I was acting like the starving child who suddenly have food in front of him again. I had starved for a year and there was not stop in me. The worst thing who could happen was to be broke and not be able to maintain my food addiction. Those days I stole food from the restaurant and took it with me home.
A year later I moved back to my hometown, Ulricheamn - back to my roots. I didn't like Borås, didn't have any good friends and missed my hometown after nine years of moving around in Sweden. It was time to reconnect with my passed.
I threw out the scale when I passed 100 kilos again. I got such a pure and hard anxiety when I was standing on a scale, that I just stoped doing it.
I tried to deal with the dissapointment and the wounds I had in me after the hell-year but I can't say that I succeded to do that. It was just to hurtful.
I moved to Ulricehamn and started school again, got new friends and reconnected with some old friends. I wasn't a partygirl, I prefered to sit in front of the telly with a load of sandwiches instead. I remember that I made 2-4 sandwiches, took them to the tv-room and ate them, while I was watching TV. After a while I went out in the kitchen and did the same thing again...and again. I lost count of how many sandwiches I ate. Same thing with cookies and candy. To buy a small box of eight cookies was a plesure who lasted for five minutes and at that time there was no big-packs to buy, as there is today. You just had to buy more then one package instead! As always there was just panic when there was not enough money to feed my addiction but the head was full of ideas - baking your own cakes and cookies or stuff, filled with sugare and other stuff I could make something to eat out of or simply borrow money from friends, to buy more addictive food. Most of my money went to my addiction and the body told me what I was doing by getting bigger and bigger.One night in october 1985 I did something who would change my entire life. I went to Borås to dance - or more honestly - I went there to pick up a man. I just wanted sex instead of food, for once. I got what I wanted and after a "hot night" I went back home and continued my life, filled with food and munching.
Just before christmas I suddenly got a very bad stomach ache and started to vommit..all the memories came back and I just got panicked.
I AM SICK AGAIN???
WILL I NOT EVER BE ABLE TO EAT AGAIN???
I threw up again and again and again and the pain in my stomach was really bad. When it didn't stop I went to the small emergency ward in Ulricehamn with my brother and they sent me to the Hospital in Borås where I was supposed to get x-rayed. I told the doctor that I probably got some kind of relapse of the "disease" I had in Lycksele, a couple of years before. It waa probalby not any wrong with my stomach it was something wrong with my head instead.
When we arrived to Borås was the x-rayward closed för the night. (fortunately) and I was sent to the psychiatric ward instead, (My own wish) with an IV in my arm. I stoped threwing up and after a couple of days I could go back home...
...and started to throw up again!
I went back to the psychiatric ward, got IV and stoped throwing up...
I moved back "home" to my brother and father over the Christmas and threw up ever day but could at least eat some food, so there was nog big threat to my health as long as I could handle it myself.
After Christmas I went back to my own home and continued to throw up but just in the mornings and my friend who lived in the apartment beside me said that I wasn't sick - I was pregnant!
- WHAT? Me? Noooo, I am not pregnant!
The denial worked until one evening when I felt something move inside of my belly...
he next day I went to the Antenatal care and made a pregnancy test - it was positive!
I was in the 17th week of my pregnancy.
No idea even to consider abortion and just laughed coarsly to my self. How stupid could I be?
How was I supposed to be able to take care of a small child?
I lived in a one room apartment with a small kitchen in the wall, a toilett but not even a shower or anywhere to do laundry. A student (with very high rate of absence) and had no plans at all to get pregnant before 30 years of age.
What coul I do, more then just accept the situation? The baby in my womb was here to stay, no matter what I thought of it.
I had to drop the school (again), got sick leave because of the vommiting daily and not just in the morning, all day. I got a contact with the Social services who helped me with a better home and support financially. I also got a terapeuth in the psyichiatric service in town to deal with my ambivalent emotions I had towards this pregnancy wich I couldn't really handle my self. It felt like I tried to throw up my own child.
The following months my stomach grew but the rest of me reduced - I didn't get as much nutrition I needed and I went out and in to the hospital, where I got IV so both me and the life inside of me could survive. I was always put in the female clinic where there was women with cervical cancer, cysts etc - I never saw any pregnant women and almost felt ashamed when they saw my growing belly wich I tried to throw up.
In the eight month of my pregnancy I was in such bad shape that I had to go to the intensive Care Unit because the levels of nutrition in my body was extreemly low and the sounds from my baby was weak. The doctors told me that if I didn't get my levels up in 24 hours, they had to do an emergency Caesarean section, to save my child.
Again, I was laying there on a bed in a hospital, with tubes, CVK, IV with blood and minerals, a catheter and electrodes to monitor my heart and my child.
After 24 hours the crisis was over, my child "told" the doctors that she was going to stay in my womb.
When they wanted to move me to a ordinary ward for women I asked to go to a ward for pregnant women and newborns. I didn't want to se sick women again.
That was the smartest I could do! Something inside of me changed when I saw all theese mothers and fathers with newborn babies. First I got very sad because I was so lonley. No father beside me or anyone. The father of my child was not interessted at all to be a part of her future life.
But I realised one thing:
No matter if you are young, old, fat, slim, alone or have a big family around you - you can be a good mother anyway!
I WANTED TO BE A GOOD MOTHER!
When it was just a month left of my pregnancy, everything changed. I stopped throwing up, I could eat, I was happy and started to really long for my baby to be born.
I gave birth to my daughter the 15th of july 1986. I drove my self to the hospital, I just had the staff around me in the delivery room and friend of my father who had promissed me to support me.
Because I was so alone, I stayed at the hospital for a week but I just wanted to go home and start my new life with my daughter.
I already then had strong opinions about my daughter should be allowed to eat - she was NOT going to be a food addict as her mum! After three months of breast feeding I couldn't do it anymore, there was not enough milk for her and child care service adviced me to give her baby formula.
I gave her the best I could find!
In the 80s the fear of sugar and fat was on the top, so lightproducts and fibers was the key to paradise.
Also for the children...
She got unsweetened and fullgrainproducts and also became very sensitive: threw up a lot after eating and lots of diarrheas.Small children throw up a lot but my daughter until she was a year old. I never considdered the food, just that she was sensitive and would "grow out of it". She was a very happy and energetic child and playful.My hided own foodaddiction because I didn't want my daughter to get the same problem as me. Cookies, candy and such things was hidden from her and I ate it when she was asleep. She was allowed to eat sweet things too but not in big amounts. I think I did as everyone else, beside hiding my own addiction.
I went back to school, one year later and dreamt about being a journalist...
The scale pointed steady higher and higher and I thought about it all the time.
- I will never meet a man if I am this fat...
- I will never....
But I just sat there, single mum and rarley got out. Children are supposed to sleep at night and have a regular scedule of food and sleep, so my home became my "food-prison" - I ate because I was bored, frustrated, had bad conscience, I ate just because I always ate...
In 1989 I heard bout something called a obesity clinic wich the Health Care Authority in Sweden, called "Försäkringskassan" had. I decided to try to go there.
Because I didn't had any weigh-related sicknesses, there was no medical records about me, the doctor told me when I met him at the Health care clinic. He wrote in my medical record those things an over weight person has probmes with: problems and ache in the back, knees and joints. My weight was 140 kg (my so called match-weight)
A remittance was sent to the Health Care department and after some time I got the answer that I was welcomt to the Obesity Clinic in Tranås (about 300 kilometers from home), in the autumn 1989. The social services helped me to find a family where my daughter could stay while I was at the clinic. The first period of stay in the clinic was sex weeks, and then two weeks, three months in between.
That year in the spring I actually managed to do the impossible: Meet a guy!
Of pure live I lost sex kilos during the summer. I didn't eat countless numbers of sandwiches and cookies in the evenings when I had company...
I was so scared, not knowing what should happen. I can not answer exactly what scared me but it probably was just an reaction to break my addiction who followed me through life.
You just feel naked and vulnerable.
The clinic served fatfree and low calorie food. Not a cookie anywhere and just a bounch of fat people, lumbered down to the dining room drinking tea with sweeteners, fullgrain bread, low-fat margarine and low-fat cheese for breakfast...it really tasted just like paper! The dinners was loaded with low-fat food and raw vegetables. I had never eaten so much grated carrots before in my life! As snack we had fruit and that fruit disappeared very fast!
During the days we worked out. First water gymnastics, then strength training and fitness training and preferably a long walk in the evening. Between the exercises we ate and no food after six o'clock in the evening.
The smoking room was filled with hungry fat people in the evnings, talking about..food! All that kind of food we missed, cookies, china-food, hamburgers, pizza..you name it and we talked about it.
Some sneaked out and bought that food they missed. I did't cheat at all - I strictly followed the rules and lost about 10 kilos in 6 weeks and gained strength and condition. I remember that I couldn't even jump the first week and the last week I coud actually run! I felt great when I went back home and my motivation was on the top. I was sure that I could make this! At home I continued to worke out, swam and kept my low calorie diet. I was so good!
I lost another 5 kilos - 15 totally. I started to get comments from friends and acquaintances that I got so "slim and good looking". I still weighed over 100 kilos...
At Christmas I did a big misstake: I thought I could indulge my self by eating "normal" between Christmas and New Year.
When New years day came, I couldn't stop my self...but I managed to gain 2-3 kilos and loose them again wich meant that my weight was constant. I didn't get fatter but not slimmer either.
When I came back to Tranås the weight was the same as when I left. The only thing who had happend was that I had started to get bad cramps in my stomach after eating.
That pain was probably the worst kind I ever felt in my whole life, and considdering the things I been through I got some comparisons, sort of speak.
The doctor told me after the surgey why this happend to me: - When you open the abdominal cavity for surgery it starts to grow connective tissues afterwards who can cause stops in the intestine. I asked if this could happen again and got the answer, yes, no and maybe. You never know if or when.
Nothing bad with some good to it - I lost another 5 kilos that week! I weight "only" 110 kg when I came home from the hospital.
The next day I went to rest on my be and suddenly I felt something wet on top of my stomach, the whole bandage was soak in some red-yellow fluid. I got really scared and rushed to the hospital (Me and my boyfriend lived togethter and had moved to Borås).
I had gotten a bad infection in the scar from the surgery and on of the surgery stamples had fallen out. The doctors was surprised over the infection because it is very rare to get an infection connected to stomach surgery, because there is so many bakterias in the stomach and as the doctor expressed it:
- You can spit in to the belly without anything bad will happen but if you opereate in a knee you have to be very careful and supersterilized.
The three following months I had do change bandages three times a day. Nurses came home to me and did it and in the end my boyfriend did. It had to heal from inside and out.
The ordinary life came back - yoyo-dieting to keep my weight in control and tried "everything" to loose weight. I even tried to stop eating and lived on water and Spirulinapills during five weeks. I didn't loose one kilo but 5 centimeters in my waist.
I begged my dear boyfriend not to buy candy and cookies but he just thought I had to learn how to control myself...well, that was something I was really good at...
I hided my foodaddiction, even for my boyfriend. When there was no cookies in the house, I sneakde out in the kitchen and ate the dinner left overs, especially the rice. Jasmine Rice tastes so good! My boyfriend is from Iran and the way they cook rice is so tasty, with lots of oil and ha hard crust in the bottom. My boyfriend was slim, even underweight and could eat anything without gaining weight. Many evenings in front of the teve, munching pistachios, persian candies and also swedish. I struggled hard to keep my weight, up a couple and down the same couple of kilos. I succeded to stay around 115 - 120 kilos.The relationship I lived in was filled with stormy fights and ended with a separation, wich in next step ended by bouth of us moving to Göteborg (Gothenburgh) to seperates apartments in seperat living areas but we continued to see each other from time to time. The feelings for each other was to strong to completly break up the relationship.
The 20 of february 1993 I became a resident of Gothenburgh, two days later I got pregnant.
That was the year I lost the control over myself completley.
That will be part four!
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