I needed to find some way to disappear and become inconsequential, as if I did society maybe wouldn’t notice the disability. The eating disorder was the only way I could see to do this.
The myths of eating disorders are stopping people getting help. These myths are making people more ill and in my case these myths destroyed my 17-year-old life.
Anorexia persuaded me that my actions were completely normal. When others behaved differently, they were wrong and I was right.
Developing an eating disorder is never an active choice. No individual would willingly put themselves through the torture of this type of mental illness...
I want to share my experience because I feel like while there is obviously a lot of support for the eating disorder sufferer and the parents, siblings are all too often the forgotten victims of eating disorders.
Throughout the years that I have suffered from an eating disorder, all the attempts that I have made at recovery, I would read other people’s stories and think, “what’s the point? It will never happen for me.”
I used to think that writing about my own story and struggles with an eating disorder was a bit self-absorbed or maybe even pretentious.
I believed no one understood my battle and dug myself a deep hole I did not anticipate I could re-emerge from. By definition, I was a person who was anxious and anorexic. I believed this was who I was, so it could not be changed.
In today’s society, so many people are loud-and-proud gym bunnies, constantly posting on social media about PBs, juice cleanses and gruelling, military style workouts.
Let's rewind five years. A young girl, just 17, her bags packed, sat in the car trembling with fear. Where was I going? What is this place going to be like? Did I really need to go?
Recovery. It evokes so many different emotions for different people. It may frighten you, it may frustrate you, it may encourage you. For me, recovery is all that and more.
At the age of eighteen I had my place to study Music in September…however, I was also in the depths of anorexia.