My parents were at their wits’ end – first the anxiety, then the overly attentive tutor and now this. An eating disorder, the kind of thing they’d only read about or watched on television. Yet here it was, happening to their daughter, and they felt powerless to stop it and even less able to understand it.
They took me to the doctor. He saw I was in the grip of anorexia nervosa and bulimia, but also said I was clinically depressed – bipolar, in fact – capable of experiencing highs but also devastating lows. He suggested putting me on medication. No way! Ever since I was a young child I’d had a phobia about taking drugs. There was no way I was putting pills down my throat.
He was right, though – I was depressed. I was sinking deeper and deeper into a black hole of my own making, because my addictive personality had latched on to my teacher’s negative attitude to food. Still, I didn’t let on to my parents or the health professionals about the root cause of my behaviour, and so we kept going to ballet.
Yet rather than praise me for my dedication, my dance teacher turned on me. One day I couldn’t get on my pointes enough – probably due to a lack of energy because I was so skinny. She grabbed me by the hips and shoulders and shook me. I came home feeling broken, my body covered in bruises.
Ballet was no longer fun. It had been the only source of joy in my life, but it had turned sour. I sank lower. I hated ballet, I hated my teacher, but worst of all I hated myself. I hated the fact that I was the way I was. I hated being condemned to forever living as a prisoner to my condition. I wasn’t in control; I was at the mercy of the Asperger’s that ruled my mind. I hated my life. I felt cursed. If I was in tune with the spirit world, it wasn’t able to help me. Medication wasn’t the answer. I needed to find something else to relieve the pain in my head, to ease the blockage of self-loathing.
I felt an overwhelming need for release. Instinctively, I went to the bathroom and saw one of my dad’s Bic razors. I pushed it against my leg – to my eyes the fleshiest part of my thigh, even though it was stick thin. I pushed the blade deeper into my leg, watched as it broke the skin. It felt good. It was exactly what I needed.
As the blood oozed from the perfect cut it was like a valve had been opened, and all the tension was seeping out of me. It was amazing. I had never heard of self-harming. I wasn’t even aware it was a concept. I just knew I’d found something that eased my pain.
But, like my quest to be as thin as possible, my desire to cut myself became an obsession. I gouged my skin at every opportunity. Every time I cut myself I told myself I deserved it. It wasn’t like punishment, though. This was so, so sweet. I could breathe again.
I had a compulsion. Every time I got stressed I’d reach for the razor blade. It got to the point where I carried a razor blade in my handbag just in case. I always made the cuts on my leg because I could cover them up. I certainly wasn’t doing this for attention. That was the last thing I wanted. I never showed anybody my scars. I was ashamed of them. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing.
Once I got into it, I did quite a lot of damage. I got carried away, slicing and searching for patches of virgin skin. I was a mess, physically and mentally.
I turned to poetry, penning my own verse to try to put my pain into words. One poem from that time was called ‘Maze of the Mind’.
Distorted image that was once so true.
Failure to recognise oneself.
Loathing of this shell I carry.
Losing my inner self.
Which image is honest?
Which image is truth?
Am I not as real as you?
My mind is a maze of twists and turns.
That no longer has substance.
A nothingness has sucked life dry.
A blackness has engulfed me.
Mental suffocation but physically well.
Screaming in frustration yet sitting calm and still.
‘How are you?’ they say.
‘I’m well,’ I reply.
But I feel already dead.
Being in such a distraught state presented the perfect opportunity for a predator to pounce. My psychic senses might have been clouded to any potential danger, but someone else claiming to have spiritual powers spied an opportunity to prey on an impressionable victim.
It looked harmless enough. Fun, even. And I hadn’t exactly enjoyed many fun times before we paid a trip to Brecon. I was with my parents and sister, and my primary reason for going there was to visit a bookshop. On the opposite side of the street was a spiritual crystal shop hosting a fair for all kinds of psychic practices. My kind of place, surely?
Once we went inside I saw that a psychic artist, who I will call Phil, was offering readings through art.
‘I’d like to get this,’ I said.
My parents shrugged and said it was fine, if that was what I wanted. Phil seemed perfectly nice and showed me upstairs to a small room where he did his artwork, while my family waited downstairs. He talked quietly and asked me some questions to get a sense of who I was so he could tune in and contact my spirit guide. He asked for some personal information, my name and phone number. I gave these to him without thinking much of it. Phil then explained that he would tune in to my spirit and channel it through his artwork.
I sat there, quite intrigued. He was sketching the figure of a man, but with large wings. As he was drawing he edged closer and closer towards me. I felt uncomfortable so I got up. He stood up too and I backed against the wall. He moved right in front of me, his large frame blocking the stairs. I started to feel scared. He was so close I could feel his breath on my face. He put his hand against the wall next to my head.
‘You’re a very special girl, Sophie,’ he said, pinning me against the wall.
I didn’t know what was going on. But I knew this wasn’t right. Before he could do or say anything else, I slipped under his arm and ran down the stairs. My parents were still there, waiting for me.
‘What’s wrong?’ my dad said, seeing the look on my face.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, truthfully. I really didn’t know what had just happened.
I looked back up the stairs and Phil was there holding the drawing. ‘Sophie, you forgot your picture,’ he said.
He came down casually behind me, smiling as if nothing had happened. He chatted to my dad a little bit about mundane things and said everything went well. All the time I just wanted to get away.
On the journey home my parents could sense something was wrong. They kept asking me what, but I just replied, ‘I don’t know.’
Back at the house I looked at his half-drawn picture to see what meaning I could glean from it. Not much. A short while later my phone buzzed with a message. It was Phil. He asked how I was and said he was sorry I ran off. Why was he contacting me? He knew I was only 14, but I looked much younger. I was confused. My brain couldn’t work out whether it was normal for a middle-aged man to contact a young teenage girl. Shut away in my house, with none of the interactions