It was hard to go back to the loneliness and isolation of university after my "year out" but I was determined to finish my degree. But although I had coped with the stress of resitting my second-year exams, my body was in an even worse state. Something drastic needed to happen to pull me up before it was too late.
But the year started in possibly the worst way - an intensive, two-week microscope course which counted towards our final grade. Long days filled with experiments, hours on our feet working through never-ending protocols. And on top of it all, this all took place before term had officially started so there was no catering at my college. Naturally I got completely sucked into the work and neglected that other important business - getting food in and preparing meals. Winter was fast approaching so by the time it got light in the morning, I only just had time to squeeze in my obligatory run before making my way to the labs. I managed a handful of dried fruit and yoghurt at "lunchtime", then went until late evening before I had anything else. I knew this wasn't sustainable but I justified it by saying it was only a temporary phase; as soon as the course was over I would take myself in hand...
But my body unravelled too fast. It took me longer and longer each day to hobble round my run and my times got slower by whole minutes at a time. Even walking up the hill to the labs was a real struggle and during the day I was forced to sit as much as possible. One morning, I had a bad fall when running: I only tripped but my body simply didn't have the energy to keep myself from going down. My knees were completely wrecked, and I had no reserves to heal the ugly scars.
Who knows what would have happened had my mother not proactively arranged a doctor's appointment for me before I arrived? Dutifully, I dragged myself over to the surgery "just to keep her happy", expecting a brief check up, nothing more. But instead, the GP was rather shocked - so horrified in fact, that she wanted to telephone the hospital. Panicked, I fled - surely she was completely overreacting?! How could there be anything wrong with me if I was allowed to be working full-time in a laboratory?
I tried to put it out of my mind but that evening she came to the college. Whilst I was in the kitchen, I heard her and the caretaker moving along the corridors, searching for me. Eventually she gave up and left so I thought I had gotten away with it.
The next afternoon, halfway through staining some tissue cultures, one of the staff members gently took me aside. Some men were here from the hospital and needed to see me urgently. She didn't need to say any more. I knew the game was up.
With my weight as low as it was, I had a 'choice' of go to hospital willingly, or be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. I gave in, thinking that it would only be for a few days at most and that I would be out in time for the start of the term. But as soon as I was admitted to Durham hospital, everything changed: I was told it would be "weeks or months" at the very least. My world crashed - I couldn't believe that I had landed myself in this position It was all my stupid fault, why hadn't I seen it coming and done something about it?!!!
I couldn't bear to tell my parents and have them worry about me or put their lives on hold to come to Durham. I also felt deep shame at having failed again after all the help and support I had been given. The only people who knew were my college tutor and a close friend of mine, who I knew through the Duke of Edinburgh Award. My tutor was wonderful, and came to see me most days despite her busy schedule, even bringing me an iPad so I could keep connected with the world. Meanwhile, my friend spent hours with me, reminding me of happier times spent walking and promising to get me out on the hills again as soon as I was well. I am indebted to both of them.
It was a very frustrating time: I wasn't even allowed to leave my bed, let alone the ward. As it was a general ward, I felt completely out of place against the other patients, many of whom were very old and frail. I found out the minimum weight I had to be to be allowed to leave and ate whatever I could to get there. In my head, I had set a course to be back at university before term started and lectures began. But it was too much, too fast and I fell into classic refeeding syndrome. In order to process the sudden influx of food, my body had to use a great deal of the electrolytes in my blood - which are vital for proper functioning, especially the heart. As my levels plunged, I could feel my heart becoming more erratic and I was hooked up to a phosphate drip around the clock. I was so furious that no one could give me any proper advice. It was only a chance remark from a nurse that she'd heard that "milk was good for phosphates" that gave me any clue. After that, every time the tea trolley came, my order was a big glass of milk. It did the trick and my levels stabilised.
I was still hopeful that I would be going back to college but then my hopes were torn up again. Apparently, I was mistaken: the plan had never been to let me back out straight away, instead I would be going to a specialised "eating disorder" unit to continue my treatment. I felt completely deceived and would have left there and then if they hadn't got out the Mental Health Act forms and threatened to section me again. But first I had to spend a miserable weekend in a psychiatric unit in Hartlepool waiting for a bed to become available at the unit. Here, I got oedema (water retention) very badly and my feet became so swollen that I could hardly bend them. My friend, bless him, came all the way to play scrabble with me to take my mind off things.
And so I ended up at West Park Psychiatric hospital in Darlington. I felt completely abandoned, as though the hospital were washing their hands of me and leaving me here to be "fixed". I hated it from the start. Everything was focused around eating, eating, eating. The doctor who ran the ward had apparently been in the army, which would explain the military-style rules and routines. Six times a day, we were rounded up into the dining room to eat our meals in complete silence - except for the radio blaring away. If we didn't finish what we were given, we had to have "calorie replacement" drinks. After each meal, we had to sit around together in the common area ("post-meal support") so the staff could make sure none of us would try to make ourselves vomit. I couldn't see myself as belonging here and I felt elephantine, huge compared to the other, skeletal, patients. I distanced myself from them, spending most of my time in my room researching my literature project. My research project at Cambridge last summer had convinced me that I wanted to do a PhD after my degree and I started to research possibilities. It felt ridiculous to have such an ambition while I was locked in a mental hospital, and the staff must have thought it was all a joke. But I had to have some form of hope or I would have just given up on myself.
Eventually I made enough progress to be allowed out to attend some lectures. I remember being amazed at how the world had changed - whilst I had been locked inside, the trees had burst into their Autumn colours. It had never looked so beautiful.
I saw eating and putting on weight as my ticket to get out permanently. During my trips to university, I would even sneak in extra food between my set meal plan. But I wasn't doing it for myself - as far as I was concerned, they were forcing me to by locking me up each night. So when I was eventually 'discharged', I went straight back to portion control. The first thing I did when I arrived back at the college was to go for a run- my first in weeks.
I threw myself back into my course, determined to make up the weeks I had 'wasted'. Apart from Church, I spent most of my time in my room studying and doing my coursework. I had been assigned a 'mentor' who checked my weight each week so I knew I couldn't let things slide but I soon succumbed to the old anxieties. The caterers were incredibly patient as I stood for ages with my tiny plate, trying to decide what to have for tea, letting everyone in the queue go before me as I tried desperately to make up my mind. I had become quite anxious about food waste, so couldn't take a portion of anything that I was unlikely to finish. But the staff went out of their way to make sure there was something I was able to have.
I didn't go home for Christmas, reasoning that I needed to spend the time catching up on my work and that I would only spoil things anyway with my abnormal behaviour. My parents still didn't know about my hospital admission, although I learned later that they had guessed what had happened. Life carried on with the same drudgery into the new year - except for one wonderful thing. I was offered a PhD to study parasitic weeds at the University of Sheffield. Finally, I had a hope and a future. I just needed to get through the final few months of the degree.
But things were coming to a head again. In March, I started my final year research project - another intensive period with long hours in the lab. I stopped going to see my mentor, feeling that I couldn't afford breaking off the time from my experiments. My weight began to creep down and I was too distracted to do anything about it. One day I was called to the doctors to take a blood test and my college tutor had been told it was very important that I attended this appointment so she drove me down. Instead, I found that an ambulance was on its way to take me back to the psychiatric hospital for another spell as an inpatient. I didn't even have anything with me, except my coat.
Mercifully, they let me collect some things before I had to leave. It turned out that the eating disorder unit was full, so I would be put in a general psychiatric wing next door. I felt completely abandoned again and spent the first few days in shock with a terrible pain in my head. When it receded, I did the only thing I could think to do - revise for my upcoming final-year exams. There was almost nothing to do on the ward and I couldn't even go out for a walk unless I could find a member of staff to accompany me, which was rare.
I was still inside when my exams started but I carried on revising anyway, hoping to be released before the finished. In the end, I came out in time to sit the second half of my exams, with the understanding that I would sit the rest in the summer resit period. And so I finally had a bit of breathing space, to try and take it all in and tell my parents what had happened. They were wonderfully understanding and didn't accuse me at all; they were only sorry for what I had been through. My PhD supervisor also assured me that I would still be able to come to Sheffield after I finished my last exams.
Those last few months passed and I took my remaining exams. Finally, it was over and I could bade goodbye to Durham, a place where I had never felt true happiness. Over the summer, my PhD supervisor hosted a conference and invited me to attend. Whilst I found the science fascinating, I struggled with the social events, especially when they involved enormous quantities of rich food. One night we went to Chatsworth House for a barbecue and I hid outside, watching the sunset, to get away from the tempting food. My supervisor came out to find me and asked if I was OK. I assured her that I was, but in the pause that followed I wondered what she was thinking. Did she have any idea of what she had taken on in me? There was no way of knowing now, but it would become clearer later.
A new chapter of my life was beginning. I had a chance for a new start....but had anything really changed in my mind?
 |
| Working in the labs at Durham University |
But my body unravelled too fast. It took me longer and longer each day to hobble round my run and my times got slower by whole minutes at a time. Even walking up the hill to the labs was a real struggle and during the day I was forced to sit as much as possible. One morning, I had a bad fall when running: I only tripped but my body simply didn't have the energy to keep myself from going down. My knees were completely wrecked, and I had no reserves to heal the ugly scars.
Who knows what would have happened had my mother not proactively arranged a doctor's appointment for me before I arrived? Dutifully, I dragged myself over to the surgery "just to keep her happy", expecting a brief check up, nothing more. But instead, the GP was rather shocked - so horrified in fact, that she wanted to telephone the hospital. Panicked, I fled - surely she was completely overreacting?! How could there be anything wrong with me if I was allowed to be working full-time in a laboratory?
I tried to put it out of my mind but that evening she came to the college. Whilst I was in the kitchen, I heard her and the caretaker moving along the corridors, searching for me. Eventually she gave up and left so I thought I had gotten away with it.
The next afternoon, halfway through staining some tissue cultures, one of the staff members gently took me aside. Some men were here from the hospital and needed to see me urgently. She didn't need to say any more. I knew the game was up.
With my weight as low as it was, I had a 'choice' of go to hospital willingly, or be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. I gave in, thinking that it would only be for a few days at most and that I would be out in time for the start of the term. But as soon as I was admitted to Durham hospital, everything changed: I was told it would be "weeks or months" at the very least. My world crashed - I couldn't believe that I had landed myself in this position It was all my stupid fault, why hadn't I seen it coming and done something about it?!!!
I couldn't bear to tell my parents and have them worry about me or put their lives on hold to come to Durham. I also felt deep shame at having failed again after all the help and support I had been given. The only people who knew were my college tutor and a close friend of mine, who I knew through the Duke of Edinburgh Award. My tutor was wonderful, and came to see me most days despite her busy schedule, even bringing me an iPad so I could keep connected with the world. Meanwhile, my friend spent hours with me, reminding me of happier times spent walking and promising to get me out on the hills again as soon as I was well. I am indebted to both of them.
It was a very frustrating time: I wasn't even allowed to leave my bed, let alone the ward. As it was a general ward, I felt completely out of place against the other patients, many of whom were very old and frail. I found out the minimum weight I had to be to be allowed to leave and ate whatever I could to get there. In my head, I had set a course to be back at university before term started and lectures began. But it was too much, too fast and I fell into classic refeeding syndrome. In order to process the sudden influx of food, my body had to use a great deal of the electrolytes in my blood - which are vital for proper functioning, especially the heart. As my levels plunged, I could feel my heart becoming more erratic and I was hooked up to a phosphate drip around the clock. I was so furious that no one could give me any proper advice. It was only a chance remark from a nurse that she'd heard that "milk was good for phosphates" that gave me any clue. After that, every time the tea trolley came, my order was a big glass of milk. It did the trick and my levels stabilised.
 |
| Trying to keep myself sane...scrabble at Hartlepool |
And so I ended up at West Park Psychiatric hospital in Darlington. I felt completely abandoned, as though the hospital were washing their hands of me and leaving me here to be "fixed". I hated it from the start. Everything was focused around eating, eating, eating. The doctor who ran the ward had apparently been in the army, which would explain the military-style rules and routines. Six times a day, we were rounded up into the dining room to eat our meals in complete silence - except for the radio blaring away. If we didn't finish what we were given, we had to have "calorie replacement" drinks. After each meal, we had to sit around together in the common area ("post-meal support") so the staff could make sure none of us would try to make ourselves vomit. I couldn't see myself as belonging here and I felt elephantine, huge compared to the other, skeletal, patients. I distanced myself from them, spending most of my time in my room researching my literature project. My research project at Cambridge last summer had convinced me that I wanted to do a PhD after my degree and I started to research possibilities. It felt ridiculous to have such an ambition while I was locked in a mental hospital, and the staff must have thought it was all a joke. But I had to have some form of hope or I would have just given up on myself.
 |
| Beautiful autumn colours at my college in Durham |
Eventually I made enough progress to be allowed out to attend some lectures. I remember being amazed at how the world had changed - whilst I had been locked inside, the trees had burst into their Autumn colours. It had never looked so beautiful.
I saw eating and putting on weight as my ticket to get out permanently. During my trips to university, I would even sneak in extra food between my set meal plan. But I wasn't doing it for myself - as far as I was concerned, they were forcing me to by locking me up each night. So when I was eventually 'discharged', I went straight back to portion control. The first thing I did when I arrived back at the college was to go for a run- my first in weeks.
I threw myself back into my course, determined to make up the weeks I had 'wasted'. Apart from Church, I spent most of my time in my room studying and doing my coursework. I had been assigned a 'mentor' who checked my weight each week so I knew I couldn't let things slide but I soon succumbed to the old anxieties. The caterers were incredibly patient as I stood for ages with my tiny plate, trying to decide what to have for tea, letting everyone in the queue go before me as I tried desperately to make up my mind. I had become quite anxious about food waste, so couldn't take a portion of anything that I was unlikely to finish. But the staff went out of their way to make sure there was something I was able to have.
I didn't go home for Christmas, reasoning that I needed to spend the time catching up on my work and that I would only spoil things anyway with my abnormal behaviour. My parents still didn't know about my hospital admission, although I learned later that they had guessed what had happened. Life carried on with the same drudgery into the new year - except for one wonderful thing. I was offered a PhD to study parasitic weeds at the University of Sheffield. Finally, I had a hope and a future. I just needed to get through the final few months of the degree.
 |
| The lonely library at Christmastime |
But things were coming to a head again. In March, I started my final year research project - another intensive period with long hours in the lab. I stopped going to see my mentor, feeling that I couldn't afford breaking off the time from my experiments. My weight began to creep down and I was too distracted to do anything about it. One day I was called to the doctors to take a blood test and my college tutor had been told it was very important that I attended this appointment so she drove me down. Instead, I found that an ambulance was on its way to take me back to the psychiatric hospital for another spell as an inpatient. I didn't even have anything with me, except my coat.
Mercifully, they let me collect some things before I had to leave. It turned out that the eating disorder unit was full, so I would be put in a general psychiatric wing next door. I felt completely abandoned again and spent the first few days in shock with a terrible pain in my head. When it receded, I did the only thing I could think to do - revise for my upcoming final-year exams. There was almost nothing to do on the ward and I couldn't even go out for a walk unless I could find a member of staff to accompany me, which was rare.
 |
| Some of the supplies the caterers gave me to survive the Easter holidays |
I was still inside when my exams started but I carried on revising anyway, hoping to be released before the finished. In the end, I came out in time to sit the second half of my exams, with the understanding that I would sit the rest in the summer resit period. And so I finally had a bit of breathing space, to try and take it all in and tell my parents what had happened. They were wonderfully understanding and didn't accuse me at all; they were only sorry for what I had been through. My PhD supervisor also assured me that I would still be able to come to Sheffield after I finished my last exams.
Those last few months passed and I took my remaining exams. Finally, it was over and I could bade goodbye to Durham, a place where I had never felt true happiness. Over the summer, my PhD supervisor hosted a conference and invited me to attend. Whilst I found the science fascinating, I struggled with the social events, especially when they involved enormous quantities of rich food. One night we went to Chatsworth House for a barbecue and I hid outside, watching the sunset, to get away from the tempting food. My supervisor came out to find me and asked if I was OK. I assured her that I was, but in the pause that followed I wondered what she was thinking. Did she have any idea of what she had taken on in me? There was no way of knowing now, but it would become clearer later.
A new chapter of my life was beginning. I had a chance for a new start....but had anything really changed in my mind?
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