"Weighed 38 kg and could not do anything": I am a model and struggled with anorexia
Increasingly, the focus is on model history,who are fighting for the right to gain weight; there were even relevant communities and organizations. However, the models are still criticized, and sometimes persecuted for being frank: "She herself chose this profession, this is her job." It is believed that the model - "the winner in the genetic lottery" - simply does not have the right to recover. We have to admit that the cult of thinness is still incredibly strong. And the paradox is that they are trying to implant him with the help of girls who have to fight the disease.
There are no exact statistics on the relationship between model business and eating disorders. It is believed that about 30% of girls involved in the industry encountered this, and more than 60% have ever heard a request to lose weight from their agency. Anorexia and bulimia can make even models who are not under pressure from bookers and customers. Many treat their thinness as a capital, a single value, and begin to mortally fear recover, seriously limiting themselves.
We talked with model and actress Dasha Kashirina, who with her friend founded the charity organization Notskinnyenough and Model's Start online school about her illness, fighting it and wanting to help those who are faced with eating disorders.
Dispute
At the age of thirteen in our school, I noticed for the first time girls who were older and were models. Tall and naturally slim, they went to the model school of Slava Zaitsev and participated in shows. I thought I was incredibly far away from them.
Around the same time, a friend offered me to lose weight on an argument. I agreed: it was interesting to see if I could. Besides, I always wanted to lose a little bit. I will not say that someone made comments on my weight, except in my very childhood, when I did rhythmic gymnastics. Our argument was not even about how much we could lose weight, but about whether we could barely eat: we had to persuade to consume 500 kcal per day - not more. We did not know how to count calories and knew nothing about a balanced diet. I stayed that way for a week, and then generally removed from the diet almost all carbohydrates and fats. I knew that I needed to grow to be a model — my height at that time was 163 cm — so I decided to eat meat. I ate two chops a day, a green salad with cucumbers and tomatoes, an apple, and flakes (because I heard that they had some "fibers" that made you grow).
I remember that in the first month I didn’t understand what was happening to me, I began to fall apart on others, but I did not continue to eat. Every summer in the summer at the dacha my brother and I watched a cartoon about Garfield, who was constantly preparing lasagna. I looked at it and started crying. That summer I went to the camp, where I lost even more weight. And although there was already no argument, I could not stop: I liked the way I looked. When I returned to school - in my opinion, it was ninth grade - no one expected to see me the way I came. A familiar girl, who also dreamed of losing weight, said: "Oh my God, how did you do it?" This comment was enough to feel: I'm doing everything right and it's worth it. The others said that something was wrong with me, but it did not bother me anymore.
I decided to bring the matter to the end: "Since I am losing weight, I must at least try to go to a model school." I came to the school to Slava Zaitsev, they took me, and spun. One day, Julia Shavyrina, director of the Avant model agency, saw my photos and called to her place. I came to her with the words that I had not yet graduated from model school, I do not know anything and do not know. She replied: "Believe me, all this is nonsense. In a model school, you may be taught to walk, if you are not able, but, in fact, there is not a single school that would coolly teach how to be a model. After the test photos with Lev Efimov, I started to succeed - everyone started writing to me.
The girls at the castings, who could not lose weight and who also believed in the magic of forty kilograms, said looking at me: "You're just super, you're perfect." And I thought, "Thank you, that's all I wanted to hear."
In fact, it was a permanent internal challenge. Now I’ll go to the model school and start eating normally, if I’m accepted: I went - I didn't start. I thought that now I would go to the dances, and if they accepted me and said that I looked cool, after that I would start to eat, but again I didn’t start. This went on again and again: I assigned myself a term or a figure on the scales, after which I would stop. I weighed forty-two kilograms and thought that if I eaten a pie, I would immediately recover by a kilogram. That is, I need to lose weight up to forty-one to eat it, and then I will recover back to forty-two - it will be perfect. But as soon as I lost a kilogram, I naturally wanted to lose weight again and again.
At some moments I was scared. This is a state where you cry every day, not realizing that you are freezing, losing friends, because you constantly break down on them. Nobody stays with you: you think everyone is stupid and weak. In the same school of Fame Zaitsev, there were people who, at the sight of a dress falling from me, said: "You're too thin, you need to get better." But when I heard it, I was funny. On the other hand, girls in castings who couldn’t lose weight and who also believed in the magic of forty kilograms, said looking at me: “I think this is exactly what the model should be. ". And I thought, "Thank you, that's all I wanted to hear."
I remember when I came to Shavyrina, I asked her if I needed to get better. I asked "can not", namely, "need", I wanted to be the perfect model for everyone. And she replied: "You know, we have a girl who weighs thirty-eight, and nothing." Of course, she did not know that I already had serious problems. And I by no means want to say that she made the girls lose weight. But she didn’t ask, but I didn’t tell about what is actually happening to me. And I needed someone to say: "Gain weight, because you will soon die."
With Shavyrina, we eventually did not work. She wanted to send me to Asia, but I did not leave because of school. Maybe she was just not psychologically ready. I had a lot of filming, and most photographers did not say anything bad about my weight. Only Nik Sushkevich looked at me with a chilling look and said that I needed to get better. But I did not understand, he was joking or not.
The mountains
I have always been in normal form for a child of my age. She weighed about fifty kilograms with a height of 163 cm. And she lost twelve kilograms to thirty-eight. One day my mother saw my back when I was sitting in the bath and shouted at me, and I laughed, they say, everything is okay. She saw me losing weight, but since I lied about what I was eating, my mother thought that these were just the features of the body. Parents did not know what it is, in general, no one knew. About this disease did not say, "anorexia" was for all unfamiliar word.
My mother drove me to all sorts of clinics, such as the Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. I went to the office where the doctor just said: "Well, you need to eat." I was advised to keep a food diary and eat 2000 kcal a day. But I still ate a little. I was forced to drink some kind of mixture, like athletes, like proteins and vitamins. Then I generally removed from the diet all the food.
The most pleasant thing was to go to bed and enjoy five minutes before bedtime: a feeling of calm and satiety, because when you lie, you do not want to eat so much. I wanted to extend this happiness, and I was afraid to fall asleep, because tomorrow I was waiting for the same thing: you will have to go hungry, go to school and endure the cold. In my experience, people with anorexia do not atrophy the feeling of hunger, they really want to eat, but they lie to everyone that this is not so. They are afraid of either getting better or hurting themselves with food.
Not a single calculation of calories, no change of numbers on the scales, not a single compliment to my bones could even compare with a second on this mountain, when my heart was pounding and I overcame myself
It seems to me that at some point I began to admit to myself that I could not cope. Mom saw that I was crying all the time and I could be put out of myself with one click. When I came from school, I fell on the bed and cried for two or three hours, until someone came home. Mom cried a lot herself and simply did not know what to do: her child was dying in her arms. At the same time, I never said what I think and what is happening in my head.
And then one story happened. My mother and I went to the mountains to ski, I chose to go on some kind of track and, standing already at the top, I realized that there was almost a sheer slope in front of me. No one, I can not go anywhere. It remained to either stand, cry and die, or step by step slide down as I can: falling, losing skis and climbing behind them again, picking up snow under clothes, through pain and tears.
It turned out to be very important to me. In those thirty minutes I received so much adrenaline that I realized that it was the coolest sensation in many years. Not a single calculation of calories, no change of numbers on the scales, not a single compliment to my bones could even compare with a second on this mountain, when my heart was pounding and I was overcoming myself. I started to play sports, get better, eat actively and live life to the fullest. I seemed to have "agreed" with my head.
Theater
I worked as a model for a long time - almost ten years. True, today I work is not so active. At seventeen, I decided that I would go to the university, I really wanted to become an actress, but the parents-doctors thought that this was not a profession. I entered the philological department of Moscow State University and on the very first day I saw an advertisement about the university theater MOST. They took me, I began to study in the theater troupe, I played on the stage. When I left the theater, I almost immediately got into the world of cinema - on the stage to the director Anna Melikyan for shooting in the episode. There I realized that I could not live without it and it is much more interesting than modeling and so on.
In the theater I was judged by how I play. It seemed to me that your abilities and desire to work is much more important than the parameters and appearance. And that, of course, was a relief. But I was still very complex about the weight, I was not confident in myself. I know that the whole theater just hung on my phrases, when someone suggested: "And let's go eat in the evening!" And I answered: "What? In the evening? Already more than six hours!" And although I was no longer thin and was not going to lose weight, but some habits remained. More recently, if I ate a sandwich for the night, waking up in the morning, first of all I checked how much my hand had increased.
I tried to return to modeling, but everyone told me that for this, you definitely need to lose weight. Naturally, I reacted very strongly to this. One booker promised to send me to Asia if I lose weight in a week. And she offered to eat only white meat and cucumbers, to drink some tea for weight loss and, of course, to go in for sports: "Everything will turn out quickly for you." I took test photos, but she asked to lose weight more, and then I replied: "No." At that time, I weighed fifty two kilograms with a height of 170 cm.
Help
We opened a charity organization Notskinnyenough with a friend Elena Moseykina. First of all, we are actively disseminating information about eating disorders: we find some articles about anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia, compulsive overeating, as well as how to help in such cases, and that people with a problem, not alone. We have already organized an exhibition with the girl-photographer Anna Miroshnichenko, who was ill with bulimia and has not completely overcome her disorder. She shot the same girls as she did, and under each photo was told a personal story.
We conducted a lecture and a conversation with doctors from different clinics, although there are only a few of them who deal with these problems seriously, and those are very expensive. For example, in TsIRPP, inpatient treatment costs about fifteen thousand rubles a day. There are IntuEat, which offer outpatient treatment. But each person should have an individual approach: someone needs inpatient or outpatient treatment, someone only a psychologist, someone needs a clearly prescribed diet that will comfortably follow all his life, and someone is looking for a "spiritual stumbling block." I met the guys who treat people with anorexia in a twelve-step system, like those of Alcoholics Anonymous.
One booker suggested that I eat only white meat and cucumbers, drink some slimming tea and, of course, play sports. At that time, I weighed fifty two kilos with a height of 170 cm
We would like to have not only nutritionists, who will write out a nutrition plan, but also nutritionists, who will tell you about your relationship with food and its effects on the body. That there should be psychologists who will explain why you have formed the current ideas about beauty and that you should not be ashamed to talk about neuroses. So that people understand where to get help or how to give it to loved ones. There was not a single model shooting where I would not meet a person who did not encounter bulimia and anorexia. And these are not always models, but make-up artists, photographers, and anyone else.
Even after we started helping people, I still could not adequately evaluate my diet. I thought that I had been normal for a long time, but when I began to read more about it, to meet with specialists and girls who had the same problems, I realized that the situation had not yet been resolved. My first victory, which happened only this spring, was to start eating after six. I found a comfortable type of training and I realized that, it turns out, they can not be held every day, and if you do not practice a week - that's okay too. Passed fear from the thought that it would be if I suddenly do not eat. I eat intuitively and feel super calm and free.
We, as an organization, will move towards the foundation. We want to do a lot - for example, to raise funds for treatment for those who cannot afford it, and to organize mini-camps. In my ideal presentation, it will be a whole rehab center: it will be possible to come to it for several months, there will be doctors, nutritionists, psychologists, teachers who will open up to the person his opportunities.
