La scène pour (re)naître (Arnaud et Olympe 2/2)

Transfert

Olympe recounts her harrowing journey through severe anorexia, which led to a weight of 2/4kg and life-threatening physical complications. A

Key takeaways

Olympe's weight dropped to a critical 24kg, causing liver damage, osteoporosis, and hair loss.
The neurofunctional disorder (TNF) caused temporary paralysis in her arm and leg due to anxiety-driven neurological interference.

Main topics

Anorexia recovery
Mental health and anxiety

Notable quotes

I don't want to see myself, I don't want to meet in a window, I don't want to see myself in a mirror. And now I'm dead.

Conclusion

A profound testament to how unexpected human connection and creative p

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:11) Olympe is 15 when her life changes. From day to day, the high school girl stops eating. Then, she goes down to hell. Because of her illness, she no longer goes to high school. She then starts doing sketches on social media. Hospitalized, she falls on an interview with the anorexic comedian Arnaud Demanche. Olympe writes to her from her hospital bed. The comedian then challenges her. Olympe's story is the second part of a two-part story. Don't forget to listen to the first episode, told from Arnaud's point of view. You're listening to Transfert. This testimony was collected by Louise Réjean. Be careful, this episode addresses sensitive subjects. If you want to know more, find all the details in the description of the episode. Speaker 2 (1:12) I was born on January 28, 2007. I live very well with my mother, my sister. Then I have two little brothers, from my mother and my stepfather. I am very close to my mother, very close. I consider my stepfather as my father because he raises me. Everything is going very well. I am a happy little girl. I have a happy childhood. I am a very thin little girl, very small, a very small person, a little shrimp. It's true that I have a big gap with other children, but it doesn't ask me any problems at all. I don't ask too many questions. My mom likes to dress me up, put little barrettes in my hair and I take a taste of it directly. I buy the first pair of princess shoes in plastic. I'm three years old and I walk like that all over the house, which terrifies my mother. I love going to the stores, buying new little dresses. So I'm a very big fashionista. Everyone tells me, yes, Olympe, later she will be a stylist, it's a fashion, she loves it. Not at all, precisely because it's my passion, I want it to remain my passion and I don't want to do my job. I have another passion, on the other hand, which I dream of doing my job later. I love to make people laugh. When I was little, I did sketches for my parents. I'm the little kid, a bit funny, who arrives at 7pm with, please sit down, I have a pesticle to do. I dress up all the time, I put my heels in plastic, I put on lipstick, I pick my mother's lipstick. It's all in the show. I grow up, the primary comes to me, I have a little pressure, it comes naturally, I'm like that in nature. I get up rather... Anxious, studious, but it's going well. Then comes the entrance to college. It's going well, I'm still a very serious student. I have good grades. Besides that, I grow up correctly. So I'm still small in size. I haven't grown up much, but it still doesn't cause me any problems. I still don't have any problems with my body. Now I'm an anxious girl. And it's true that my body reacts to the slightest little stress. One morning, I was 12, I woke up and I couldn't use my left arm anymore. I couldn't get up, I couldn't carry things, even opening a bottle of water, I couldn't do it. So I regularly took exams, I even took a neurological exam to be sure that nothing was more serious. And there was absolutely nothing on the exam. So one day I went to the emergency room. And when I arrive at your emergency, I'm told that I have TNF, which is neurofunctional disorder. And it's a neuron in the brain that is stuck on another neuron. And for me, it's my anxiety neuron that is too activated and so it's stuck on another neuron. And that's the mobility of my left arm. The advantage is that there is nothing serious. The disadvantage is that we don't know when it will come back. And it can come back at any time too. I adapt very quickly, I use the right arm to compensate, I live without difficulty in reality and I get used to it. But it's true that it's disturbing when at 12 years old we have an arm that doesn't work anymore and we don't really know the reason. My arm stays frozen for two years. At 14 years old, while I'm in sports, I fall and I can't get up. I'm quickly taken over by the high school team, who call my parents saying, Olympe has fallen, Olympe can't get up. And there, my parents are worried because they say, it's still like the arm, but on the leg. And there, it's worrying because we can't walk anymore. I'm taken to the emergency room. I spend six hours in the emergency room. There's a doctor who makes me laugh because he tells me, maybe your shoes are too big. So no, it's not a shoe problem, I think. And my mother, she doesn't let go. She doesn't want me to go home without an answer. So she says, no, we have to find something, it's not possible, I'm not bringing her home, my daughter's condition is deteriorating, it's not possible. And luckily, there's a neurologist who is at midnight, in the service, and he examines me. And that's where he puts the diagnosis of TNF, which tells me, you have TNF, that's the anxiety neuron that is on the neuron of the mobility of your left leg. And unfortunately for you, we don't know when it will come back. I collapse because I think I can't walk anymore. So very quickly, I'm put in a wheelchair and I think I have to wait. There's no solution because it's psychological. Unfortunately, the only solution to walk is not to be stressed anymore, which is not really a solution when you're already stressed. So it's true that it's complicated and the more we know it's stress, the more we're going to be stressed. So at that moment, it's very complicated in my head. I'm 14 years old, I'm in a wheelchair. It's hard to know how my life will be. This situation lasts four months. At first, I go to school. Then, it's too complicated. In a wheelchair, it's not adapted. So, I work my classes at home. From time to time, I go back to school. And after four months, one morning, I wake up. And without explanation, I walk again. Strangely, I'm not at all happy. Because the first thought that comes to mind is what's going to happen to me. Indeed, I'm walking again. My left arm, I use it again without problem. But what's going to happen to me tomorrow? I understand that my body reacts to the slightest inner stress. So I'm not safe, that something will happen to me tomorrow. In the summer of 2023, I'm 16 years old. I'm walking again. I'm going on vacation with my family. And it's going well. But at that moment, I weigh 40 kilos for 1,50 m. So I'm a little bit bigger. And I start to eat less. I eat a proper lunch, the same as everyone else, in the evening too. But there are a few steps that I skip. I don't eat too many snacks. At breakfast, I eat very little, just an apple. I don't nibble, I don't really take an apéro like everyone else on vacation. So I notice it right away, I tell everyone, I say, yes, I'm less hungry. And quickly, as I'm a little kid, of course, it shows. My mother looks at me and says, Olympe, you're losing weight. So she puts the scale in front of me and says, you're going to go on the scale. It's only been a week since I've eaten less and I see that I've already lost 3 kilos since I'm 37 kilos. That's when hell begins since I say to myself, OK, I'm losing weight by eating less, so I'm going to try to go down a little bit lower on the scale by saying right away in my head, Once I reached 30 kilos, I stopped. It's a challenge between me and myself. I don't know how to explain it because I don't have any problem with my appearance. I don't think I'm fat, I don't look ugly. I just want to lose weight. I stop eating more and more quickly. I don't skip a breakfast and a snack. I don't eat like the others. When, for example, the others eat carbonara pasta, I just eat natural pasta. I don't want sauce, I don't want lard. I really decrease very quickly until I find myself eating a 0 % yogurt per day. And at the beginning of September, I reach my goal, since I weigh 30 kilos. And that's difficult because for the first time, I see myself different in the mirror. I see myself big. I feel dirty, not pretty, I don't feel loved. There are many feelings that mix, there is not even just the physical, there is everything. I feel like a waste, I see myself very badly and I don't like it at all. I want to go even lower, while I'm starting to be in a state of corpse. My mom is very worried because she sees that I have lost 10 kilos. She takes me to see my doctor. The doctor gives me a blood test to see if I am not hypoglycemic. I am obviously hypoglycemic because I eat 1,4%, so it's 60 calories, that's all. I am deficient everywhere. And my doctor tells me, it's not possible, Olympe, you have anorexia. We will have to make a request for a treatment in a hospital. I arrive at the emergency room with the letter that the doctor wrote so that I could be taken care of more quickly. And I come across a lady at the emergency room who looks at me and says to my mom, yes, she lost 10 kilos, she's not well. Her results are bad, but we don't have any room to take care of her. And her condition is serious, but she's not purple at the edge of death. Watch her, and she has to go home. And my mom is terrified because she says, OK, so we're telling myself that my daughter is not well, my daughter is in a critical state, but not yet serious enough to be taken in an emergency. I'm happy because I'm going home. I mostly wanted to go to the hospital, and I continue not to eat. I have no connection with my body. I'm not there anymore. I'm totally dissociated. At this point, my brain is thinking and my body is just something that envelops me. But I don't use it anymore. I don't feel anything anymore. I lose all sensation because I'm able to put my hand on a heating plate and burn myself. Physically, we'll see that I'm burned, but without feeling anything. My body doesn't belong to me anymore. Speaker 2 (11:14) I go home first, I do the first 15 days and I'm too weak, it's physical, I can't hold it because I don't eat. I lost a lot of adipose tissues, so it's the tissues that are at the level of the mouth. So I can't express myself because I'm too thin. My hands, I'm very fragile, I cut myself easily just with a sheet. It's very complicated, I can't take a class, I can't take an 8h, 18h30. So after 15 days, the high school asks me to rest a little month at home. And then we'll see. Which bothers me a lot because I'm a very studious student, very anxious. So I immediately answer, no, no, I'm going to go to class. I will continue. But since I don't have the right, so I can't, I still continue to work at home. I make a few back and forth to the hospital, one of which particularly shocks me, since I arrive at midnight after a meal that takes place very difficultly at home. I'm given, although it's been three months that I only eat white cheese, 0%, I'm given an egg. And I eat it, but I have the