The hidden death penalty

The hidden death penalty

Marie Szewczyk describes how she embarked on a self-destructive journey and cultivated the illusion that to be thin would bring happiness

In prison, many women experience a reduced self-esteem, sometimes self-loathing, torment and guilt. By its very nature a prison sentence carries a stigma that can be a lifelong burden and the after effects never fully disappear. This in itself can be very debilitating but for some women there is another sentence which might be served as a result of the experience of imprisonment, which can become a death penalty.



The prison authorities have full control over everyday life and often the only thing prisoners can control is their diet. They are told when to go to bed, when to get up and when to eat. Sometimes there is insufficient choice of food and therefore they are told what to eat, but never how much to eat. Quite often ‘eating distress’ results from trauma or from an urge to manipulate the only thing we have control over.

In my case, what crime had I committed at the age of 8 that sentenced me to 25 years of secrecy and self blame? A sentence that recently, at under 5 stone, exercising compulsively for 5 hours a day, almost cost me my life? My crime? Being just that bit too fat, unaware, more through the innocence of childhood, I embarked on a journey of a self-destructive relationship with food. It became my companion and best friend but paradoxically my enemy, as I sought comfort to console myself following the traumatic events I was to experience during the first 30 years of my life.

I was punished by my guilt and the constant ridicule and bullying by others as I cultivated that familiar illusion that to be thin would bring happiness. I would be able to accept myself and, more importantly, others would accept me.

For those experiencing eating distress of some form, they may or may not be aware that the obsession with food, weight and shape is merely a focus for the far deeper-rooted complex causes from which we are really trying to escape.

The sufferer goes through hell, torturing her/himself by counting every single calorie of every morsel put in their mouth or going to extreme measures to avoid or limit every bit of carbohydrate or fat that the anorexic voice convinces will make them balloon. There is the constant body checking, secret behaviour, hiding food, vomiting, laxative/diuretic abuse and binning food.

Longing on the one hand for somebody to rescue them from this misery, but terrified that the one thing in their lives they still have control over will be taken away. If you take away our anorexia, where will we run to? What will we do with our overwhelming feelings of guilt, responsibility and anger? Who is going to help me deal with those emotions that the eating distress has deadened or become a focus for, if we start to allow ourselves to feel them.

Nobody resorts to crime without a reason and it's the same with anorexia. There is always an underlying cause eating away at the soul of the offender.

Are the skills, the support and the resources available within the prison system to help sufferers, and are they appropriate? Is there even the right level of awareness of this ever increasing problem?

Just because a prisoner attends the dining room, or takes food to her/his cell three times a day doesn't mean there isn't a problem. Does anybody notice the gradual yet alarming weight loss, resulting in the skeletal frame that wanders, cold, withdrawn and dressed in layers on the exercise yard to hide their diminishing body?

Are you, as a sufferer, aware of the change in your behaviour, thoughts and feelings around food and the way your body appears to you? Are your hours spent thinking of food and the meals you'll create for your family when you get home?

Be aware earlier rather than later, anorexia is a life-threatening disease that doesn't go away when you reach your target weight. The only way to avoid the ‘hidden sentence’ is to reach out and go outwards, not inwards, with your suffering. Break the cycle of guilt before you're in it for life, without licence.

Ask the prison healthcare staff if you can talk to an ‘expert by experience’, somebody who knows the problems having suffered themselves. Can a support meeting be arranged for people that will help them to avoid being lost to a sentence that doesn't end when you walk out of the prison gate?

Although recovery may seem a long way off, if not impossible, I firmly believe through my experience of a life of anorexia, bulimia, alcoholism, drug addiction and self-harm, that each individual has the incredible strength and power within them to recover from this illness. The first step is the acknowledgement to oneself that there is a problem. Secondly, finding the determination to resolve to change and then asking for the resources, materials and support of other people who can help you make that journey.

• Marie is currently in the process of setting up a community outreach support group based at Gemini in Oxford for people in the Midlands experiencing eating disorders. Contact Marie Szewczyk at: Gemini, The Rectory Centre, Rectory Road, Cowley, Oxford OX4 1BU. Tel: 01865 455611.