An open let­ter to Fred­die Flintoff

Dear Fred­die,

Thank you. It’s rare to hear from peo­ple in the pub­lic eye who know how to artic­u­late the twist­ed log­ic of bulim­ia. Like you said in Belfast when vis­it­ing the moth­er and broth­er of Lau­rence, who died aged 24 from a bulim­ia-induced heart attack: ​“When you talk about being sick and the com­pul­sion to do it and the habit, I get it, because I’ve done it, and I still get the urge to do it now. But to try and con­vey it to some­body else is so difficult.”

We’ve inter­nalised a dam­ag­ing belief sys­tem that enables us to jus­ti­fy hurt­ing our­selves. You exter­nal­is­ing those beliefs with such hon­esty struck a pri­mal chord in me. I have been behav­ioural­ly ​“recov­ered” for a decade, yet in some ways recov­ery is an ongo­ing process, nev­er to be ful­ly rubber-stamped.

I devel­oped bulim­ia when I was 15, sev­en years younger than when you did, but with­out the scruti­ny of the world media and minus the crick­et­ing skills. This past week I was at my child­hood home and found a bag of print­ed-out emails from that age. In one I con­fessed to a friend: ​“i throw up all the time, i don’t feel any­thing when i do it like you’re sup­posed to, like revul­sion or any­thing, i just do it like it’s a job that has to be done and i do it, it’s been off and on for awhile… i like go a week when i am very con­trolled and then a week when it con­sumes me.”

The recip­i­ent was a smart boy but he couldn’t grasp it. No one could. One friend, all agi­tat­ed, told me: ​“Eat choco­late cake and realise that you’re not fat.” Many friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers voiced their upset over my dis­tress­ing habit of vom­it­ing. I was touched and sor­ry, but it’s alien­at­ing to com­fort some­one who can’t com­fort you, espe­cial­ly when you are sick with a men­tal illness.

That’s why what you and the Fred­die Flintoff: Liv­ing with Bulim­ia team have done is mar­vel­lous and ground-break­ing. It’s a way of putting this dis­or­der on the map. You lay it bare by lay­ing your­self bare. I can’t imag­ine the courage it took. I’m so grate­ful. You’re a pio­neer, dis­abus­ing the dis­mis­sive and wrong idea that eat­ing dis­or­ders only hap­pen to sil­ly teenage girls.

The stats you high­light­ed tell their own sto­ry: Over 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple in the UK suf­fer from eat­ing dis­or­ders, approx­i­mate­ly one in four are male; eat­ing dis­or­ders cause more deaths than any oth­er men­tal ill­ness­es; 60 per cent of men with EDs don’t seek pro­fes­sion­al help; male ath­letes are 16 times more like­ly than oth­er men to suf­fer with EDs; those who seek treat­ment for bulim­ia are nine times more like­ly to recover.

The first time I tried to seek treat­ment, my GP sent me away say­ing it was nor­mal for girls my age to diet. I nev­er for­gave him. As you touch on in the doc, the reac­tion some­one gets when they first ask for help can mean every­thing. Laurence’s doc­tor didn’t take him seri­ous­ly. I do think the world has changed since that ini­tial expe­ri­ence with my GP. The ther­a­pist I have now is a life­line. (We’ve been Skyp­ing dur­ing the pandemic.)

The three pro­fes­sion­als you spoke to were all bril­liant. I espe­cial­ly loved the sports dieti­cian for point­ing out that bulim­ia is a symp­tom of some­thing else. ​“It’s nev­er about food. It’s nev­er about body image. It’s always about some­thing deep­er, this inabil­i­ty to like who you are, for what­ev­er rea­son, deep down.” Nailed it, Renee McGregor!

It’s hard to get to the root cause when the symp­toms are so distracting.

Doc­tor Omara Naseem told you that bulim­ia isn’t just throw­ing up, but all the obses­sive behav­iours that go into com­pen­sat­ing for eat­ing a large amount of food: exer­cis­ing, restrict­ing. Eat­ing dis­or­ders present as the illu­sion of con­trol, which is thrilling until they’re like ​“Psy­che! We’re con­trol­ling YOU.”

You said it your­self. At your thinnest, when you were box­ing, you were a shell of a per­son. There was no one behind your eyes to enjoy those abs. The idea that at a cer­tain weight you’ll be at peace is a mirage, Fred­die. You know that.

We have a pho­bia of weight gain. It’s no won­der, in your case. The press were so cru­el and no one sat you down and advised you on how to han­dle it. You were young and alone and under a lot of pres­sure. Things are dif­fer­ent now. You are old­er, wis­er and have con­tributed to a world that is start­ing to treat men­tal ill­ness with the rev­er­ence it deserves.

I real­ly, real­ly hope that you decid­ed to com­mit to treat­ment with Dr Naseem at the Maud­s­ley Hos­pi­tal. I know you’re scared of going back to being ​“a fat lad” and the trau­ma asso­ci­at­ed with that point in your life. That fear needs to be unpicked because it’s about more than it seems. I don’t mean to sound like I know it all. I def­i­nite­ly don’t. I just want you to know what it’s like to be healthy. Every­one deserves good men­tal health. Every­one. Noth­ing com­pen­sates for it: not fam­i­ly, not a career. You deserve to be well.

I want to end this let­ter the same way I start­ed it, by thank­ing you. You told Dr Naseem that you were wor­ried about reac­tions to the pro­gramme. ​“You’re mak­ing your­self vul­ner­a­ble,” she said. ​“I don’t like being vul­ner­a­ble,” you replied. ​“Nobody does. I think it’s a skill that can be learned.” ​“Can it? I don’t know if I want to learn it.”

Fred­die, that vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty is so pow­er­ful. It con­nect­ed to a part of me that hard­ly ever receives oxy­gen and now I am speak­ing about it too. You’re unearthing a new lan­guage, one so close to the bone that it hurts to exca­vate, that will give peo­ple who suf­fer, their loved ones and any­one on the cusp of bulim­ia a gold­mine of perspective.

Thank you for that.

Look after your­self, please.

Love, Sophie

Fred­die Flintoff: Liv­ing with Bulim­ia is avail­able now via BBC iPlayer.