THE SECRET LIVES OF WOMEN

In a new ELLE series, four anonymous writers share the parts of themselves they’ve kept hidden – until now

TWO HANDS REACHING AROUND MY WAIST snap my vision back into focus. I’m in east London, my hands splayed on a dirty wall behind a station, spine flexed. Less than 1O minutes ago the man now clumsily grasping at my underwear in an alleyway was a stranger. He was a bit annoying, actually – insisting on talking to me, pacing alongside me as I stomped to the Overground, ignoring that my eyeline remained fixed straight ahead, my responses monosyllabic. In the end, when he asked for my number I just said, ‘Want to f*ck instead?’ And so we did.

A week earlier, in the dark basement of a central London bar, I hooked my fingers in the loop of a stranger’s jeans as she straddled me, tugging at her vest-top with the other hand and rolling my tongue over her brown, pierced nipple. Days before that, it was the performative banker I met as the pub closed, whose dank sheets smelled of leftover sex. At some point, that week, I can’t remember when exactly, there was also the waiter-slash-jewellery designer who apologised the whole time.

There were many other weeks like this – usually after another break-up that left me feeling outside of myself – when I found myself tumbling in and out of bed with people I’d met at parties and in dimly lit bars. Most were unremarkable, making me angrier and sadder than I already was. I didn’t know it at the time, but these periods of casual sex coincided with a severe depression that had railroaded me. It felt like claustrophobia, mixed with a peculiar homesickness. Like I’d been displaced. As if I couldn’t get comfortable and I couldn’t go home, either. Instead I drank in pubs alone, or lied to friends I was out with, claiming to be going home but instead heading to another bar, or anywhere I might find someone to sleep with.

There were many moments when I liked it. I enjoyed feeling like a slut. Or at least something, someone, different to how I perceived myself, which is to say boring, ugly, hollow, grey, abnormal. When my body felt heavy with fear, sharing it felt good. It felt so simple, like, Here, have it. Maybe you have some use for it. I never came. I never even got close and I never faked it. There was never any need.

I didn’t tell anyone. If housemates – or, once, a partner – asked where I’d been, or why I was so tired, I would lie. The compulsion was too hard to explain, and I wasn’t interested in judgement or reasoning. I lied to the people I slept with, too. I learnt early on to give a fake name and profession, after one guy – an American, with gleaming teeth and body odour – followed me on Instagram the day after I went down on him in a closed-off public garden at 2am. I blocked him, naturally, and then blocked him from my memory, too.

“I SELF-MEDICATE BY sleeping with STRANGERS”

“THE DEPRESSION FELT LIKE CLAUSTROPHOBIA MIXED WITH PECULIAR HOMESICKNESS. AS IF I COULDN’T GET COMFORTABLE, AND I couldn’t go home ”

I told myself frequently that it was fine: Everyone has one-night stands, everyone sleeps with strangers; I’m just participating in desire. I thought about the politics of it – why should men’s sex be indiscriminate, while a woman having reckless, risky or just too much sex is a deviant, or mentally ill? Lots of sex does not indicate that something has gone wrong, I told myself. But, God, it’s humiliating to convince yourself that snorting coke off a stranger in a toilet and letting them insert their fingers into you is just fourth-wave feminism.

While I tried hard to leave the memories in alleyways and toilets and other people’s beds (never mine), they perforated the days and weeks after with burning hot cheeks and hammered on the walls of my chest. Then one night, I smashed my phone, lost my bank card and cried as a man f*cked me from behind. I crawled into the office at 4am, physically unable to get home this time. and the next day I cried with my friends, too – and called my GP.

This sex is still a secret part of me, though I’m less ashamed now. I’ve told some close friends and found that it’s common behaviour in people with a difficult mental illness and/or a traumatic incident in their past. I’m managing both very well now, with the help of regular therapy. I don’t know my ‘number’ and if someone I’m dating asks, I edit out this period. I’m still not interested in judgement. Occasionally I wonder what the people I met think of me, or if they thought anything of me at all in those minutes or hours. Mostly, I move forward.

THE THING I LIKE ABOUT CLASSIFIED ADS is that they are often highly specific. (‘My husband and I, both in our fifties, are looking to meet a red-headed twentysomething in a central London hotel for a night of play’ – that kind of thing.) There’s something particularly titillating about the thought that the people authoring them are real, and that I’m getting a snapshot into their filthiest fantasies. It turns me on.

I used to cruise the ‘Casual Encounters’ section of a popular listings site, which has since closed. But I found a similar thing with Doublelist – I scroll through the ads, read people’s wildest fantasies and use them as inspiration when I masturbate. I came to this via a fairly circuitous route. The first porn I remember watching is the softcore ‘erotic dramas’ that aired every Friday night on Channel 5. I was an awkward, unpopular girl: lonely, bookish and, looking back now, I was probably suffering with some form of anxiety. We didn’t really have words for it back then and, even if I’d known the words, I wouldn’t have had anyone to tell.

My stepfather was an alcoholic, and sometimes violent. My mother and I were made homeless on more than one occasion because of his behaviour. I found it hard to sleep, so most evenings I stayed awake late into the night, making plans: If X happens, then we will need Y and Z to get away. Where are Y and Z? How quickly could I get them, and how far could we go before we run out of money? I found having a plan comforting, a way to stop my mind from spiralling to ever darker places. In the end, having a plan was the only way I could fall asleep. Until I discovered porn.

“I’M A 3O-YEAR-OLD high-flyer… AND I’M ADDICTED TO PORN”

The consensus at school was that porn was something that boys did – gross, icky, unfeminine – so I kept my Friday night viewing habits a secret. They were a source of shame but also, in a strange way, a comfort. Having a secret meant there was a part of me that was just mine. It could not be accessed by anyone other than me; it could not be tampered with or intimidated. Aged 14, I also found those highly sexed love stories hypnotic. Sitting on the edge of my bed, masturbating in front of the portable TV quieted my mind in new and profound ways. I could fall asleep without making plans. I’d just drop right off. That’s the thing about pornography – it leaves no room in your head for other thoughts.

When I left home and got boyfriends, porn featured less in my life. It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties and lost my job that I found myself turning to it again. My precarious financial situation ignited a flame of anxiety that, at some points, burned so hard and so hot I thought I might literally combust from worry. This instability touched a part of me that I’d buried a long time before – the part that was still a scared, lonely girl – and I found myself again sitting up at night and making plans. This time, though, the porn available to me was much more hardcore than when I was 14.

I quickly got into the habit of watching porn for an hour or more every day – the type didn’t matter so much, as long as it was hardcore. I used it like an anti-anxiety potion that would induce sleep, for a little while at least. The problem was, of course, that in time it started to lose its effectiveness. The content got more extreme and I spent more time searching for it. It’s time-consuming and, like most things that help one turn away from one’s anxiety, didn’t actually solve my problem.

I knew that people with proper addictions would stay awake for days, watching increasingly hardcore videos, and I did not want to end up that way. An hour each evening already seemed excessive. So, after about a year of daily use, I decided to quit video content cold turkey. It was obviously difficult – the impulse to watch it was deeply ingrained at that point. But the main issue was, how do I sleep without being stimulated into forgetting how anxious I was?

That’s how I came to the ads. Having to engage my own imagination made everything less compulsive. I’ve never actually responded to one, and a few years down the line, find myself reading them only infrequently. Perhaps it’s because my situation is more stable now, but it’s nice to know they’re there for the next time I have trouble sleeping.

“HAVING A SECRET MEANT THERE WAS A PART OF ME THAT WAS JUST MINE; IT COULD NOT BE TAMPERED WITH OR intimidated ”

THE THING I HATE THE MOST ABOUT MY BULIMIA is that it makes me feel so sweaty. These are the words I hear when I’m bingeing or purging: You’re fat, you smell bad, you’re an ungainly, awkward, heaving mess. It’s proof of my shame. Bulimic Me is the version who still gets spots, the one who has stains on her shirts, who becomes privately and irrationally tearful when she feels a bit left out during a WhatsApp chat, and feels tongue-tied and embarrassed so often that her cheeks are permanently hot to the touch.

I like to think that I have done a very good job of hiding Bulimic Me, making sure no one discovers her. Sometimes I prop her up in plain sight and disguise her. I talk about my teen eating disorders, and how I dealt with difficult feelings by bingeing, purging and starving myself. I talk about how I learnt to nourish myself, and what it took to forge a happier, healthier relationship with food and my body. I talk about trying to eat mindfully and intuitively. And I invest a lot of energy into looking like a person at peace. See my broderie anglaise, my layers of tiny diamond pendants, my glossy hair and nice shoes! I look like a woman in her mid-thirties who has her shit together. Not a frightened teenager whose chin and soul are covered in sick.

I do not really talk about what happened a couple of years ago. I’d hoped that, on the outside, it looked as if I was on dazzling form. Lots of exciting events were going on. A big work thing was happening, and I was doing plenty of boasting on social media. Also, I’d been following a very restrictive diet. I’d lost weight – and felt, perhaps, like a reality star whose DVD workout sales were plummeting. Why, I kept wondering, did I have these things I had wanted for so long, but not actually feel any different? Surely now, I should be content. Why didn’t I feel more envied? I’d invested a lot in coveting other people’s experiences. I was irrationally angry that I couldn’t feel anyone else coveting my life; what I had worked so hard to become. So I drank – in a way that might have looked fun, if you stood 1O metres away and crossed your eyes. I drank with friends, dressed up, made an effort to be very social. But every time, I drank until I was drunk enough to get annihilated on my drug of choice: food.

It’s tragic and hilarious that I would be thinking about my midnight Domino’s at 6pm. Or that I’d fight with my boyfriend about leaving parties before the kebab shop shut. All I wanted was to be drunk, in bed, guzzling; as numb to everything as

“MY GLOSSY LIFE HIDES THE eating disorder I CAN’T BEAT”

possible. The funniest part of all was that I was still on this stupid diet. When I was sober, life was perversely religious. I could achieve spiritual bliss by living on the No Bread of Christ. When I was drunk – most nights – I was on holiday from real life, pretending my actions didn’t have consequences. I could repent in the morning by going without breakfast.

The rules and boundaries around what I ate, and when, started to dissolve. I could purge my problems away. I don’t remember exactly how it started, but I do remember being stressed about a deadline, and lining up a pouch of chocolate buttons, a family-sized pack of Frazzles and a bar of Dairy Milk, devouring them before bringing them straight back up. I remember being upset about something a friend had done – not the fact of the incident, but the feeling – and going to the freezer, eating two small tubs of Haagen Daas and making myself sick before hiding the tubs at the bottom of the bin. I remember eating leftover pizza for breakfast, three vast, greasy slices, chewing hurriedly, not tasting – and then panicking because my magic trick wouldn’t work. I saw my tears making ripples in the toilet bowl, disturbing the pointless layer of bile. It was all I could manage to bring up.

After a couple of months, I confided in my therapist. I still love her for just listening. She didn’t say stop. She didn’t sound shocked. She simply thanked me for telling her. Very gently, she helped me to join the dots. The weird diets. The difficulty of living in a world where I could try to love my self every day, but there are too many voices and feelings in the mix not to hate it sometimes, and then feel as though I have failed twice over. The numbness. The pain of always feeling judged; feeling visible. The way I’d put so much energy into trying to control my image, I’d attempted to burnish my own sarcophagus until the effort had hollowed me out. This is why I’d been trying to fill myself up beyond the point of comfort. I’d wanted to suffocate my feelings for a long time.

I got better. I started to notice when I felt panicked and out of control, which was often, and simply sit with the feeling. I talked nonsense to myself: Love, let’s give it half an hour. If you still want to eat until you’re in pain and puke it all up, I shall take you to Tesco, but for now, let’s just sit. Where does it hurt? I stopped drinking for a while, and when I started again, I promised myself I would only toast the moments I was feeling genuinely joyful. I stopped constantly using food and drink to drown my pain. It still happens every so often, but I’m getting better at being kinder and patient with myself.

I think bulimia will always lurk in the background of my life. I’ll never conquer it entirely, or completely lose that panicked feeling. But I do believe recognising this means I can manage it. A bad day doesn’t have to spiral into a terrible week or month. There will always be times when my relationship with food is stressful – as funny as it sounds, I will never be able to stay relaxed while navigating a hotel breakfast buffet. It’s very difficult to maintain a healthy tolerance of a dangerous drug, when it’s the substance that is keeping you alive.

“THE RULES AND BOUNDARIES AROUND WHAT I ATE STARTED TO DISSOLVE. I COULD PURGE MY problems away

”

LAST YEAR, I WAS AT A FRIEND’S HEN PARTY in a bar when she introduced me to the group, none of whom I knew, as ‘the wild one with the great sex stories’. I spent the night making them laugh, sharing embarrassing tales of failed dates, drug-fuelled parties and crazy trips abroad. Like a comedian taking the stage, I dug into my repertoire. This happens almost every time I meet friends of friends, or join a big group at a party. It’s an unspoken rule in my social circle: I am the confident, cocky person expected to divulge anecdotes that will make others gasp.

It’s exhausting, but I play the role, entertaining the masses with detailed accounts of the time I had a threesome in my kitchen, had an affair with a married man (I’m not proud of it, but it happened) or share one of the many recent romances I’ve had. I’m also known for being fiercely independent. I’ve clawed my way up in a job that I love, live alone by choice and like spending time in my own company. I pay my own bills and can count on one hand how many times I’ve asked my parents for help over the past 12 years. I’m a workaholic, and I’m good at my job.

Outwardly, I look like I have my shit together, but the painful truth is that inside, I’m terrified of dying alone and of having no one to share my life with.

Most of the people I know are in relationships, so there is added pressure to show off how fantastic single life is, especially since society’s view is that women over 3O must have a gives-no-f*cks attitude and successful career – because otherwise, what are we doing with our lives?

Don’t get me wrong, my friends are lovely people. They simply don’t know that what they are looking at is a persona I have put together to protect myself. They don’t know I use these stories or do wild things – like the time I flashed a nipple to a bartender for a shot (he gave me two) – as a coping mechanism. They have no idea that, despite my independence, all I want is someone to share everything with.

People in my age group are moving into phase two of their lives: getting married, having kids, buying houses, saving for their pension and settling down. And while part of me loves my life, the freedom and my job especially, there’s a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me I’m falling behind. And that if I don’t hurry up, it will be too late.

I feel a sting of jealousy when I see photos on Instagram of friends going to weddings or on couples’ holidays. Social media can be the devil. I crave the companionship, the shoulder to lean on, the Netflix movie nights, but no one would ever imagine it. It makes me feel incredibly lonely.

Almost every day, panic grips my chest at the thought that, as we grow older and grow apart, my friends’ priorities will shift. The voice in my head whispers that I am fundamentally unlovable and that everyone will move on, while I am left with nothing but great stories for company. And since I don’t want kids, I am but a hop, skip and jump away from hanging out in an old folk’s home, going months without visits from loved ones. When I think about that, I can barely breathe.

I even have panic attacks about it, made worse by the fact I suffer from anxiety, but I feel like I can’t tell anyone. Because if I say it out loud, then it might just become true. It’s not funny and it certainly isn’t what anyone wants to hear from the ‘jester’ of the group. The alternative to being the hilarious storyteller, the woman who appears to be completely comfortable in her skin and happy with her life– which I am online and among strangers – is to watch pity grow in people’s eyes. And I don’t want the pity.

So instead I bring out the comedian and continue with the show, silently hoping that, one day, I’ll meet someone too. Find the complete Secret Lives of Women series at elle.com/uk

“I’M THE LIFE OF the party, BUT I WORRY I’LL DIE ALONE ”

“THEVOICEINMY HEAD WHISPERS THAT I AM UNLOVABLE; THAT EVERYONE WILL MOVE ON, WHILE I AM LEFT WITH ONLY stories for company

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