My Mad Fat Diary
I've watched the dramatisation of Rae Earl's diary with interest. Partly because of the title, I expected it to be trite, annoying and offensive. As a fatty whose various mental health problems have been treated and untreated throughout my life, I started watching mostly in order to be pissed off. What I found though, was that I wasn't pissed off at all. The real Rae is a decade older than me and wrote her diaries in the 80s, but the Rae of the television series was only a year older than me- she was sixteen the year I was fifteen. The music she loved was the music I listened to on the radio, the clothes she wore- and I don't think a modern teenage girl would get this- were a style all their own. She wasn't grungy because she was fat, she was grungy because she was into the music from that scene. It was Chloe and Izzy who were on the peripheries of this group- Rae was accepted, loved, invited to Knebworth (I listened to that on the radio too) because she shared the interests of the rest of the group. The most important question anyone could ask you at school in 1996 was, "do you prefer Blur or Oasis?"
Chloe tells Rae quite bluntly and thoughtlessly that she is too fat for boys to like her. Rae screams at Kester (her therapist) that boys don't want her to be funny, or to have opinions. Yet it's evident from the outside that she is the most popular female in the group. Even when Finn goes to tell her that Archie has bottled on their date, his puzzled question, "why are you dressed like Chloe?" says more than anything else: he is confused, and he is not impressed- as a bunch of teenage boys, they don't see a fat girl, they see their friend who expresses herself through the way she dresses.
It takes me back to school, and youth group years. I had, and still have, a large proportion of friends who are male. I haven't been slim at any time in my life since I was 15- when the stupid ovaries stopped behaving and started forming their damn cysts, yet there was no shortage of interested suitors until *I* decided I wasn't good enough. When I was at school, I ran with a popular crowd, was clever, didn't really care what people thought of me... and I was happy. I lost my confidence as I grew up. Iwan left his mark, chipped me a little, and like a car windscreen, as I went through life the chip gradually grew into a crack which got bigger and bigger until I eventually shattered. Until the only way I knew to cope was by binging or starving. Until I couldn't bear to stand in front of people- even when it was part of a job I knew I was good at (thinking particularly of being WiM Environment Co for Rev), I had to get someone else to do it for me.
I don't know when exactly I shattered. I know that the thing that made me angriest last year was that I felt that Diane had taken those pieces, glued them together, waited for the glue to almost dry and then thrown me at the wall. She didn't do that deliberately- she didn't break me into a thousand pieces because she wanted to, she broke me because of her own issues, which are not the focus of this piece (or any piece I'll write- her stories are hers to tell, I can only tell my own). She knew I was broken though, and she used to sing Fix You to me... and she must have known that there were ways to end the relationship without smashing me into more pieces than I was originally in. But this time round there was a difference, and I think that this is where I identify most with Rae: I put myself back together. I very slowly picked up ever piece of my own heart and soul, I scouted round dark corners of my mind as well as the light airy spaces where we normally like to pretend we dwell... I found every piece of me and I put myself back together, with glue that noone else will ever have the power to break in the same way. I learned who my friends were- some old, neglected, but always, always true friends- Nikki, Thor, Ally, Paul, Vez, Jess... some newer, but as true as the older ones- Hannah, Jennie, Pippin... colleagues like Martha, Zaloa and Helen... and some, the newest of all- friends *we* made as a couple who stepped up to support me through what was undoubtedly the most difficult time I've ever been through. Jez, Jenny, Lau, Emily, Annis... actually I can't even begin to list them- it isn't fair because I was held up by so many people while I searched through the wreckage of my life for all those missing pieces of me that to even begin to think about it is overwhelming!
As a teenager I was loud. I said what I thought. I didn't care what people thought of me, because I thought the most important thing was to be myself. I had to have that confidence, because I enjoyed being a Girl Guide. I enjoyed going to Church. I liked doing Aerobics. I enjoyed recitation competitions in the Eisteddfodau. I did thing after thing that wasn't considered "cool" and yet I *was* considered cool: because I didn't care. I didn't pretend to be what I thought they wanted me to be. I was me and that was okay. When I evaluated myself after the breakup, I realised that somewhere along the way (before Diane- she can't be blamed for this) I'd lost myself. I'd become a version of me where all I wanted was to make other people happy. I was still popular, though my circle of friends was much smaller because I lacked the confidence to approach new people, because everyone loves a giver. And I *think* though I can't be sure because I've never asked any of my friends, that once I did know someone, I could still be funny, still carry a conversation, still be who I had always been. I may even still have been loud and confident at times... but only in certain circumstances. A person can be broken, and it's entirely possible for noone to know about it. A person can be fixed, but if the glue is another person, that glue will never be strong enough to really hold her together.
Someone at work the other week asked me, "What happened to you? You used to be so quiet and meek and you'd just do what you were told... now you're really feisty!" There was a bit of joking, a bit of banter, a conversation about the difference between assertion and aggression- and he did agree that the word assertive was the right one, rather than aggressive. My answer was simply, "I've been walked over for the last time." There's more to it than that though. I found myself and I fixed myself. I went through the darkest of times, when I felt at my weakest only to realise that I'm stronger than I ever thought possible. In happier times, Diane called me her diamond- beautiful and tough. I hated it because it felt like a terrible lie- though I never told her that because I was all about making other people happy, so I smiled and let her think I accepted the compliment. Now, a little too late, I realise that I am tough. Beautiful... I'm feeling it more as I lose weight... but actually I've never thought I was ugly. The stupid ovaries cause physical symptoms that I don't like, but actually, I don't hate the way I look any more. And I *am* tough. Not sharp edged, not carved by someone else into a shape they think I should fit... more like a diamond recently mined... but if you throw me against the wall now, I will not shatter. That's not to say I won't hurt. It's not to say that I can quickly and easily unlearn decades of using food as medicine and punishment in equal measure. It's not to say that I'll stop laughing at inappropriate times because I'm a bit nervous or that I'll start thinking about the consequences of each sentence before I say it. It's not to say that I'm perfect... I'm not and I never will be.
I think the thing I liked best about My Mad Fat Diary is that Rae let Tix down. Tix was her best friend on the ward, an anorexic who, at the encouragement of her therapist, agreed to eat with Rae, because she felt comfortable with her. They'd arranged a dinner date, and Rae, swept along in the excitement of her friendship group going to a rave, missed it. Tix overexercised that night, collapsed in cadiac arrest and remained in a coma at the end of the show. Knowing what I do about that, if she survived it would have been with a hypoxic brain injury, and speculating is fine- Tix as a character is fictional- the story is *based* on the diaries, not a perfect representation of them. Rae is human. Her "madness" is never completely cured, because no one's ever is. She doesn't become perfect when she leaves the hospital, fall into a great friendship group and have a great life. What happens instead is that she, like everyone else, makes mistakes... really shitty ones with devastating consequences (not to say that she caused Tix's illness, rather that she wasn't able to apologise and make amends). And people still do really shitty things to her too- her mum, Chloe, Archie... they all hurt her. But while she bruises, she doesn't break- not in the same way. She learns to live with the mistakes she makes and she learns to forgive the mistakes others make, while still owning herself. She's like all of us. Some of us have to learn to admit it more openly than others because some of us make our mistakes more obviously than others. But we all make them, every last one of us, whether we're aware of it or not.
Chloe tells Rae quite bluntly and thoughtlessly that she is too fat for boys to like her. Rae screams at Kester (her therapist) that boys don't want her to be funny, or to have opinions. Yet it's evident from the outside that she is the most popular female in the group. Even when Finn goes to tell her that Archie has bottled on their date, his puzzled question, "why are you dressed like Chloe?" says more than anything else: he is confused, and he is not impressed- as a bunch of teenage boys, they don't see a fat girl, they see their friend who expresses herself through the way she dresses.
It takes me back to school, and youth group years. I had, and still have, a large proportion of friends who are male. I haven't been slim at any time in my life since I was 15- when the stupid ovaries stopped behaving and started forming their damn cysts, yet there was no shortage of interested suitors until *I* decided I wasn't good enough. When I was at school, I ran with a popular crowd, was clever, didn't really care what people thought of me... and I was happy. I lost my confidence as I grew up. Iwan left his mark, chipped me a little, and like a car windscreen, as I went through life the chip gradually grew into a crack which got bigger and bigger until I eventually shattered. Until the only way I knew to cope was by binging or starving. Until I couldn't bear to stand in front of people- even when it was part of a job I knew I was good at (thinking particularly of being WiM Environment Co for Rev), I had to get someone else to do it for me.
I don't know when exactly I shattered. I know that the thing that made me angriest last year was that I felt that Diane had taken those pieces, glued them together, waited for the glue to almost dry and then thrown me at the wall. She didn't do that deliberately- she didn't break me into a thousand pieces because she wanted to, she broke me because of her own issues, which are not the focus of this piece (or any piece I'll write- her stories are hers to tell, I can only tell my own). She knew I was broken though, and she used to sing Fix You to me... and she must have known that there were ways to end the relationship without smashing me into more pieces than I was originally in. But this time round there was a difference, and I think that this is where I identify most with Rae: I put myself back together. I very slowly picked up ever piece of my own heart and soul, I scouted round dark corners of my mind as well as the light airy spaces where we normally like to pretend we dwell... I found every piece of me and I put myself back together, with glue that noone else will ever have the power to break in the same way. I learned who my friends were- some old, neglected, but always, always true friends- Nikki, Thor, Ally, Paul, Vez, Jess... some newer, but as true as the older ones- Hannah, Jennie, Pippin... colleagues like Martha, Zaloa and Helen... and some, the newest of all- friends *we* made as a couple who stepped up to support me through what was undoubtedly the most difficult time I've ever been through. Jez, Jenny, Lau, Emily, Annis... actually I can't even begin to list them- it isn't fair because I was held up by so many people while I searched through the wreckage of my life for all those missing pieces of me that to even begin to think about it is overwhelming!
As a teenager I was loud. I said what I thought. I didn't care what people thought of me, because I thought the most important thing was to be myself. I had to have that confidence, because I enjoyed being a Girl Guide. I enjoyed going to Church. I liked doing Aerobics. I enjoyed recitation competitions in the Eisteddfodau. I did thing after thing that wasn't considered "cool" and yet I *was* considered cool: because I didn't care. I didn't pretend to be what I thought they wanted me to be. I was me and that was okay. When I evaluated myself after the breakup, I realised that somewhere along the way (before Diane- she can't be blamed for this) I'd lost myself. I'd become a version of me where all I wanted was to make other people happy. I was still popular, though my circle of friends was much smaller because I lacked the confidence to approach new people, because everyone loves a giver. And I *think* though I can't be sure because I've never asked any of my friends, that once I did know someone, I could still be funny, still carry a conversation, still be who I had always been. I may even still have been loud and confident at times... but only in certain circumstances. A person can be broken, and it's entirely possible for noone to know about it. A person can be fixed, but if the glue is another person, that glue will never be strong enough to really hold her together.
Someone at work the other week asked me, "What happened to you? You used to be so quiet and meek and you'd just do what you were told... now you're really feisty!" There was a bit of joking, a bit of banter, a conversation about the difference between assertion and aggression- and he did agree that the word assertive was the right one, rather than aggressive. My answer was simply, "I've been walked over for the last time." There's more to it than that though. I found myself and I fixed myself. I went through the darkest of times, when I felt at my weakest only to realise that I'm stronger than I ever thought possible. In happier times, Diane called me her diamond- beautiful and tough. I hated it because it felt like a terrible lie- though I never told her that because I was all about making other people happy, so I smiled and let her think I accepted the compliment. Now, a little too late, I realise that I am tough. Beautiful... I'm feeling it more as I lose weight... but actually I've never thought I was ugly. The stupid ovaries cause physical symptoms that I don't like, but actually, I don't hate the way I look any more. And I *am* tough. Not sharp edged, not carved by someone else into a shape they think I should fit... more like a diamond recently mined... but if you throw me against the wall now, I will not shatter. That's not to say I won't hurt. It's not to say that I can quickly and easily unlearn decades of using food as medicine and punishment in equal measure. It's not to say that I'll stop laughing at inappropriate times because I'm a bit nervous or that I'll start thinking about the consequences of each sentence before I say it. It's not to say that I'm perfect... I'm not and I never will be.
I think the thing I liked best about My Mad Fat Diary is that Rae let Tix down. Tix was her best friend on the ward, an anorexic who, at the encouragement of her therapist, agreed to eat with Rae, because she felt comfortable with her. They'd arranged a dinner date, and Rae, swept along in the excitement of her friendship group going to a rave, missed it. Tix overexercised that night, collapsed in cadiac arrest and remained in a coma at the end of the show. Knowing what I do about that, if she survived it would have been with a hypoxic brain injury, and speculating is fine- Tix as a character is fictional- the story is *based* on the diaries, not a perfect representation of them. Rae is human. Her "madness" is never completely cured, because no one's ever is. She doesn't become perfect when she leaves the hospital, fall into a great friendship group and have a great life. What happens instead is that she, like everyone else, makes mistakes... really shitty ones with devastating consequences (not to say that she caused Tix's illness, rather that she wasn't able to apologise and make amends). And people still do really shitty things to her too- her mum, Chloe, Archie... they all hurt her. But while she bruises, she doesn't break- not in the same way. She learns to live with the mistakes she makes and she learns to forgive the mistakes others make, while still owning herself. She's like all of us. Some of us have to learn to admit it more openly than others because some of us make our mistakes more obviously than others. But we all make them, every last one of us, whether we're aware of it or not.