Today I Can’t Be Strong

Woman, Ghana/Britain

I was born and raised in London. I grew up in London but my parents separated so I was with my mum for a bit and then I moved with my dad, and then back and forth, so I went to three different primary schools and I settled at one secondary school when I stayed with my father. On my father’s side I’m the only child and around my teenage years, my dad was a journalist so he went out quite a lot and I was at home by myself quite a lot. I loved reading so I indulged in reading books and novels and getting lost in another world but I think there was a sense of loneliness, especially as on my mother’s side I had sisters, (they had a different father from me), my mother’s side was a more lively house, I had my sisters but with my dad it was just me.

I grew up during my teenage years with the sense of being alone but I got used to it and even now I’m quite used to be by myself but the only thing is, and I think it related to myself now, when I have issues I find it very difficult to speak out about it, I’m so used to be by myself and sort things, and when everything is fine then I come out as if nothing happened. Whereas I grew up with my father, but my father’s sister with whom I was really close to, was really a role model for me. I really respected and her judgement of me was very important but as I grew older, in my late teens, we became more like friends than this authority figure, se we became very good friends but even then, there was some things I couldn’t tell her whereas I think I could tell her anything but even if it was now, I still couldn’t tell her. She would always say ‘be strong’ but sometimes you can’t always be strong. She’s like this typical African woman who is the pillar of the household, you can’t look weak because it’s a tough world out there. And that is sometimes very difficult to try to communicate with the closest person that was in my life.

‘I didn’t know what bulimia was until I was 24’

Although I had in my aunt a friend, the downside is that she would always tell me that I should be strong. And I remember even when I had some issues at school, and they wanted to refer me to a counsellor, I remember telling my aunt and she said: if you go, it will be on my record. It scared me and I didn’t go. But as I grew older, I’ve learnt to open up a bit more about these things.

The stigma of mental health, it stems from home, I think it’s done to protect us, because people of colour are living in a system that wasn’t built for them so, you don’t really know if you end up in telling someone your problem, it will be used against you, or you don’t know what drugs they are feeding into you; I can understand her point of view, but I believe that at some point there must be a balance with trying to help yourself and trying to take on the world an carry the burden of other people so for me I’m actually learning to say that today I’m not strong, today I can’t be strong and that’s quite tough coming from an African household where I have strong women as role models. The only way I can get by in my contemporary living is to be like: ‘actually you know what, I can’t, just give me some time off for a bit’. I hope that it feeds into the next generation and that there isn’t this burden to have to always be strong because it’s really tiring actually and it’s almost a façade that you put on, and when you are down, it’s a bit of a surprise for people. We expect her always to be in a good mood.

When I went to secondary school and there was all this stigma about just ‘being’. I was quite tall , it was the first time I realised it and it was planted into my head that this it was good to be this stick-looking figure, I heard about ideas like watching your weight. At home, we never thought about that, we ate really well, we enjoyed food. I didn’t know what bulimia was until I was 24.

I remember being at school and someone saying that, one of my friends saying I ate a cake and threw it up. I lived alone with my father, a lot of the time he was out working and reviewing books and stuff like that and I was at home and I think that was my comfort to eat but at the same time I didn’t want to put on weight; so I remembered what that friend said about eating and then just threw up and I just developed some eating disorder when I was around 15 and I carried on with that until quite late into my twenties. And again, because of the stigma of seeking help, I didn’t seek help, I didn’t know there was a word for it, I didn’t think there were that many people doing it, and it’s definitely not spoken about in the Black community. I know people say we need to start talking more about mental health but I think it would be good as well to talk about eating disorders in the Black community because it is something taboo.

You are told back home in Africa people are starving and there you are stuffing your face and then throwing it up. I didn’t tell my family; some may have guessed, they know that I’m trying to watch my weight and I go to the gym and stuff like that; I don’t know if anyone figured it out, and if they did it’s almost that awkwardness, I don’t think they would actually say anything because it’s such a taboo that maybe they would rather not.

‘It’s cognitive therapy so it’s being aware of the things that triggered it an that for me was really draining so it’s been on and off’

My problem: my body image and my idea of what was healthy, and what my friends and the media would tell me. I think a lot of it stemmed from this eating disorder because I held so much metaphorically. I had held a lot of weight of other issues that I had, and that stemmed from being lonely, I had confidence issues, if you see me, I’m quite tall and you can’t miss me. So when I tell people that sometimes I’m not confident, it can be a bit of a surprise.

When I over eat and I feel sick, I can’t be in a social setting, I have to be by a bathroom for that where I could purge and it’s not always possible when you’re out with your friends when you’re drinking or eating in a restaurant and you want to use the public restroom. So a lot of the time I would be at home and isolate myself rather than being in a social setting. Throughout my twenties a lot of that happened, I had to isolate myself just because I didn’t want my friends to know about this issue that I had.

I only recently sought help to be honest and even that took me a long time. I had to tell my doctor, how do you tell your doctor that you have an eating disorder. And I remember telling my doctor (he was a Chinese doctor), and I thought he was actually laughing at me. Obviously he didn’t laugh at me but I felt it,  I don’t know if it’s a thing with people of colour like it’s something that they don’t have, like we don’t do eating disorders. But when I transferred to a white doctor, he treated me how you expect a doctor to treat me and not tried to get personal, I don’t know how to describe it but, he distanced himself from the patient. There are patients who have bulimia and you just treat them that way. Whereas I felt the Chinese doctor treated me as a Black girl with an eating disorder and that made me feel uncomfortable. My doctor recently referred me to a counsellor and even then it’s hard because I didn’t know about these things and I found it really difficult so I’m taking it one step at a time, watching what I eat as well.

Initially I didn’t think it did help me because talking about it sometimes makes it too real for me and I just wanted it to go away. I didn’t want to do this talking but she said actually talking about it and going in into the past will help. It’s cognitive therapy so it’s being aware of the things that triggered it an that for me was really draining so it’s been on and off but I haven’t seen her but every three months now because I’ve been missing some appointments and I realised that it’s really important that I continue with it because sometimes I think I can do it by myself; I have phases when I say ‘no more’, and I’m fine for like 4 months or so then something triggers it and it comes back. So I go back to therapy and it helps.

‘race shouldn’t matter but, it’s important to have a choice’

I went to see a hypnotherapist; I went all the way from London to Liverpool because it was one that I found online and she was the cheapest. I went to see her and I remember when she put me on the bench and she was hypnotising me and I was just crying because that was one of the first times I told someone about it. It wasn’t hypnotherapy as I saw it would be like being lost or asleep; I was really much aware of what I was doing but it was such a really huge relief to finally tell someone. The whole session I was just crying and I think it was my way of relieving and cleansing. But it was too far for me to go and it was such a drama that day actually because I missed the coach back and I just had to pay for a train from Liverpool back to London.

It cost me so much so I gave up on hypnotherapy but the others things that I’m doing are going to the gym, looking after myself and watching what do I eat as well.

I just have to start off well, starting eating something good. From the moment I eat something bad, it could trigger. Everyday is a hassle in a sense I try to watch what I eat or plan what I’m going to eat but I find it difficult.

I thought my Chinese doctor got too personal by giving his personal opinion by smirking when I told him I had an eating disorder and that put me off. And the white doctor just distanced himself and just treated me as a patient with eating disorder. There isn’t a Black doctor in my general practice so I don’t have much of a choice but that doesn’t bother me too much actually. Because sometimes, maybe with my particular disorder, having a Black doctor, I would feel a bit too close to her, I would probably have felt ashamed. But other things like skin, it would be good to have someone more relatable who can diagnose you rather than a doctor who doesn’t really know about your race.