Living With Body Dysmorphic Disorder

By Lea Walker

Lea Walker first caught the public eye when she appeared on Channel 4’s Big Brother programme in 2006. Her outgoing personality, surgery enhanced figure and outspoken manner kept audiences glued to their screens but behind the smiles she was hiding a long history of eating disorders, abusive relationships and unhappiness. As well as trying to come to terms with a history of violence, a failed marriage and life as a single parent, Lea has faced a continuous battle with her distorted body image. It is only recently, that she has managed to emerge triumphant from the trauma of the past and find the inner strength to finally lay her demons to rest. Living with BDD is more than a biography. It is a touching and honest account of one woman’s struggle to come to terms with the crushing low self esteem and dysfunctional body image that have dominated her life. By telling her story, Lea hopes that she may be able to help others to face up to their own personal nightmares. She is living proof that there is no problem so great that it cannot be overcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Apex Publishing Limited
• Release date: Jul 8, 2010
• ISBN: 9781907792359

Book preview

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Chapter 1

My Life as a Little Girl

What was it Forrest Gump said?

Life is like a box of chocolates.

To me, well no it’s not. It’s like a pint of milk.

One day it’s OK, the next it’s like cat sick in a bottle.

I should have been a poet don’t you think?

In my book I’ll be touching on a few issues like bullying, weight gain and weight loss, abusive relationships, cosmetic surgery and of course body dysmorphic disorder (BDD).

I hope when you read this book that you find the determination to just say ‘fuck it, I’m going to live my life for me and nobody else’ because you don’t ever have to be what you don’t want to be.

You will, and can be, happy no matter what. But you do have to take control and you will, because you are strong enough to do it.

This isn’t an autobiography as such.

I’m writing this book (well some of it as I’m not the brightest of sparks so I’m having someone help me) with the hope of giving you an insight into the day-to-day life of a sufferer of BDD, which looking back I have had from the age of about six.

I wanted to try and write it myself so it’s coming from my heart and no one else can do that.

Body dysmorphic disorder is a self-hatred, a loathing of yourself pretty shite actually if you happen to be a sufferer.

Even if you are not a sufferer I guarantee you will know someone who is.

I was born on 11th September, 1970 in Nottingham to my mum Doreen and me dad Cliff.

I’m the youngest of four. My eldest brother’s name is Kevin who is 21 years older than me, then Robert (20 years older), and Darryl (five years older).

Me poor mam was 40 when she had me and thought she was in her ‘change’ (menopause for those of you who don’t know what that is).

Christ, what a shock, thinking you’re in the change and then you give birth.

But to make it even worse for me poor mam and dad, she gave birth to me.

I’m not just saying this, but God almighty I was one UGLY baby. I’d say it was a mix up between me and the placenta, and the placenta was nicer to look at, but they threw the wrong one away.

My dad wanted to call me Donna Michelle.

But no, my bloody brother Darryl wanted to call me Lisa Michelle. So of course, that’s what I got called. So thanks broth’ for that one.

When I was a little girl my Mammar and Gang Gang (my grandparents) called me Lealea and I liked that, so kept it instead of Lisa.

I always associate the name Lisa as being in trouble because that’s what my dad would shout.

Lisa! Get in here!

Or Lisa! Get down these bleeding stairs NOW!

Or I associate the name with my teachers shouting.

Lisa! Are you stupid?

Or Lisa! Stand in the corner!

Lisa! Hands out! Which meant either a ruler or cane and sometimes a slipper.

Now can you see why I’m not too keen on that name?

Guess I’m going to have to start at the beginning with my dad, who I feel in some ways has made me the person I am today. It’s appropriate I start right back with the man who has turned me into me, craving the love of a man, which never happened.

If I had had the love of my dad, the cuddles and kisses, then I personally don’t think I would be the person I am today: craving love, wanting to be accepted, wanting to be made a fuss of, wanting to be told I am not a bad person and finding it difficult to be with a straight man.

So here I go …

My dad Cliff was in the navy from the age of 15. When he left the navy he became a miner in Nottingham. He worked at all different pits: Babbington, Newstead, Calverton and Gedling. He did work bloody hard though.

We lived on a pit road in a pit house. We weren’t brought up in squalor but we didn’t have much money at all and were looked down on in the area even though our home was quite nice.

We didn’t have much, but we were grateful for what we had. I didn’t have everything I would have liked, but dad did his best working on the pit face.

The north is famous for its lace, textiles, fishermen, docklands and mining industry. But miners were paid a quarter of the wages of those working in other industries.

Perhaps that’s why us northerners think differently and are a lot harder than other folk. They are grateful for what they have and don’t take things for granted. A lot of us northerners have been dragged up; but I have never met a weak northern person because they are more likely to be told: Now stop it. Pull yourself together, pack it in.

But I’ve met a lot of weak southerners. Northern folk are certainly not given as much as those in the south when it comes to job opportunities and pay, but we all have good hearts.

Despite their difficulties mum and dad still managed to buy their pit house.

A lot of my friends grew up in bigger houses and went on holidays abroad. But we could never afford that. But we would be content with a break in a caravan or at Butlins.

My mum is Doreen. She used to be called ‘the Duchess’ by people on our road because she looked so beautiful. We lived in a pit house, and most of the wives looked like pit wives, but my mum looked really posh because she was so beautiful; she looked just like Grace Kelly or Liz Taylor.

Everyone else called her ‘Doo Doo’.

I wouldn’t say my brothers were notorious, but they had a reputation for being fighters and took no messing from anyone. They were brought up in the 1950s and ‘60s – the era of mods and rockers.

Like my mum and dad, my brothers could always look after themselves – and they protected others.

I can remember when I was a little girl, one of my first memories was the ‘nougat man’ who used to be at the top of the hill where we lived every weekend, ringing a bell and selling 2p worth of nougats to us kids.

In Nottingham we always have the ‘Goose Fair’, a travelling fair which visits every October.

I can clearly remember coming home from the fair when I was about five or six to the terrible shock of dad sitting in his chair covered in blood. His head had been crushed, his teeth pushed through his lip and he was covered in stitches. Dad was a mess. Loads of neighbours were there and mum was crying.

Dad had been in a pit accident and been trapped underground when the mine collapsed.

He had saved a neighbour’s life in the accident.

But it broke my heart to see him looking like that and to see mum in tears.

I remember going to infant school crying and telling my teacher Mrs Burrows (who was like a second mum to me) that I was frightened daddy was going to die.

Pits were collapsing all the time and dad was involved in many accidents.

But he had a family to support, so he went back to work and mum took a cleaning job in the main offices of Esso. Me and my brother Darryl stayed at Mama and Gang Gang’s.

On school holidays I used to love it when dad took us to the pit to collect his wages on a Friday.

Dad would take me and Darryl for a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich with tomato sauce at the pit cafeteria. I would have fried bread in drippin’ yuk! That would be the highlight of our week.

Me and Darryl would sit in the changing rooms where the miners would strip off when they came out of the pit. They were walking round with pitch black faces and white bums, completely stark naked!

Christ Almighty! Can you imagine that happening nowadays?

They were just the happiest days: school holidays and spending time with my dad and going to the pit.

I remember being really upset when dad wouldn’t let me go with him once as punishment for being naughty.

I sat at home with mum eating celery soup and dried bread – thinking of my brother eating his bacon sandwich (though I don’t eat meat any more. The thought of eating meat nowadays makes me feel physically sick).

I was devastated that my dad took Darryl and didn’t take me. I was jealous because my brother had gone and he would be spending time with my dad while I was stuck at home. Dad wasn’t around much, so whatever time we did have I used to like spending it with him.

I know dad loved us. He loved my mum, he really did, but he had a lot of affairs. My mum just wasn’t dad’s soul mate – though my dad might have been mum’s. You can love people in a different way or you can love them properly and be ‘in love’ with them.

You can love people because they are part of you when you are growing up.

Sometimes mum and dad would fall out, usually because dad might have had another woman. It used to break my heart. The worse thing for me was to see my mum cry.

But dad was not happy and he was looking for happiness.

Unfortunately my mum had to suffer. But you can’t make someone else’s life a misery just to make yourself happy.

Me and Darryl would often cry when mum and dad would argue when we were really little. Our two older brothers had left home so it didn’t affect them as much.

But despite the problems at home, overall I think I was lucky growing up in the ‘70s.

I was surrounded by fields. It seemed that when it was spring, it really was spring. I loved it when the flowers came through. And in the infants school we would have a Maypole dance and Easter bonnet parades. I would make bonnets with my mum and we would boil eggs and decorate them.

And when it was summer, you really knew it was summer. During the six week summer holidays it was always baking hot. Even when it rained it was still hot. There would be pollen, grasses and dandelion seeds blowing from the fields. It would even smell like summer. I loved sitting on ‘the rec’ with my ice cream.

Even as a child I loved the changes, whether it was lovely springs, baking hot summers which lasted for months, heavy rain or freezing cold.

And Christmas was really Christmas, not like it is today, which is such a shame.

Back then Christmas started a week before 25th December – not like now when festive displays are in the stores from September – and by January Easter eggs are already in the

shops.

Mum and dad would take us Christmas shopping

Christmas in the ‘70s meant the nativity play at school (which I was never included in). I always wanted to be in it, but I never had the nerve because I was too shy, too self-conscious.

Looking back, our home was a complete fire hazard: mum and dad smoking that many fags, paper chains round the walls held up by drawing pins, Christmas cards hanging up and glittery lanterns on the ceiling.

But everything is so commercialised now. I know things have to move forward, but it would be nice to keep some sort of tradition.

Our holidays would be at Pontin’s or Butlins where I would have the excitement of entering competitions, taking part in a donkey derby, and watching a dancer or comedian on the stage. I would be in the huge holiday canteen having dinner with mum and dad and all the other families. It was just nice to be in a holiday camp with other happy families, all laughing and joking, everyone in the same boat. None of us had much money so there was no pretence, no airs and graces – not like now when people want the best of stuff and look down their noses at you if you’re not as rich as them.

Kids today have no idea what any of that was about.

I would love riding my bike to Colwick Park.

And I used to love horse riding. Dad would give me a pound for washing the car or mowing the lawns so that I could go riding. Yep a pound. Christ, I am bloody old! To me there was nothing better than the weather being red hot, and going to the stables with my friends, galloping up and down at the side of the river, with not a care in the world.

Nobody gives you a rule about being a good parent, so mum and dad just brought us up as they saw fit. And we were never lazy kids. We all did chores.

Mum and dad always let me have my pets. There is nothing better than having something you love and cuddle, knowing it will love you back unconditionally.

I used to love my big, fat, old tabby cat Mindy who I would dress up in dolls’ clothes – and she used to love it, well, to me she did. Guess she hated it really ‘cos she was a cat woops! Mindy used to sleep in my knicker drawer and chuck ‘em all over!

I remember we visited the annual Hog Fair at Standhill Park, Carlton. Mum had cooked a chicken. She noticed Mindy was asleep on her bed in the lounge, but she locked her out of the kitchen and left the chicken out on the breakfast bar for when we got back.

But of course Mindy somehow got into the kitchen, savaged the chicken to an inch of its life and dragged it to her bed! She was such a little bleeder, a little sod, but I loved that little pussy cat so much.

She died when I was about six or seven and I felt I had lost my little friend. Mum and dad would pick me up from infants school and one day when they came to meet me, they told me Mindy had been put down as she had cancer. I was so upset I got Snowy my rabbit out of his hutch and he stayed in my bedroom all night.

When you are little you don’t understand how things affect you later in life. Losing a pet is like losing part of your life, and

even when you are little you can feel so empty.

We always had a cat when we were growing up.

I used to love going to my Aunty Ivy’s (my grandmother’s sister). There was a chip shop across the road, and every Saturday when we visited she would always give me 50p to get a bag of chips.

Ivy’s house was massive with different bedrooms – and a downstairs toilet. It had a cloakroom door which to me was like the entrance to Narnia in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe; and the garden was like The Secret Garden on a split level with four separate sections to rampage in. There was also a swing and apple trees.

I loved my Aunty Ivy so much. She used to make me really happy and safe.

She had a huge old tortoise, called Tommy Tortoise, who used to live in a little brick cage in the top section of the garden. I used to feed him with tomatoes. Tommy Tortoise loved free running, but he never used to go anywhere.

We would watch Worzel Gummidge on TV at Aunty Ivy’s on a Sunday afternoon. She would do a piklet and a cup of Horlicks and she had a red soda syphon which she would let me squirt into her glass of booze. She had a Yorkshire terrier called Cilla who had long fur that covered her eyes, so I used to put it in a pony tail with a red ribbon.

Aunty Ivy had a male friend called Jackie who had a horse, Minstrel. He used to ride it from Colwick Park along Valley Road to Aunty Ivy’s. He was massive, like a big old dray horse. I used to love trotting round Aunty Ivy’s garden or Carlton ‘Rec’ on Minstrel.

I used to hear Aunty Ivy telling mum to leave my dad, but I couldn’t understand why, being so young.

When I was eight dad moved out after a huge argument with mum and went to live in a flat. She found out he was seeing another woman, so he left. Unfortunately, at this time mum had to have a hip operation, so she asked Mama and Gang Gang to look after me and Darryl while she was in hospital. But because we were so young they couldn’t cope and my grandad was working.

So dad moved back in with us.

While mum was in hospital having her operation they used a certain instrument in the theatre for cauterising the