Katie Metcalfe takes readers through the daily struggle with this potentially lethal obsession. It is a harrowing account of her triumphs and tragedies on the long road to recovery after being hospitalized at 15. We learn of Katie's constant battle with 'the voice' when her pride at improving her health is overshadowed by the fear of over eating. It is a story of a young girl at war with herself and anyone who fights to keep her alive. However, Katie Metcalfe's book is more than a personal journey - it is the story of the impact of her illness on her family. With remarkable candour Katie's parents and siblings tell of the shocking impact on close relatives - when anorexia creates a stranger in the family. Katie's honesty combined with her talent for writing, gives a real sense of the horror of anorexia and its power to dominate lives. It is a true account of a family's hard won victory over a disease that kills.
My appearance and weight had never really been a big issue or concern to me before I turned fourteen. I mean, I did notice that I was bigger in the thigh and stomach region than most of my friends at school (or so I thought). I also noticed that I couldn’t run as fast as my friends or be as good as them at sport. I didn’t feel as attractive to the boys in the class as they were, not to mention boys out of school. I felt like the ‘tag on’, the girl who ‘wasn’t quite right’. I wasn’t pretty enough and didn’t have quite the right figure. I tried hard not to let it get to me, but sometimes it was hard, especially as I got older and the pressures to look good and to be popular increased. I couldn’t jump the high hurdles in gym class or do perfect handstands, shoot a pot shot in basketball without it being a fluke, or run for more that half a mile without stopping for breath. I would get sniggered at because everybody else could do everything so easily. My girlfriends would talk and brag about how little they weighed and what size trousers and tops they wore, patting their tummies and saying, “Look at this fat, isn’t it horrible? No wonder I weigh so much.” I wouldn’t dare say how heavy I was; I wanted to avoid being humiliated. I think the time I decided to do something about my weight, appearance and popularity was just after I turned fourteen, and was at a difficult time in my life anyway. The teacher I had had from the age of seven was leaving the school to go and live and teach in Germany, and all my school friends were leaving to go to other schools, a lot of them at boarding schools all over the country. I wouldn’t be able to see them often. There was still another year left at school, and I was determined to see it through. I didn’t want to change schools although I knew it wouldn't be easy. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get on with the three boys that I would spend the year with. I decided there was nothing I could do, other than to make the best of a bad situation. At least I’d got what I wanted, to finish my education at Botton School, even if it meant being the only girl in a class of four. Throughout our year, for one reason or another, we had five different teachers, which didn’t help the situation or our education. My classmates thought that it was their duty and God given right to annoy and upset me. They constantly gave me a hard, often unbearable time. They would ransack and tip over my desk, hit me for no reason, and call me obscene names such as ‘whore’, ‘slag’, ‘fat cow’ and others that I won’t repeat as I cringe to think of them. They tried to make my life at school. A living hell every single day and I used to wake up in the morning and dread getting up to face another day with them. My parents said I should leave school and take up my education elsewhere, but I didn’t want to and felt that if I did the boys would have won. I also believe the thought of starting at another school scared me more than being with the boys. I figured that if there were three boys who could make me feel terrible inside as a person, how many would there be at a school of hundreds, possibly even thousands, who would be the same and possibly worse?
