Trigger warning: This post contains mentions of eating disorders
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“Go on, put the kettle on.”
The sweetest words in the English language. Tea is a national symbol for respectability, calm, order, and comfort. We boil the kettle when the world is falling apart around us, as if one tea bag and two 2 sugars (milk in last, thank you very much) will save us from whatever catastrophe we’re faced with. Tea is afternoons with cakes and cream; rainy days with a good book; 4pm after a long, hard day (before gin becomes totally acceptable).
Except for me, it isn’t.
For me, it’s is burning liquid in empty stomachs. It’s sobbing silently while I boil yet another kettle; grab yet another cup. It’s green speeds the metabolism; ginger improves digestion; peppermint eases bloating.
Let me explain.
When I was in the depths of my eating disorder, tea was my saviour. I would drink endless cups of the stuff (black, no sugar-two zero calorie sweeteners on really tough days) to trick my stomach into thinking it was full. I’d even take the biscuits (and hide them in my bag when no one was looking)-‘cos hey, the girl with tea and biscuits can’t possibly have an eating disorder, right?
On bad days, I’d spend hours Googling different kinds, desperate to find the one that would speed up my metabolism and curb my hunger in one fell swoop. Had I been on Instagram at the time, no doubt I’d have ordered box loads of that Detox Tea influencers flog to their unsuspecting victims-sorry, I mean fans.
“Tea means remembering a time when I was my most selfish; my most vulnerable.”
Years later, healthy, happy, and in recovery from my eating disorder, I still get a pang of fear when someone offers me a cuppa. I remember vividly the days I spent gulping mug after mug instead of eating lunch. The smell of green tea transports me straight back to evenings online, researching the health benefits of the ghastly drink as I downed yet another cup in a desperate bid to boost my metabolism (joke was on me-starving myself absolutely f***ed my metabolism anyway. Nice one, past me!)
It’s strange, the way food and memory are so interlinked. A juicy peach will transport me back to childhood summers in the south of France; lemon meringue pie will instantly make me think of my Grandad; and a cuppa reminds of how I felt at 17: scared, broken, exhausted, and above all, hungry.
So every time someone offers me a cuppa, I freeze. Do I want a cup because I genuinely enjoy tea-or do I want a cup because part of my brain is desperate for that hungry, caffeinated feeling again? For me, making a cup of tea isn’t a simple act of boiling a kettle and grabbing a tea bag—it’s a painful process in which I’m forced to remember every mug I reluctantly downed to quiet my grumbling stomach. Tea means remembering a time when I was my most selfish; my most vulnerable.
Sometimes, a cup of tea just isn’t worth dealing with all that.
