The Opposite of Normal, Andrew Boggan [brene brown rising strong .TXT] 📗

didn’t care how I really was. I wasn’t so upset about being ill with the measles, I was furious that I needed to be taken to the hospital and that I had to call an ambulance myself and make my way home by taxi. To justify his response was the amount of money that he was making for delivering the 2 days of training. Even tho it was good money I couldn’t understand why that was more important than your partner falling ill needing urgent medical attention. Had that been Bruce who fell ill and I was at work, I would have rushed home immediately and taken him up myself, and if necessary taken a few days off work to care for him. I thought that’s what you do in a relationship, or so that’s what my parents did for each other when they fell sick with something.

When I eventually got better, I had been on Bruce’s case about having to make my own way to the hospital. I just didn’t think it was fair and that his actions were inappropriate. Perhaps it was a mistake to speak my mind on this because he just wasn’t going to apologise for working on the day when I truly needed him. I lost a lot of faith in my partner when that happened, because I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen the next time I fell sick. It didn’t matter how many times I tried to discuss the issue, it began to make his blood boil every time I brought it up so it just wasn’t worth mentioning anymore.

In October of 2002 we had our very first overseas holiday. It had always been a lifelong dream to visit another country, and my dreams were fulfilled on the night of my 20th birthday when we departed for London. The excitement and adrenalin of traveling to another country was more than I could handle. I always had dreams to visit London and I even developed some form of obsession with the city of London by memorizing most of the stations on the tube. Even tho I had only just turned 20 years old, I was about to fulfill a life long dream. I wouldn’t have ran out of dreams after this because there was still plenty more things I wanted to achieve before my time is up.

In a space of 4 weeks we managed to visit Bangkok, London, Paris, Frankfurt and Singapore whilst touring around the countryside of England, Scotland and Wales. Before leaving the UK for Singapore we spent a whole week in London with Bruce’s brother to wind down before heading onto our next destination. Within our last week Bruce’s temper began to rather short and sharp and it didn’t take much for him to blow his top.

I was standing over the stove in his brother’s kitchen cooking dinner for the two of us. He walked in to see what I was doing, and as he looked over the stove he quickly grabbed me by the top of my arm and swung me up against the wall. His face was steaming red and he glared directly at me eye to eye. Every time my eye moved away from his eye he forced my face back with his hand to look directly in his eye. “What the hell do you think you’re doing” he screamed at me. I didn’t know what to think, I’d never seen him act like this and it was totally out of character for him to act in such a way. I had been cooking mince in a fry pan that wasn’t a non-stick. To me that was something minor but Bruce had reacted quite violently over it when he told me to re-cook dinner again, he slammed me onto the floor and quickly said “re do dinner again till it’s edible”, and then he walked away. I just lied there on the cold icy tiles curling myself up into a bowl while I tried to fathom what had just happened. I was amazed that somebody I loved had just thrown me about it.

I wasn’t in a state to stand over the stove and cook dinner so I quickly ran off to Bruce’s aunty who lived around the corner from the house we were staying at. As I stood at her door knocking away she finally answered. Without saying anything I burst into tears and told her what had just happened. What made matters worse was the fact that I was in another country, on the other side of the world, far away from my family and friends and I wasn’t able to run to them for help.

Bruce’s temper was constantly up and down and my head was always bitten off when I went to ask why. I just wanted to have a fun couple of week’s overseas exploring places I had only ever dreamed about. And while I certainly was able to do that, I spent so much time worrying and concerning myself about Bruce’s short fuse.

On the final night of the holiday we spent one night in a hotel in Singapore to catch up on jet lag before flying home. We had been sitting in the wonderful air-conditioning of the hotel room having a few glasses of wine prior to retiring to bed. We sat discussing a few things and one of the topics that came up for discussion was my inability to gain weight.

I’ve always been a very slim person who could probably disappear if I turned sideways, none the less I still maintained a somewhat healthy lifestyle and ate a variety of healthy foods on a continual basis. Due to a very high metabolism, I can’t gain a lot of weight. Although Bruce liked the slim and slender look on another guy, he started having concerns that I was suffering with male anorexia nervosa. I couldn’t quite understand why he thought this, he had seen me eat food from the day we met, and he’s seen me make an absolute pig of myself when it came to all you can eat restaurants, but, he seemed to think that I was anorexic. It didn’t really matter what I said or done to try and persuade him that it wasn’t true, he was convinced I had the disease.

I later found out that whilst we were in England, he had been researching a few counseling clinics to take me to for when we got home because of my “apparent” case of male anorexia nervosa. Whenever I tried to justify my fast metabolism rate, all I ever got from him were a few repeating words “Yes you have it, yes you have it, and yes you have it”. As much as I was unconvinced that I didn’t have the disease, I had to find someway of proving to him that I was healthy.

Although I couldn’t see it at the time, I was suffering deep mental abuse from Bruce. When we finally arrived back in Australia for our holiday, I had to visit the counselor just to be sure that I wasn’t actually sick with anorexia nervosa. What if I actually did have the disease but was in the first stage of actually denying the truth? A few days of arriving back in Australia I started loosing sleep by the persistent thought that I was actually ill. I attempted myself to look at anorexia from any different perspectives. I never once thought that I was fat, this was something I had always known and could always see that every time I looked in the mirror. My eating habits were very routine based; every time I had the chance to cook dinner I would make pork chops with steamed veggies and if this meant I cooked dinner 7 nights a week, well then 7 nights a week we had pork chops with steamed veggies. It wasn’t because I didn’t know how to cook anything else, it was more because that’s the food I knew and trusted and it somehow became part of eating routine from when I was a child.

My appointment with the counselor was scheduled for 2 weeks after we got back from Europe. From when we arrived home up until my appointment I didn’t dare say anything to Bruce about not actually having the disease. I tried this multiple times and in the end it was falling on deaf ears.

Dr. Andrew’s seemed to be very approachable and understanding. He was a gay doctor working out of a gay medical practice on the city’s north side so had proper in-depth knowledge of health issues affecting gay men. The greatest risk I ever toke that day was look at the doctor square into the eye and say “I do not have male anorexia nervosa”.

“Well your partner seems to believe quite the opposite Brendan” he explained. Dr. Andrew’s must have sensed there was more going on in our relationship than what he was being told in our first meet. He kept on asking other questions that didn’t really seem to fit into the topic of why I had came to meet him. He started getting rather personal with a few questions and asking questions like “Why do you think Bruce believes your sick or What behaviors do you show that warrant you coming to see me today” I sat there playing with my hands and scratching parts of my body that weren’t even itchy whilst staring at a black dot on the wall trying to think of some sort of answer to respond to his questions. “I don’t know” I whispered, as I bowed my head to look at my knees. Yet I was so desperate to tell him about the number of beatings that had happened while we were overseas. I felt as if I was sitting between two giant crates of bricks that were slowly crushing me to death and yet if I spoke of the real truth it could have slipped and killed me.

Dr. Andrew’s proceeded to all the usual check-up measures. He checked my chest for Asthma, had taken my temperate, weighed me, measured my body mass index and even taken my blood pressure. “Everything’s fine Brendan, you’re a little underweight but nothing to be too concerned with, particularly if you’re doing what you’re telling me and that’s eating 3 meals a day”. Just for proof I asked him if I could have that in writing. Dr. Andrew’s by now would have caught on that there were relationship issues but it wasn’t the time for me to speak and I think he was waiting for me to raise the issue rather than him intruding on private information that was irrelevant today’s session.

I proceeded to pack up my belongings and walk for the door. “Brendan, I’d like you to come and see me again when you’re free. I think there are a few more things that you might actually like to discuss with me”. His voice was soothing and comforting, and as a professional I knew that I could tell him what was actually happening but at this point in time, it wasn’t right. “It’s not the right time” I mumbled. He simply said “I gathered that” and I walked out of his office and closed the door behind me where Bruce was waiting in the foyer for me.

In the car on the drive home Bruce was quick to ask. “Well, what did he say, is it confirmed”? I simply rolled my eyes. “No Bruce its not, it’s true what I’ve been telling you all along, I don’t have male anorexia nervosa” I explained. Bruce was in complete shock “But that can’t be, I know you have anorexia, you know that you