by Shauna Reid
I felt like a secret agent leading a double life. At school I strove to be outgoing and likable and not give any hint of the madness at home. That was fairly easy to conceal, but there was nothing I could do to hide my body, so I tried to make up for it by being funny. I wasn’t one for self-deprecating fat jokes; I couldn’t understand why anyone should deliberately draw attention to their flaws. I aimed for general wit and wisecracks, hoping that people would remember me for my punch lines rather than my paunch.
I was an eager scholar too. My studies were an escape, and topping my classes made me feel there was something I could control. School was the only place I could get things right, and that gave me a way to make my parents happy. Of course, I took great pains to be modest about my achievements, not wanting to be seen as too clever. I was desperate to please my teachers but couldn’t risk alienating my peers.
I was amazed that I managed to accumulate so many friends when I got to high school. They’d invite me to their slumber parties, and each time I’d have to beg my parents to let me go. I’d run from the car when Mum dropped me off, so scared that she’d change her mind.
Once through the door, I was delirious with freedom. My friends laughed at the way I apologetically asked for a glass of water, for permission to sit on that chair, and would they mind terribly if I used the bathroom? But their lives were so foreign to me, so light and ordinary, with no need to sleep with your head jammed underneath the pillows.
I’d panic when the food came out, frightened and excited by the array of crisps and pizza and cake. My friends’ parents urged me to eat and remarked how strange it was that someone so young was so anxious about food. But I was already caught in the cycle of public dieting and secret eating. I was 126 pounds and five feet seven inches tall by the age of fourteen, which in hindsight was healthy, but my sprouting boobs and hips made me even more convinced I was hideous. Why couldn’t my friends see that? I was fat. My family were always telling me, so it had to be true.
There are small moments that stand out, seemingly offhand remarks that stuck under my skin and rotted away for years and years.
On a beach holiday when I was fourteen, my mother looked up from her book and said casually, “You know, you have a lovely figure; if you could just make it a little smaller.”
Another time I was heading off to a party in a new dress. I felt almost beautiful, especially having lost fifteen pounds doing Weight Watchers by Mail.
“What do you think?” I asked my parents.
“You’ll be prettier when you lose a bit more weight,” said my stepfather.
I just nodded in agreement.
I stockpiled those idle comments and criticisms in my mind, magnifying and multiplying and turning them into fact. I’d lie in bed and dig my fingernails into my stomach, wanting to tear off my flesh.
It wasn’t until I was fifteen that my body really began to match my fat thoughts. Mum insisted I get an after-school job to help with my “confidence issues.” Somehow, standing behind the counter at KFC with a spotty face and a hot pink visor didn’t seem to boost my self-esteem, it just felt as if I was displaying my loathsome body to a wider audience.
I still curse myself for not finding a job at the supermarket or drugstore. At least then I’d have been stuck behind a till and out of harm’s way. But KFC was like waving a deep-fried red flag in front of a bull.
Fast food was a rare treat in our household. We had it maybe once or twice a year on holidays, if Mum hadn’t already packed sensible sandwiches on brown bread. But now I had endless access to the Colonel’s fine and oily wares. It started with a stray chip here and a Pepsi there, but soon I was eating a full meal during my breaks and then eating dinner when I got home.
They’d give us huge bags of leftovers too. I’d sit on the veranda after a shift, telling Mum I was going to give the dog a chicken nugget, but it was one for the dog and two for me. Or sometimes all for me, while the poor hound sniffed at my greasy shoes. Even as my trousers grew tight I felt brazen and defiant.
My minimum wage finally gave me the means to indulge in all those forbidden foods. By then I’d outgrown the bottom of my wardrobe, so I’d eat my chocolate bars under the covers in the middle of the night, my hands shaking with anticipation and fear. I’d smuggle the wrappers to school the next day, but sometimes I’d forget and stuff them under my mattress. Every now and then Mum would raid my room and lay her findings on the bed like bags of cocaine. She’d stare at me with grim disappointment as I pathetically proclaimed my innocence. All that was missing were sirens and a slobbering sniffer dog on a leash.
By my final year of high school things had completely deteriorated between my mother and stepfather. I studied obsessively, determined to ace my exams. My favorite subject was Modern History, especially the Russian Revolutions. A revolt was conflict I could understand. It had clear origins, crazy characters, and confrontation. Nothing made sense at home, but I could shape Russia into neat little essays with logical arguments and a definite ending.
So I holed up in my room, forcing information into my brain and chocolate bars into my mouth. I wanted spectacular results to make my parents and teachers proud, and to prove to myself that I could do something right. Most of all I wanted to earn my escape to university.
Two nights before my trial exams they had the worst argument I could remember. They were outside on the veranda, right beneath my window. I was reading about Stalin and the words swam on the page.
Around midnight Mum came into my room to find me still buried in the books. “Are you all right?”
I burst into tears. “I can’t do this, Mum.”
“I know, darling.”
“I’m trying to block it out but it’s hard.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She was crying too. “I’ll think of something.”
We sat in silence for twenty minutes before she finally said, “I’ll take you to Angela’s house.” Angela was one of her closest friends. “You can stay there until your exams are done.”
“You promise?”
“Yes. Pack up your things and I’ll take you into town in the morning.” She squeezed my hand and I wanted to believe her.
I threw all my textbooks and folders and notes into a laundry basket. I packed my school uniforms, hiding a few chocolate bars inside my socks. I could barely sleep, giddy at the prospect of getting away even for a few days.
The next morning the house was strangely quiet. Mum was drinking tea at the kitchen table.
“What time are we going to Angela’s?” I whispered.
“We’re not.”
“Mum, you promised.”
“Look, you don’t have to worry, everything’s fine now. Just forget about it, please.”
I shook my head and stormed back to my room. I would have slammed the door shut but we weren’t allowed to shut our doors. I left the smallest chink of space open so technically I wasn’t breaking the rule. I kicked over the laundry basket packed with my stuff and felt disgusted with myself for getting my hopes up. I wanted to scream, but I remembered there was carrot cake hidden in my desk drawer, a whole family-size carrot cake with cream cheese icing that I’d bought from the in-store bakery at Woolworth’s. I ripped open the plastic box and scooped out a handful, icing and all. I kept scooping and scooping until it was all gone and I was too sick to feel anything.
Something inside me shut down. I drifted through my days feeling numb and detached, as if my body was made out of lead. I’d stare into the distance in my classes, unable to focus, often forgetting where I was. I couldn’t sleep and would binge in a trance. But still I pushed on with my studying, anxious not to disappoint.
When my final exams started, my head felt like it was packed with cotton wool. I sat down in my Modern History exam, looked at my paper, and none of the questions made sense. I’d been up studying until 3:00 A.M. I stared at the blank page and cried silently for two hours until it was over.
Somehow I still scored well in my other subjects a
nd got into my course. Eventually the fog lifted, perhaps because I knew I was moving away. I chalked up that strange period to exam stress.
By then I’d been working at KFC for three years, and my uniform had gone up a size each year. Mercifully, I went off to university just as the side seams split on my size 16 pair of the Colonel’s black trousers and I’d reached the last notch on the drive-through belt.
In 1996, I started my journalism degree weighing in at 224 pounds.
I’d always known I loved to write more than anything in the world, so a journalism degree seemed to be a way to write and possibly get a job at the end of it. The only problem was, I turned out to be the world’s most rubbish journalist. I could write, but I lacked the requisite passion for news. I hated interviews. I hated waddling into courtrooms or hassling people for quotes. I had an irrational fear of telephones, as though people could sense my fat over the line. My fellow students were brash, confident, and opinionated, but I just wanted to be invisible. I could barely fit through doors, let alone kick them down in pursuit of a good story.
So I had exactly zero of the qualities required to be a good journalist, but there was no way I could call up my mother and tell her I’d made a terrible mistake. I already felt guilty for all the money she’d spent getting me to university, and guilty for getting away from the farm when she and Rhiannon were still there.
I muddled my way through my degree and spent the three years with a sense of impending doom. The ambitious writer in me longed to write for the campus newspaper or try out for the student radio station, but the Fat Girl was more convincing: Who’d want to listen to a blob like you?
Instead I concentrated my efforts on accumulating a shocking amount of weight. My university was in Bathurst, a big town an hour away from home, so I embraced my newfound freedom and the wider selection of fast food outlets. I made a halfhearted attempt to diet for the first month, but then one night at the supermarket I wandered down the frozen aisle and picked up a tub of ice cream. I can buy this, I thought. I can take it home and eat it all.
I’d never eaten ice cream straight from the tub before. There was no one to tell me to slow down or that I’d already had quite enough. Gleefully, I shoved it into my mouth, loving how it made everything feel cool and calm inside my chest.
Soon I was revisiting every forbidden food from my childhood, in ever-increasing portions. I’d drive the three blocks to the supermarket and pace the aisles, delirious with the possibilities. I’d buy family-size bars of chocolate and demolish them in one sitting. I’d spend an evening toasting my way through a whole loaf of white bread. And then Ferrero brought out their Simpsons collectable Nutella glasses. I fully intended to stop at Homer—after all, how many glasses does a student need? But within two months he was joined by Bart, Krusty, Maggie, and Lisa. I told everyone I scraped the Nutella into the bin, but I’d scoffed it all, straight from the jars, until my throat hurt.
On my first day of classes, I met Peita and Belinda, who became my closest friends throughout my degree. We’d drive laps of the Mount Panorama racing circuit, swap mix tapes, make sarcastic comments during Days of Our Lives, and just laugh at the world. When we were together I could block out all my loathing and guilt and doubts about the future.
But I tried to confine our friendship to daylight hours. I was terrified of the ubiquitous university activities like bar nights and pub crawls. My body was not designed for dancing, flirting, and snogging random strangers. I took up too much space on a dance floor. I hated just going to the bathroom, awkward in my elasticized jeans while everyone else clustered around the mirrors in skimpy outfits. So I’d hide in smoky corners, feigning merriment and trying to make my drink last for three hours so I wouldn’t have to get in everyone’s way in the queue for the bar.
Food became my preferred companion. I kept a handy stock of excuses to avoid socializing, like urgent shifts at my part-time job or babysitting emergencies, and as soon as I was alone, I’d eat. I’d do the rounds of the drive-throughs and take-away shops, picking up fries here, a burger there, a dessert from the other side of town. I was careful to spread my purchases around so I wouldn’t be identified as a “regular” anywhere. Sometimes I’d pull into a dark street and gorge in the car, trying to ignore how my stomach was closing in on the steering wheel. Or I’d come back home and keep my eyes glued to the television to distract myself from how much I was shoving away. I ate swiftly and urgently. Taste was less important than the texture—the fries jabbing the roof of my mouth, the salt stinging my lips, the grease filling up my insides. It was intimate, soothing, and exhilarating all at once. It was an event.
But soon enough the trance would break and I’d register the oily wrappers and the crumbs clinging to my belly rolls. And then came the shame and disgust.
Once again I didn’t choose my part-time jobs wisely. First there was the coffee shop, with endless cakes and cookies and siphons of whipped cream that I longed to squirt directly down my throat. Then I saw a vacancy at the local fish and chip shop. Of course, they gave me the job; I was a veteran of the deep-fat fryer. It was only two blocks from my house but I drove to every shift. My boss was generous with the freebies too, and on a student budget, I pounced on all the hamburgers and chips and oily potato cakes, even though my trousers screamed at me to stop.
By the time I finished my degree at the end of 1998, I weighed 294 pounds and was a size 20. For a while I convinced myself that I was just tall and curvaceous, but I’d lost all definition. My waist, hips, and boobs blurred into one gelatinous heap of flesh.
Six months after graduation I was still in Bathurst and living alone. Peita and Belinda were now bona fide journalists, but all I had was my lucrative fish and chip gig. I felt the fog closing in again. I’d spent the past three years burying my fears in food, becoming increasingly isolated and withdrawn. But now that my friends had left, there was no need to keep up the pretense. I was so ashamed of my size that I was afraid to go out in public, so I’d stay home and binge or sleep, only venturing out to work, the supermarket, or the drive-through.
By then Mum had finally left the farm and was taking a strong interest in my job search. She was also reading a lot of self-help books, so she’d post me job advertisements with encouraging annotations: “This sounds like you!” and “Go for it, girl! Best of luck!”
But I felt smothered by the weight of her expectations. I’d done internships at newspapers and glossy magazines, squeezing into my size 20 Kmart suit and nauseous with panic. I knew I didn’t belong in that world. But what else would I do? I couldn’t waste all the time and money she’d spent on my education.
I’d divide the advertisements into two piles: Apply for These and If Mum Asks, Pretend I’ve Applied for These. But I was forever forgetting which ones were which. She’d drop in to visit and ask how the Search was going, and my brain felt tangled up with all the lies. I was exhausted from just trying to create the appearance of normality. I’d hide the dirty dishes inside the oven and pile all my unwashed, ill-fitting clothes into my car.
One time I got an interview in Sydney and had to ask Mum for money to buy a new suit because I’d outgrown the one she’d bought me just three months before. It wasn’t until they asked to see my writing portfolio that I realized I couldn’t remember the name of the magazine I was interviewing for. And I’d left my press clips on the bookshelf back in Bathurst. Afterward, I ate three Crunchie bars in quick succession, sobbing at the bus stop and showering my new suit with honeycomb.
I was overwhelmed by disgust and disappointment but my mind felt too soggy to stop it. I shut down completely, not answering the phone and closing the blinds so it looked like I wasn’t at home. I spent my days sitting on the kitchen floor crying, or staring in the mirror and fighting the urge to smash the glass.
One night I was at the supermarket, looking for instant mashed potato and canned peas, because by then I couldn’t even muster the energy to chew. I wandered the aisles for an hour, blinded by tears and
panic because I’d forgotten what I’d come for. And then I looked down and realized I was wearing my pajamas.
Finally it was Mum who reached out, in her own indirect way. In her latest bundle of job adverts she slipped in a photocopied magazine article titled, “Are You Depressed?”
I sobbed as I read it, sitting on the kitchen floor in a shirt still crusty with last week’s fish batter. She called me that evening and said, “Shauna, are you OK?” and finally I broke down.
The doctor peered at me over the top of her glasses, and I wondered if she could see right through me. Mum insisted I seek medical attention, but I worried that no matter what I said the diagnosis would simply be, “Fat!”
“Have you ever experienced feelings of hopelessness?”
“Yes.”
“Constant fatigue?”
“Yes.”
“Loss of appetite?”
“Ha!”
“Suicidal thoughts?”
“Never.” I started to laugh.
The doctor looked up from her checklist and frowned. I decided not to explain that while trapped in the depths of despair I could never kill myself, because I couldn’t bear the thought of a mortician looking at my naked, obese corpse.
She agreed with Mum that I was clinically depressed. I should have been relieved to have a name for years of shitty feelings, but it seemed like a fancy excuse for my complete inability to get my act together.
But the antidepressants restored me to a fuzzy level of functionality. Soon I was getting out of bed before 2:00 P.M., and I even opened the blinds. I saw a counselor who probed away at childhood memories, but I was reluctant to talk. And somehow I managed to get through two months of sessions without once mentioning my weight.
Things started to come together. I finally admitted to Mum that journalism wasn’t for me, and in mid-1999, I moved to Canberra to begin a six-month diploma in digital publishing. I wasn’t put off by the capital city’s dull reputation; to me all the government buildings and clean roads felt controlled and orderly, like I desperately wanted to be. The course was a safe option too—it indulged my creative side but I was safely hidden behind a computer screen.
