How divorce is triggering eating disorders in middle aged women
It’s an illness usually suffered by young girls. But Kim’s story reveals
At first glance the emails looked harmless enough — but it wasn’t an innocent online chat that i’d stumbled upon as i helped my four-year-old search for the CBeebies website on the family computer.
these were love letters from my husband to his mistress. He moved out soon afterwards and i was left to pick up the pieces of my shattered life.
And there was an added consequence of his betrayal; it kickstarted an eating disorder that took me six years to recover from. At my thinnest i could fit into my youngest daughter’s trousers. Worse, i didn’t see anything shocking about that.
these days, mothers are very watchful of their teenagers when it comes to food. My girls are now aged 15 and 17 and, even if i hadn’t been through anorexia myself, i’d be alert to signs of an eating disorder.
i was 30 when i got ill and it was my first experience of anorexia and bulimia. in fact, research by University College London last year suggests food issues may be more prevalent among middle-aged women than younger generations. they estimate three per cent of women in their 40s and 50s have had a problem with eating within the past year. for those aged 15-30 the rate is about one per cent.
the UCL research looked at upbringing to explain later-life eating disorders. But from my experience, and talking to women in recovery as part of my job as a complementary therapist, although childhood experiences contribute to eating disorders, it’s major life changes like divorce that can be the trigger.
When you no longer recognise your life after a bitter break-up, it can feel as if the only aspect you can control is what you eat.
this is something sarah identifies with. she was 46 when her partner of 18 years walked out on her and their 14-year-old daughter without any warning, leaving her feeling broken, depressed and anxious.
SArAH,50, a contract manager from surrey, says: ‘ Like many longterm relationships, ours had turned into more of a friendship, but i thought we were a team who would get through any difficult patches together.
‘He didn’t feel the same. in fact, he told me he was leaving by text. All of a sudden it seemed i wasn’t the one making the decisions about my life. i was trying to work full-time, pay the mortgage and look after our daughter. it was all too much.
‘i started making myself sick after eating. While i’d always been a person who watched my weight, this was the first time i’d ever done anything like this. i was in my mid-40s when i developed bulimia.’
it’s the same for Claire, 45, who developed anorexia after her 11year marriage to the father of her two boys ended two years ago. While it had been her decision to finish a dysfunctional relationship, afterwards she still felt she had lost her identity.
stress caused Claire to lose her appetite — and while she initially enjoyed the compliments she attracted because of the weight loss, restricting what she ate soon became a dangerous habit.
Like Claire, the stress of my marriage imploding meant my appetite melted away. i didn’t feel hungry so lived on little more than a sandwich, an apple and a banana a day, assuming my appetite would return later. My weight dropped to 6st 10lb. i am only 4ft 11in tall, so to begin with i simply looked slim. And people complimented me on how great i was looking, which encouraged me to keep going.
But this meant whenever my eating patterns looked like they were returning to normal, and i might get back to my original weight, i’d go on my crash diet again to lose the extra pounds.
i also started a new relationship within a few months of my breakup. Looking back, it was too soon. i’d had no chance to come to terms with my divorce.
i was devastated my exhusband had not only left me, but also moved so far away. An engineer in the oil business, his new life was based in scotland. He still saw the girls, but couldn’t be a part of their lives in the way he had before.
it felt as if he had rejected everything we’d created together. i felt i was not in control of decisions that affected my life.
Over the next year my battle with food escalated. i’d take the girls to school, go to work for a property investment company and then realise at the end of the day i hadn’t eaten anything.
the misconception that eating disorders mainly affect young women means it can be harder for medical professionals to spot what’s going on, and easy to tell yourself there’s no problem.
i was in denial. i have a marketing degree and accounting qualifications — but you can be well- educated and still not see what’s in front of your eyes.
i persuaded myself i was too busy to eat. But after a while, i realised it wasn’t that i didn’t want to eat but that i couldn’t. i was terrified if i ate just one more calorie a day, i would put all the weight back on.
i cooked lovely meals for my kids but never ate them myself. social situations always involved a meal or a piece of cake. i’d just sit and not eat anything, imagining everyone’s eyes were on me.
i was exhausted and freezing all the time. i remember one halfterm when my girls were staying at their dad’s — a year after we broke up — and were due back the following day. i sat by a radiator in five layers of clothing with my coat on and a duvet wrapped around me. i thought how pathetic i must look.
Logically i knew i needed to eat to live and that i needed to get better, but i had a devil on my shoulder telling me if i got help, they’d make me eat and i’d get fat. this conflict developed into bouts of bingeing, followed by making myself sick.
But because you have to make yourself sick it’s harder to deny bulimia than anorexia, and eventually my sensible side won out.
My GP referred me to a counsellor and i worked hard to change my patterns of behaviour, throwing out my bathroom scales and keeping busy to distract myself from thinking about food and weight.
My new relationship improved and, thinking i’d found true love, Chris and i got engaged. i threw myself into wedding planning. But i became too busy to think about eating. When i lost weight again i convinced myself i wasn’t hungry, but really i didn’t want to put weight back on.
THepattern continued after the wedding. When i returned to the doctor’s i was told because i’d managed to overcome my problems in the past, i wouldn’t be referred to a specialist again.
i got the impression that because my weight was not then dangerously low — i never looked skeletal — they didn’t see a problem, but they had no idea that the voices in my head telling me not to eat were driving me insane. Older women with eating disorders often say they feel dismissed by medical professionals.
As sarah says: ‘One nurse said to me “Can’t you just stop making yourself sick?” i was made to feel because i was a grown woman i should be able to sort my bulimia out myself. No matter what age you are, eating disorders aren’t something you