Jiska Smeets (27) from Bergen op Zoom tries to balance on a pole for six hours on Saturday. She does this during the Last Man Standing event on the Neude in Utrecht. She wants to draw attention to people with psychological complaints. From 2013, Jiska herself struggled with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa. She wants to show that recovery is possible. “I am living proof that things can really work out.”
Jiska, along with dozens of other participants in Last Man Standing, wants to be an example for others, because she missed this very much during her illness. “People talk too little about psychological problems.”
The action on Saturday is from the interest group MIND, which stands up for people with psychological complaints and makes their problems a topic for discussion. This may include depression, burnout, pressure to perform and eating or anxiety disorders. MIND insists that mental health is just as important as being physically healthy and is therefore holding targeted campaigns such as Last Man Standing.
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And that is badly needed, Jiska thinks. Her troubles started “quite innocently.” She was fond of food and never concerned with her weight. “During anorexia lectures at school I thought: no, I will never get that!”
“As a child I had many inexplicable fears.”
But that turned out differently. When Jiska moved into rooms for her International Lifestyle Studies degree, she developed feelings and emotions that she was unable to deal with. “As a child I had many inexplicable fears. In addition, I had a restless home situation and I was afraid of the future.” She could not turn off these fears and thus developed her eating disorder.
“I found my peace by counting calories, otherwise I would panic.” From one day to the next she decided to give up certain products, such as pasta. “It made me a structure junkie. It was a tough job mentally, because I lost myself. I quickly realized that it was wrong.”
“My body really took a beating.”
She was also rapidly deteriorating physically. She lost a lot of muscle mass, causing her legs to go limp. She lost her energy and started to suffer from hair loss. “It got extreme pretty quickly. My body really took a beating, because of the competitive part of the eating disorder.”
At one point, her GP referred her to the Mental Health Care (GGZ). Interviews with psychologists and dietitians followed. “But because I lived alone, I continued to deteriorate.”
She therefore decided to undergo full-time treatment. Her recovery was accelerated, but after six months things went wrong. “I was back on weight, so I wanted to stop my treatment. I didn’t think about all the underlying issues, which quickly deteriorated it again. It felt embarrassing when I came back to mental health care again, but I didn’t want to continue to struggle for the rest of my life.”
“I didn’t want to fall back into old habits.”
In the end she came out on top, by making clear agreements with herself. This involved looking for motivation points and signaling bad feelings in time. “I loved life too much to give away to an eating disorder. That’s why I didn’t want to fall back into old habits.” She has been stable for several years now. She is married, has a one-year-old son and a nice job. “Life always has ups and downs, but I’m comfortable in my own skin.”
Jiska also tells her story in the service of volunteer organization JIJ. As an experience expert she has been offering help to others with an eating disorder for four years now. She also contributed to a book in which people with eating disorders talk about their experiences.
By standing on a pole for six hours on Saturday, Jiska wants to raise money for a walk-in house in Rotterdam, self-help groups and individual counseling for people with psychological complaints. “Ultimately, we want to create more attention and openness to psychological suffering.”