Paralympian Jessica Smith:
Paralympian Jessica Smith has struggled with depression, an eating disorder, third-degree burns and a physical disability but, she tells Samantha Trenoweth, she has learned to love her body and her life.
how she made peace with her body after an anorexia battle
Jessica Smith is a dynamo. “I’m currently in early labour and have just opened my emails as a distraction,” the Paralympic swimmer and author responded when The Weekly approached her for an interview. “Why don’t I touch base with you next week?” Answering emails while in labour and making appointments for the first week home with a newborn – who does that? Someone who’s overcome greater obstacles than sleep deprivation and contractions.
Jessica was born, 32 years ago, without a left forearm or hand. At 18-months-old, still unused to a new prosthetic limb, she reached across the kitchen counter and knocked over a kettle of boiling water. She suffered third-degree burns to 15 per cent of her body and spent two and a half years in and out of hospital. She was left with serious scarring. Yet in spite of (or perhaps because of) that rocky start to life and a decade-long struggle with eating disorders, Jessica has emerged a strong woman, comfortable in her own skin and eager to share her insight and experience with others.
Today, Jessica is warm, open and confident, but as a child she was acutely aware of and troubled by the fact she looked different. “I coped fairly well when I was younger,” she remembers. “I had three brothers and we were always very active and outdoorsy, we were climbing trees and playing footy. There were never allowances made for me. No one said, ‘Jess may not be able to do this,’ and I’m grateful for that. But I knew I was different and that hindered my self-esteem and confidence.”
Her family moved from Sydney to Grafton when Jessica was eight. Growing up in a small country town, she says, “there weren’t any other kids with a disability, so I always felt a little bit different, a little bit rejected.”
That same year, Jessica began swimming lessons and swimming was a revelation. In her first school carnival, at age 10, Jessica swam the 50-metres freestyle and “beat all the kids with two arms. It was a surprise to me and everybody else. I saw people go, ‘Wow, she’s fast,’ or ‘she’s good at this,’ and I thought, ‘yeah, I am, actually’. I felt I was finally being recognised for something positive about my body. I remember jumping out of the pool and saying to Mum and Dad, ‘This is what I want to do forever. I want to swim.’”
Jessica went on to state and regional competitions and then her parents found there was a competition for athletes with disabilities. So the family travelled far and wide on weekends, as Jess collected shiny blue ribbons.
“It all happened very quickly,” she recalls. “By the time I was 13, I had been selected onto the Australian swimming squad. From 13 through to 21, I represented Australia and travelled overseas every year. It was an amazing experience. When I was away, travelling with the swim team, I felt accepted, I didn’t feel different and I could express a lot of positive energy. But when I came back, I felt deflated and miserable and began to struggle with body image issues. I didn’t know how to balance my thoughts and feelings, and that’s when the depression started to emerge, and a real hate for my body.”
Those body issues were magnified by teenage insecurities. “I’d look in the mirror and see everything about
my body that I hated,” Jessica explains. “The thoughts that I was having became dark and depressive. I remember someone telling me a guy at school said I’d be okay looking if I had two arms. I just wished the world would swallow me up. Everyone seemed so fixated with beauty.
“I knew there was nothing I could do about having one arm and having these scars, and that’s when I started thinking, ‘Okay, what can I control? What can I change about my body?’ I thought if I could lose weight and have the perfect body in every other way, maybe I’d be happy. Of course that’s never the answer but that’s how my eating disorder began.”
Jessica started dieting and skipping meals. Then she tried to make herself sick. “I couldn’t and thought I was a failure at that too. So I became obsessed with it and after a week I finally did it. I felt exhilarated. Then I tried it after the next meal and the next, telling myself I could stop any time, until eventually I’d made myself sick every day for a decade.”
For a while Jessica’s eating disorder went unnoticed. She convinced family and friends that her strict diet and exercise regimes were necessary aspects of an elite athlete’s life. Eventually, however, Jess’s eating disorder destroyed the things she valued most, including her swimming.
“It started to take control of my life,” she admits. “It destroyed relationships, friendships. I became estranged from my family because they didn’t know how to support me. There were so many lies and so much shame and guilt, but I couldn’t stop. I kept promising myself if I won the next race or made the next Australian team I’d stop, because I’d have proven myself, but nothing made me stop. I remember being in the bathroom with my head down the toilet, tears streaming down my face, trying to think of ways to stop.”
Jessica reduced her food intake, and then “elements of anorexia crept in”. She was selected for the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games swim team, but the pressure exacerbated her eating disorder. By the time she arrived at the games, her hair was falling out, her teeth were breaking and, she says, “I couldn’t hold a conversation because I couldn’t stay focused long enough. I didn’t have the nutrients and electrolytes to get through the day.”
Jessica was the only person on the team who didn’t make a final. “When I talk about this,” she says, “I think everyone expects some Hollywood ending where it was all okay and
I went on to win gold, but I didn’t. I don’t have that fairytale ending.
I was supposed to swim in three events but I didn’t swim fast enough. I felt I’d let everybody down. I felt embarrassed and ashamed and I knew I had to get help. I came back to Australia and was admitted to rehab.”
Looking back now, Jessica wonders whether she would have survived without rehab. “I could have died either from the heart complications of bulimia or by ending my life.” Instead, she turned her life around. “I realised I was addicted to food,” she explains. “I was addicted to starving myself, losing weight and this obsession with my body and how I looked.” She also realised her addiction was out of control. “You convince yourself you’re in control,” she says, “but you’re not.”
Finally, she understood her eating disorder was a way of coping with distressing thoughts and feelings. “So I learnt to sit with those feelings and let them pass. It sounds simple but for people who have been consumed by eating disorders or any mental illness, it’s really difficult to sit still and feel those emotions – negative and positive – to experience the moment. That’s the most important thing I learnt in rehab.”
After rehab, Jessica completed a degree in public health, worked in the not-for-profit sector and began making a name as a positive body image advocate. She was awarded a Pride of Australia Medal and was a state finalist for Young Australian of the Year. She also wrote a children’s book, Little Miss Jessica Goes To School, about difference. Then she met
Hamid, an Iranian-born Scotsman, who seemed to be blind to difference.
“He didn’t notice my disability at first,” Jessica explains. “On our first date I told him about being a swimmer. He asked what level I’d got to and I said I was a Paralympian. He froze and asked, ‘What’s Paralympian about you?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve got one arm.’ He was shocked and I thought, ‘I’m never going to see this guy again,’ but we’ve been together ever since.”
Perhaps Jessica was also blind to difference because she didn’t think about the fact she was Catholic and Hamid a Muslim until he got down on bended knee four years ago and proposed. Jessica learnt her father had converted to Catholicism for her mother, and her grandmother for her grandfather. She understood it would mean the world to Hamid’s parents if she converted to Islam and she’d have her own parents’ blessing. She says her conversion has been “a supportive, loving experience”. She’s chosen not to
wear a headscarf or veil but “being somebody who has felt like a minority my entire life has made being part of this community easier.”
When Jessica sent us that first email last year, she was in labour with her son, Reza, who is now three months old. Her daughter, Ayla, is almost two and a half. Motherhood has changed her understanding of self yet again.
“I’ve had to learn to trust my body and experience my body as it changes, appreciating I have no control over those processes,” she explains. “Now I’m able to respect and appreciate my body. That doesn’t mean I don’t have days when I feel uncomfortable but I’ve got to the point where I accept my body as it is.”
The challenge now is to encourage a similar acceptance in Reza and Ayla.
“We want our daughter and son to grow up feeling confident and comfortable with who they are.
I know I don’t have all the answers and that’s terrifying as a parent, but I know that a lot of the responsibility is on me and a lot of it will come down to the dialogue and the language I use at home.”
Her message to Ayla and Reza is not that different from the one she spreads through her website, book and talks in schools. “My hope,” she says, “is that we can move away from a focus on beauty and aesthetics and start having conversations about diversity at a younger age. Difference is something we should be celebrating.”
We want our daughter and son to grow up feeling comfortable with who they are.
If you or someone you know needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.