait... for the results. They took my temperature. A few minutes later, the nurse came back and took it again. "Thermometer must be broken", she said... 35°C. But it was not the thermometer that was dysfunctioning...
In the late afternoon, we were told they had to keep me. I got informed that my potassium level was extremely high (severe hyperkalemia) and that they feared my heart would just stop. They put me in a room by myself and had me drink a huge glass (or maybe two) of something absolutely disgusting. Like a brown powder diluted in water?
The day after, they had me sign a weird "contract". First I said: "Fuck you". Then I understood they would do whatever they wanted anyway. So I signed and thought: "Fuck you".
I stayed there over two weeks, waiting to reach 45kg, as it was mentioned on the (abusive) contract. Starting from 33kg, the road would be long. No visits were allowed. I remember I used to go down to the bakery in the hallway of the hospital on the sly. I would buy a couple of cakes a day. It was a breach of contract indeed, but I had to help myself as the food provided was not up to my standards (though some stuff was pretty decent actually). I remember I had a friend bring a package prepared by my mother once. She had to leave it downstairs and a nurse brought it up to me. Inside, some clothes and a special request: a tape, "In Utero" by Nirvana. It was the first week of April 1994...
The following days, the resident psychiatrist had my window locked without warning or explanation.
The "day of the 45kg" finally arrived. And the professor Caron, head of the endocrinology department, told me I could go. I thanked him warmly, which was weird as I had called him names everytime we would meet. He had said something else to me that I will never forget: " Your parents are not skinny, there's no reason you for you to be skinny"... Yes, Sir, the reason is that I don't want to have anything in common with them, not even the way I'm shaped.
"I wish I was like you
Easily amused..." ~ Kurt Cobain (20 February 1967 - 5 April 1994)