Your Stories

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.

Now, I’m having to source ingredients and make food-related decisions in the moment, thus shaking me from my self-imposed reverie. This, added to my constant fear of someone coughing on me next to the tubs of Hellmans makes what should be a straightforward activity into a frantic, emotionally charged scenario.

These two posts, written two years apart, show how Mel managed to overcome a lot of the anxiety she felt around shopping for food.

Spreading kindness during this period in time is such a beautiful thing to do not only for those you are offering kindness to but also for your own wellbeing.

I have suffered with anorexia for about 2 1/2 years now, and the descent into the disorder was very fast and absolutely devastating.

The theme of this week is ‘kindness’. That means, we can all be kind for 7 days, and then get back to being cruel, nasty and inconsiderate.

Self-care is a broad term that could mean anything from eating well to hypnosis, exercising to getting a haircut, watching your favourite film at the end of a long day with a foot bath to seeing a therapist. The list goes on and on.

Ramadan this year is very different for all Muslim households, as the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed everything.

Covid-19 is doing strange things to my perception, my lungs, my mind. And strangely, I am also thinking… “Phew, I’m glad I’ve been locked up before!”