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I first learned what a calorie was before I started nursery school. Not a unit of energy, not something we need to keep us alive, but something to evade, something dangerous that hid in food and was to be avoided at all costs
To this day, my relationship with food is a complex one, but I am very much of the belief that next year will be better, and the year after that will be even better.
The first time my mum worried I might have an eating disorder, I was 12. I was a competitive athlete, and a knee injury prevented me from training. I was terrified of gaining weight – I’d been afraid of being ‘fat’ throughout my childhood.
Everyone who is suffering with an eating disorder or any mental health issues should not be afraid to ask for help and get support.
Even now, years into my recovery, I struggle with anxiety around change and loss of control. Feelings that have been magnified by the events over the last few months. I can easily recognise how these current additional anxieties we are all facing could be extremely overwhelming for those still in the midst of their battle with an eating disorder.
I have also been frustrated with myself for making what I thought was ‘little’ progress in my recovery. However, I now realise that I need to stop criticising myself, and instead be proud of where I am today.
When lockdown came into force – what seems like a whole lifetime ago – I struggled. Like many people who experience eating problems, I felt so threatened by the changes in routine, the limited availability of certain foods, the massive uncertainty of it all
Be kind to yourself and give yourself a break – worrying and feeling guilty about food, exercise and weight gain is not essential and will make an already difficult and anxiety-ridden period worse.
I want to shed some light on diet culture and what it drove me to do to myself for eight years. I will never get those eight years back, but what I do know is that I will never put myself through all the self-inflicted pain it took in order to look a certain way.
Self-isolation is hard for everyone right now; everyone with an eating disorder is aware that there is pressure on every single person’s mental health.
In the present chaos of COVID-19, I write these words from my own personal story as a reminder to your precious self that there is light in the midst of the uncertainty, confusion and calamity.