LOUISE O'NEILL: When I was hospitalised for anorexia, I was obsessed with the idea that other patients were ‘better’ at starving themselves
It's a funny thing, being the younger of two daughters. I often wonder how much of my personality is innate or how much of it I constructed in direct contrast with my older sister.
You are this thing, then I will be this. You are shy, so I must be outgoing. I loved my sister but I also watched her carefully, measuring the amount of love and attention she received from my parents against my own lot, complaining bitterly if I felt the shares were uneven.
“Louise,” my father said to me in exasperation. “You will never be happy if you are constantly comparing yourself to Michelle.”
I ignored him, like I did with much of my father’s sage advice. I was competitive by nature anyway, but as a teenager, it became increasingly easier to find markers with which to judge myself against others. I attended an all-girls school; thinness was currency.
We all wore the same uniform, the same short skirts, and from the ages of 14 to 18, the first thing I would do when I saw anyone in school, literally anyone who passed me in the corridor or the classroom or in the study hall, was to glance at their thighs and silently estimate whether they were thinner than my own. If I was thinner, I would feel a sickening blend of relief and superiority.
I am strong, I am more disciplined than her. I am better. But within minutes, I would walk past someone who was slimmer and I would be instantly thrown into a mire of self-hatred and self flagellation, you shouldn’t have eaten that sandwich at lunch, you’re disgusting, you’re pathetic, you’re weak.
It’s upsetting now, as an adult, to look back and think about the time and energy I wasted on this. Time I could have spent acting or writing or studying or simply having fun with friends.
Four years of wearing black tights to school every day, even when it was the summer and everyone else was in knee-high socks because it was too warm for anything else, all because I thought my legs looked thinner in tights.
When I was hospitalised for anorexia, I was obsessed with the idea that some of the other patients were ‘better’ at starving themselves than I was, and therefore more deserving of their place on the programme.
We would sit together at meal times, the ‘Eating Disorder’ table tucked away in the corner of the canteen, and I would gauge how much the others ate, how quickly they ate, and adjust my own behaviour accordingly.
As a child, I’d always had a big personality. I was unapologetically loud and opinionated and stubborn, and I didn’t care if other people liked me or not.
However, once I started secondary school, popularity, or even just acceptance, seemed as vital to my survival as breathing. I wanted to fit in so badly that I started to shrink, smaller and smaller, doing whatever I needed to do to fit into the box other people deemed appropriate for me.
I didn’t know what was the ‘right’ way to be or to act, so I decided to scrutinise those around me. Like an alien, studying the humans to figure out how best to emulate them.
I wanted to line us all up in a mirror, so I could see what I looked like in comparison to everyone else. Only by this kind of assessment, could I make sense of myself.
It’s different now. I’m different now. I have learned to focus on myself, to listen to my own needs, to follow my instincts. I know the importance of creating a life that feels right to me, no matter what it looks like from the outside.
Being in recovery helped me to do that, as did extensive therapy, but most of all it came from deciding that I would live my life on my own terms. However I do find it interesting that as an adult I have chosen a profession which facilitates such effortless comparison with my peers.
Book sales, chart positions, advances, movie deals. Why did you get that and why didn’t I get it too? Social media doesn’t help, no matter what profession you’re in. It seems to have been especially designed to ensure we compare our insides to everyone else’s outsides, judge our bloopers by their highlights reel. I find it exhausting whenever I go onto Twitter or Instagram.
After scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, I switch off my phone with a queasy sense of dread, an uneasiness borne out of a feeling that I’m not doing enough, I’m not achieving enough, that I could be better, prettier, more proficient at making photogenic avocado-on-toast.
Then I remember what my therapist always tells me — “to compare is to despair”. Jealousy can be a useful emotion, if you use it as a signpost to direct you to whatever it is in life that you desire, and you work tirelessly towards achieving that goal.
But despair is paralysing, oppressive. You will never have the life you dream of if you’re stuck in despair. So, what is the antidote?
I think it is believing that there is more than enough for all of us. That when a friend achieves something wonderful, they are not ‘taking’ it from you. Believing that a rising tide lifts all boats and being happy for the success of others.
And most importantly, choosing to believe that you are enough, just as you are right now. Because you are.
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