Anorexie: Starving until life is at a standstill

As part of the Living Library event in the Zug Library, four people will report on their life and suffering. One of them is Nadine Fabig, who has struggled with an eating disorder for years.

Nadine Fabig from Zurich is a sympathetic young woman with lively, smart eyes. There are no permanent traces of her five-year-old anorexia problems. "Luckily," adds the 28-year-old, who now works as a florist and art therapist, and is studying art therapy.

In the end, the wish for life prevailed: "I finally wanted to get out of this role of victim and discover who I really am."

Nadine Fabig was 18 years old at the time, and had endured a five-year, unbelievably difficult period of suffering that had brought her to the brink of death several times. She will talk about this time with the visitors to the Living Library event in the Zug Library (Bibleothek Zug), which will take place on 26 September in cooperation with the Cantonal Social Office, Integration Department (Kantonalen Sozialamt, Fachstelle Integration).

Overwhelmed with everything
At the age of 13 and a half, Nadine Fabig stopped eating. Not overnight, but in a creeping process. "I was young and very shy. My body started to change, and I was overwhelmed with everything." She put enormous pressure on herself, and always wanted to be the best, says Fabig. She had visibly lost control.

"My eating behaviour was the only thing I could fully control."

Although she was not overweight, she began to follow diets. "It gave me a superior feeling of being so strong, and knowing that others need to eat, but I don't." Sometimes she experienced a real endorphin rush. "But I was also awake at night, because hunger didn't allow me fall asleep."

On the face of it, it seemed to work: all her problems were supplanted by the thoughts of eating and not eating. "I just didn't have time for problems anymore."

Eating disorder becomes an identity
She lost weight so rapidly that her condition quickly became noticeable. Parents, teachers, and classmates approached her and encouraged her to eat. She invented all sorts of excuses for not complying with these requests. "My parents reacted quickly and dragged me to the family doctor," Fabig recalls. However, she herself didn’t want to admit that she had a problem. "The eating disorder had become my identity. I was afraid that they would take it away from me," she explains with impressive clarity. Today, her diary entries from this period only seem absurd to her. The young woman also adds: "There are forums on social media where anorexia sufferers exchange ideas and hold competitions about who can stand it the longest without eating. It's totally disturbing." On the other hand, she also felt that she was not alone with her problem.

Nadine Fabig has overcome her eating disorder, and now helps other addicts and mentally ill persons as an art therapist.

Exposed to the cold
"Not only did I not eat anything, I didn't drink anything anymore," she says, shaking her head. Because, according to her, the water in the body also felt unpleasant.

"I was even afraid to touch food, because I thought the calories could be absorbed through the skin."

In the winter, she sometimes exposed herself to the cold in front of an open window for two hours with her body still wet from the shower, in order to burn even more calories. "I got pneumonia from this, and that in this weakened state."

In the end, her parents and the doctors had no choice but to send the now 14-year-old to hospital. She spent two months there with psychological care, nutrition counselling and a strict diet plan. As soon as she was out again, however, she fell back into old patterns of behaviour and emaciated herself even more than before. Nadine Fabig states: "I weighed only 33 kilos."

With a height of 153 centimetres, this corresponds to a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 14.1. A child is considered underweight is she has a BMI of less than 17.5.

She found relief in painting
A second hospital stay followed, this time for eight months. The teenager became friends with other affected people, and found painting to be a means of expression. "I quickly felt that this could be something for me." The desire soon arose within her to make painting as a form of therapy her profession. A decisive turning point in her life and her illness.

It would still take years before she could put her addiction behind her. The young woman emphasizes: "Life in the clinic is one thing, life outside is another."

Her maltreated body resisted the renewed deprivation of food with uncontrollable eating spasms, which tore the 15-year-old into a new downward spiral of feelings of guilt, hunger, fear and pain.

"In outpatient therapy, I learned that the only solution was to eat regularly and in a controlled manner." Easier said than done without feeling hungry or satiety, and with a completely shattered body feeling. Rebuilding this meant hard work for the brave high school student, who also had to cope with the regular school routine. "This is not meant to sound judgemental, but addicts with a substance-related dependence have the option of complete abstinence. Eating disorders, on the other hand, have to learn to live with their addiction every day, because it is vital for life."

Nadine Fabig found solace in art and in the desire to help others in similar situations. She knew exactly that she would have to recover in order to achieve this.

Rocky road back to life

Step by step she followed her path, paved with setbacks, obstacles, mortifying comments from people around her, but also a lot of support from her family, friends, teachers and therapists. "Over time, other things, such as friendships and relationships or education, became more important as the addiction faded. I discovered a whole new world." Fabig learned to deal with crises, and to endure them knowing that they would pass by and trusting herself to be strong enough to overcome them.

"Today, it's so nice to wake up and feel: I'm fine."

Looking back, she feels sadness at having been under the spell of this disease for so many years, and has missed a lot. "But I have also become stronger and found my destiny in the profession of art therapist. Somehow this closes the circle."

In the SRF broadcast "Health Today", in which Nadine Fabig recently told her story, she said: "When words are missing, art can be the language."

The "Living Library" event will take place on Saturday, September 26 in the Zug Library. Guests are on site: two women with eating disorders, a sect dropout and a family man who came to Switzerland as a refugee. Talks start at 1.30 pm, 2.10 pm, 2.50 pm and 3.30 pm. A reservation by e-mail to bibliothek@stadtzug.ch is recommended. Participation is free of charge.