I had put on weight from boarding school, tried to die my hair blond, it turned ginger, and tried to face the embarrassment of returning to my old school after a mere 4months. I looked like a troll; you know those cool plastic ones with the rounded tummies and coloured hair? Except my hair was orange, and from chemical straightening and dying it so often it even got the texture of the troll’s, really fine and a ultra crisp on the ends, a real vision of beauty. I was back to square one fat and unhappy. Went back onto the protein diet for a bit. But it wasn’t coming off quick enough.
I began taking laxatives. Not because I knew about laxatives as a weight loss tool, but I always had heard of people getting ill from a bug and losing weight so I thought it would be a good option. I started out drinking the tea that actually started in boarding school; I would mix a bottle every so often and carry it around and telling people it was herbal iced tea I had made. Funny thing is people actually liked it. When I got home, after my time at boarding school, I had kind of forgotten about laxatives, then realized sugar-free sweets, if eaten in abundance had a laxative effect. So I would buy two packets of sweets and full-cream chocolate yoghurt, to make sure the yoghurt never sat on my hips. Only problem was that those sweets cost about R40 a packet, so economically it was not so practical. I started taking the pills. It started with two. Problem with laxatives is you become immune to them; you have to keep upping the dose. Because the sweets were so expensive I continued with the tea in secret back home. I used it often enough to make me feel ill. So I began eating healthily and only taking laxatives if I ate carbohydrates. In other words when I wanted a binge I would take laxatives, and eventually turned to the tablets. This did the trick. Scary thing is I did research to see how much weight I could lose, these were my findings, and I had them all written in my diary:
Excessive weight loss, heart palpitations, light headedness, big pop-out eyes due to dehydration, loss of hair, bad nail condition, could lead to death. The only thing that caught my eye was EXCESSIVE weight loss.
I was loosing weight really quickly and uncomfortably at that, but I couldn’t care I was going to take them if they would make me lose weight. I came back to school after June holidays, covered from head to toe in luminous self-tan, pitch black hair and having lost a lot of weight. To be honest I looked like I had jaundice. People could not stop staring at me; a girl even said to me she thought I was a new girl. People started saying how skinny I was looking, asking me if I was eating and then after a few more weeks started to ask me if I had a problem because I had lost so much weight. Messed up thing is I liked that, when people asked if I had a problem, I knew the laxatives were working, I was thrilled but I denied having a problem. I would eat in front of people, a pie, a chocolate maybe some jellybeans just to show them I ate, then make sure I took some laxatives on the way back to class, sneakily so people wouldn’t question. In those days if I didn’t have laxatives on me I would have toast for breakfast, take watermelon for lunch, spend two hours at the gym and then eat supper. I would make a 2l jug of coffee after dinner when I did homework, which I usually couldn’t be bothered to because my concentration was shot, and drink about 5l litres of water a day.
I found it difficult to concentrate at school, I was always going to the toilet, I was always uncomfortable, and I was weak. I could not play sport really; I was so short of breath all the time, dizzy and so weak. I was never too weak for home economics though, I loved cooking but I hated sharing. I would run out of home ec, to my mom’s car, to get away from the boarders. And my mom who tried so hard with me asking how my day was, I was off and irritable and couldn’t wait to get home and wash the lead pencil and naartjie school smell off my hands. I never ate my home ec food, if I did I would make sure we stopped at the shop because I HAD to get a drink or whatever other thing I could ask for just so I could buy laxatives to get rid of the koeksusters or choux puffs.
Whenever I couldn’t get my hands on laxatives I got in a spin, it would be the end of the world. I would get angry and aggressive with my mom and she had done nothing wrong, there again she didn’t know that I was taking laxatives at the time. I got into a spin if she put any oil, sugar or carbs in the food we ate; bare in mind my step dad was living with us now, so you can imagine, what an absolute nightmare I was as every meal had to be up to my standards or the environment would be hell. I was so paranoid about food if I didn’t have my laxatives. We would go to a breakfast place where there were pancakes, it was about 9 in the morning, and my refusal to eat carbs and sugar resulted in me ordering a tuna salad, at 9am. I wouldn’t even have a bite of anything like that, because of my fear of gaining weight. When I took laxatives I felt free and powerful I felt so strong.
Often at night if I woke up from the laxative effects because I was so low on electrolyte balance (which I will go in depth with after this) I would get out of bed, faint and wake up later sprawled on the stairs from my bedroom onto the garden. I thought nothing of it. I loved how skinny, and wobble free I was wobble free due to sheer dehydration from the laxatives. Fainting became a natural occurrence with me, a norm if you will, no one saw though so I was lucky and just carried on.
And then one day, the day after I had worked my body up to taking 40 laxatives after one meal, we were in assembly I felt so hot, I knew if I stood up I was going fall, but I did it non the less. As I got up, I caught peoples attention, and I could see they knew something was not right. They moved out of the way and helped me outside as the piano played in the back round and the school sang along. My ears were ringing my eyesight went spotted and blurry until eventually complete darkness and I woke up on the other side of the building with my friend and 2 prefects lying in a huge puddle of clear liquid dotted with lettuce leaves which could have only come from one place… and no I did not wet myself. I was so low in sodium and so dehydrated the laxatives had taken huge effect and because there was hardly food in my stomach besides lettuce leaves, the body actually starts to get rid of the body’s plasma, which is a clear liquid, also making the body look smaller.
I was sent home and this incident was followed by; MRI’s, blood test, thyroid tests the works, because my mom didn’t know what was wrong, she saw I was losing weight but didn’t understand because I was eating… A LOT! I couldn’t tell her either because I would be discovered, and my magic weight loss would disappear as swiftly as it came and I couldn’t let that happen.
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