I met Natalie in the spring of 1997 while visiting London on a shopping trip with friends. I remember her as a slim, attractive, kind person with a good sense of humour and during the course of the weekend we became close friends.
During the shopping trip I was aware that she had problems on some occasions with arthritis in her legs and was not able to move as quickly as the others around the shops. Being sensitive to her condition I would often stay with her while the others rushed off up the main street to the clothes shops - we would eventually catch up. Natalie was 5'10" at that time, very slim and found some clothes difficult to obtain which usually meant visiting a number of shops. Also at that time I became aware that she had very particular eating habits, there were certain foods she was allergic to, certain foods she would not eat, and she was also vegetarian which meant a lot of street walking for all of us at mid day until we finally found a cafe selling suitable food for her. I remember her eating on several occasions a baked potato with lettuce but with no butter and no dressing and if the cafe provided any kind of unsuitable dressings the food would be sent back.
Natalie, although very particular about food for herself had a talent for cooking tasty healthy low calorie foods for her friends. She had become an expert at this, creating her own recipes which were all loved and enjoyed by friends and visitors, and were safe for her to eat. She often talked about creating these into a health food recipe book. Her choice of menu included, Lentil Dal, Sweet and Sour, Curry, Quiche, etc. also included were non-fat packet foods like pappads which were microwaved. At that time and on subsequent visits to London to see her and friends we all enjoyed a large healthy meal with a glass of wine which Natalie also enjoyed although she ate smaller portions of it than the rest of us. Natalie would always be found in the kitchen serving the needs of others. She loved and still does making sure that others are well fed.
Over the weeks we met several times and chatted by e-mail until we decided to get together and Natalie moved across the country to Devon to live with me. I discovered during this time that she was anorexic but I was not aware how severe it was and how much it had already affected her life. I had met others in the past who were anorexic but never really understood that it could be life threatening. I knew there were emotional issues as well as body image ideas behind the condition but in the coming months I was to learn much more.
Our first 9 months of being together were filled with many dreams and plans. I was at that time recovering from a failed relationship and welcomed Natalie into my life. We found our characters, interests and lifestyle to be well suited and led a fairly active life which included regular trips across the country to visit friends, cycling, exploring caves, rock climbing and abseiling as well as making DIY adaptations to our home. Natalie although slim at that time was still very physically strong because she had led a very active life in previous years and had also been a constant exerciser. This store of strength remained for many months and kept her physical body going during the relapse that was to come, maybe a strength that few anorexic sufferers will have. She also showed a very strong character, mainly due to having to cope with past traumas in her life, and I also found this a comforting.
When I met Natalie I was working as a design technician which was a very demanding job and with a lot of pressure. I had been doing this for many years but was weary and sometimes considered moving on, however, the job seemed to be secure and I was not confident enough to step out into a new career because I was worried I might not find another job and had low self esteem problems. When Natalie and I got together we lived on her savings from a career in medical engineering she had given up due to her health and with my income we were financially secure for a time.
During the early part of 1998 Natalie's anorexia began to manifest quite strongly. Her eating became more and more particular and she ate less. She had always weighed everything out very accurately in the kitchen not only for herself but also for others and this behaviour became more obvious. Over the weeks she began to show signs that her weight was falling rapidly and it became more and more obvious to myself and close friends that something was wrong. Natalie admitted that she was struggling with an anorexic relapse, possibly triggered by living for the first time in her life when she had no immediate problems, but that this "safe" time with me had allowed her past memories to surface instead of being shut away in the depths of her mind.
Over the next few months I began to get very worried about her health and with the support of several friends we supported and tried to encourage her to take nutritional supplements to make up for the lack of solid foods she was not taking. Natalie agreed and tried very hard to do this, however, as the weeks passed her anorexic mind got stronger.
She approached her doctor and explained what was happening and she was put in touch with members of the community team who occasionally visited to offer support and counselling. In the mean time we relied on our own efforts trying to support and understand as much as possible with our close friends at home. She also discovered an Eating Disorder group and became an active participant, gaining many friends and gaining additional support and respect as well as giving medical advice. Over the weeks the anorexia continued to manifest as starving, abuse of laxatives and many other things that severe anorexics cling to. She would constantly say she was fat and that she needed to lose weight. She would often go out on her own cycling 10 miles and doing exercise to burn off calories and would continue to starve deliberately. Both myself and our friends began to get very worried and distressed as we watched her pass from the Natalie we had known previously into a deep time of relapse.
The months of March to June 1998 were the worst of all. I remember spending every day at home after work with friends trying to understand what was happening to her, trying to use our own experiences of life to encourage her to take some better nutrition but there were many times when we felt like we were talking to a brick wall. Some times Natalie would say she wanted to lose another few stone in weight which was very distressing because she was already undernourished. On one occasion I was desperate for her to try something and asked her to not want to lose any more weight but she turned to me and said "just watch me".
More weeks passed during this time and depression set in deeply not only for Natalie but everyone concerned for her. Natalie's character began to become insensitive because of the starvation and she began to manifest other forms of self harm, taking overdoses and cutting. This in turn triggered my own depression and brought back to life various self harming coping methods that I had used myself as a teenager during times of trauma in my own life then. I began cutting and hating myself. I felt that I was failing as her partner and as a person to help her. Natalie also learned that her mother had died, (also from anorexia) and this added to the whole trauma and her starving continued apace despite the love and support of those around her.
During this time I was overcome with the continued everyday talking about anorexia and dying to the extent that I began to isolate from it and friends had to take over the role of trying to support her. Natalie saw the effect her illness was having on me and her friends and this made things worse and she self harmed as a result, pushing her deeper in to the relapse. On one occasion things got so bad that she cut badly and placed herself in the care of the local psychiatric hospital over night where she could be watched, however, this was a disaster because the team there did not take care of her very well. They gave her an adult dose of sedatives when a child's dose was needed for someone who was severely underweight. Not only this, they neglected to dress her cut wounds and did not even look at them to see how bad they were. Also they took Natalie's various medications for her various conditions and were not competent in administering the correct doses, or the correct pills at the times when she needed them. She was promised a consultation with a psychiatrist which did not take place after several indications that an immediate appointment would be arranged while there in observation. She was told she would have to stay there for a week to get the appointment.
After a final act of incompetence by the staff who brought Natalie a second quantity of her wrong pills and which would have been an overdose unless she had spotted it in time, we decided to agree with her for a discharge and get her home where she would be safer! At home, 24 hours later we dressed her unattended bloody wounds ourselves.
From this time her involvement with the mental health team and various specialist doctors became more diverse. Natalie realised that her life would not last for much longer if she carried on with the anorexic behaviour without specialist treatment and she would soon die. This was quite frightening for me and continued to undermine my own strength in the following weeks. Natalie was shuttled from one consultant to another, more appointments were made for the next month but nothing ever got done that was positive for treatment. In the meantime her body digestive functions failed to a critical level but the mental health team did not seem to take this seriously and pursued the mental aspects of the illness instead of dealing with the physical breakdown. Counselling helped to uncover and deal with some of the issues that had caused her anorexia but the treatment team were slow in offering any reputable in-hospital treatment in a specialist unit.
After more weeks of frustration, watching Natalie rapidly dying, self harming, and growing pressures at work I reached a point where I could no longer cope myself.I found that I had to "let go" in order to preserve myself from my own self destruction and depression, hope that Natalie would pull through and that something would change the situation we were in. It felt like we were two people drowning in a river and that I had done all I could to try to save Natalie but still had just enough strength to get out before I drowned too. My only hope was to get to shore and hope that Natalie would survive the rapids and I would be there to catch her in the calmer waters.
In July of 1998, finally we received a call from the Priory Hospital in Bristol who specialise in Eating Disorders and a place for her was finally funded by the local NHS team. Her admission to this hospital was immediate and was just in time. Natalie was told she was close to death when she went there and another week or two would have been critical. She was assigned to a wheelchair due to a weak heart and muscle loss. Her digestion was no longer functioning and an NG tube was fitted. Many drugs were prescribed at this time to save her life and would become part of her ongoing prescriptions.
While Natalie remained in the hospital throughout the summer of 1998 I made the 180 mile trip to visit her each week, sometimes twice. Also I discovered myself in a place in my life where I was grieving deeply for a partner who was close to death and I had struggled to support despite the anorexic voice which had constantly plagued me at times when I tried to offer help. I was on one hand very relieved that she was out of my way for a time so that I could get my own mind rested and establish what care I needed. Continued pressures of my employment at this time and the stress created a situation where I became almost suicidal and had a breakdown. It was thought best that I give up my job which I decided would be best despite worries of no money coming in. The summer was spent visiting Natalie, receiving some counselling via the medical team and also from remaining close friends. Sadly, some of our friends had themselves not been able to cope with the anorexia and had backed off in the weeks before Natalie went into hospital. During the summer I realised how much of our relationship had been lost because of the trauma we had all been through. My emotions were numb, I was in a delicate state unable to see a positive future or outcome. I was grieving for her as if she had died even though she was now still alive and stable although the future seemed uncertain.
In the early autumn Natalie was discharged from hospital. The treatment she was having there had reached a level state and could be continued hopefully by the local medical team in Devon. I was glad to have her home again although I was still very hurt and affected by the effects of the last 9 months. Natalie continued to live on a range of powerful drugs to sustain her body's digestion, also liquid feed was prescribed because she could no longer tolerate solid food. She remained weak and frail and we purchased a wheelchair for her while moving around outside. The local care team provided handrails throughout our home, also, various aids for disabled people such as tap handles, walking stick, air cushions, an inflatable mattress, also the sofa and bed were raised. Natalie's bones have also deteriorated and scans reveal she has the bones of a 90 year old woman now for which she is receiving a new experimental treatment. Her spine has shrunk and her back is hunched, she has lost 3 inches in height. Natalie also suffered brain damage and loss of short term memory which again was confirmed by scans. Damage to her eyes, kidneys and heart as well as other internal organs are also present. Her anorexia remained, however, during her time in the hospital she was able to come to terms with many of her past hurts and gained a renewed will to fight her illness.
During the end of 1998 and during 1999 Natalie's digestive system deteriorated even more due to the effects of ongoing damage to her body which would not have become so severe if hospital treatment had been funded sooner. Natalie's medical knowledge and investigation in to medical treatment of anorexia pointed to the time when she would need to be sustained on an NG tube permanently. Again the medical team were approached and she was shuttled between various consultants. I became very worried again that another repeat of delayed treatment would occur and I was not prepared to go through such a trauma again. With the help and support of a new anorexic friend we stormed every member of the medical team as much as we could to speed things up and finally our efforts were provided for. Natalie received her own NG tube and pump and began to adapt to life living at home with nutrition which would sustain her for the remaining months/years of her life. Then things took another turn for the worse - her tolerance of the feed deteriorated and again we had to be firm with the medical team in providing another alternative feed quickly as her health again began to slip.
1999 was a year in which Natalie's health continued to go downhill. The ongoing treatment by various medical teams both in the mental and physical departments has remained conflicting within themselves. In the mean time physical examinations continue to discover exactly what the most effective treatment and way forward might be to keep her alive. Amidst this it seemed to be the opinion of the mental team that she should be placed in the care of an ED hospital where she might live out the rest of her life and die. The firm opinion of Natalie, myself and other close friends was that her treatment could be competently carried out at home (as we have proved many times) in an environment where Natalie is able to function more freely, pursuing hobbies, looking after loved ones and where she can continue to offer her experiences and medical help to those who are suffering from eating disorders. Quality of life and happiness is the main thing that motivates Natalie to keep fighting and living for as long as possible.
Over the last year or so we have enjoyed a few more settled times and more stable routines. With the ongoing 24 hour essential home care that I provide as her carer, and final cooperation of a sympathetic doctor and palliative care of the Bristol Pain Clinic, we have both been able to live more enjoyable lives. We may have periods of a few weeks when dire emergencies do not occur, but when they do they can be very traumatic because what might be a minor medical problem for a normal person can easily become life threatening to Natalie who has a weak immune system. On another level sometimes when you have been so used to dealing with severe illness on a long term basis your mind can fool you into thinking that maybe everything is normal because your general day to day life operates outside of what most people take for granted.
This is not an easy situation and we both live every day with the constant stress of illness. Natalie will often be sick during the night, or will faint; sometimes she sleeps little at all and constantly needs pain killers as well as many other medications to keep her alive. My own health is not what it used to be and I have to try and pace myself allowing for my own physical needs and theraputic interests.
Natalie's story has reached the lives of hundreds of people all over the world and attracted a lot of media attention. Over the last few years we have been invited to take part on Television shows as well as radio and special media features. A number of journalists have won major awards for their coverage of our lives and in a way a greater understanding of anorexia has been realised by many.
Sometimes we meet people in the street or on the internet and they say to Natalie that they hope she will get well soon and make sure she has something nourishing to eat but with a failed digestive system it is not possible to just do this. Natalie has been anorexic all her life, her mother was too. Some modern medical research suggests that this might also be genetically inherited. Even if we could turn back time and heal the memories of an unhappy childhood she would still be left with a body that is damaged from what the illness has done.
I have learned a lot over the last few years and I have become stronger as a person although I have times when I feel very weak. In our spare time we relax and enjoy a variety of interests as shown on our web site. We now have five adorable cats which are family and although we do not often get out and about we have learned in some ways to deal with the ongoing illness for now and how to value what we have.
Being the partner or family member of someone with an eating disorder is not easy. No one in this life asks for pain and suffering but it is a fact of life that this does happen; illness in a way is part of being human although we all would wish to make it easier to deal with. Throughout the world all people suffer and react to their own suffering in some way. We may not understand it, we might get angry, we might try to take over and control the situation. We might feel guilty, a failure, we might even react by hurting ourselves. You might be reading this now and realise that you are being angry towards a partner, family member or friend as so many people have often said. Your anger might be the only way you have learned to cope and numb out the trauma of life just the same as anorexia is a way of numbing out and coping with the pain. I think that "coping" whether in a positive way or a negative way is a natural reaction that all humankind has. We see the results of drinking, smoking, drugs, violence in our world. We are not perfect, nobody is and nobody should be expected to be, but maybe if we can recognise that we need to cope and with a little understanding maybe we can turn our negative ways of coping in to positive ones... I am still learning and I often fail, but I do try. I think to try is important.
If you would like to take a peep at our life in more detail and see us enjoying our hobbies please visit the rest of our web site. You might like to begin with some humour to lighten the mood and make you smile... a smile will soon become a tearful laugh. I strongly recommend that you visit our Cat Photograph Gallery which is not to be missed!