I decided that I was going to diet when I was 12 years old, I was just starting
to go through puberty and there were changes happening to my body that I
didn't like. I developed these boobs that all the boys at school made fun of, it
felt so wrong to have something so womanly when I was still a child. I suppose
it felt almost sexual and I was embarrassed!
Around the same time my mum started drinking heavily, she'd always had a
problem with alcohol and drank every night but now she was drinking all day
every day. With the drink she became aggressive - both physically and
verbally - and she'd say anything just to hurt me and my sister.
So, aged 12 and stood in a changing room in Tammy Girl where everything
that I tried on looked so wrong, I decided that I was going to diet. Before that
moment I never really thought about food and exercise, I ate what I fancied
and I was active enough in my day to day life. I didn't know what a calorie
was, or if I did I didn't care. Food was food and weight was weight and, before
that moment in that changing room, it was that simple for me.
I'm not quite sure when that diet became anorexia, but soon I was going days
without eating and then binging. I wanted results quick because I thought the
sooner the weight came off the sooner I'd be happy. Just 5 more pounds and
I'd be ok. That's the funny thing though, you carry on thinking that another 5
pounds will solve your problems, another 5 pounds and you will allow yourself
to eat, but another 5 pounds takes you further and further into this black
hole that consumes you.
I was anorexic all the way through my exam years and could barely focus in
school. I never made the friends that everyone else made, in fact I lost most of
mine, and I was never part of a group. Anorexia ruined my teens, ruined my
last few years of school and stopped me doing the normal things that
everyone else my age was doing.
During sixth form, when everyone else was going out to the pub or driving to
McDonalds for lunch, I sat alone in the school library and wrote list after list
of all of the foods that I wanted to eat but wouldn't allow myself. I got invited
out a few times, but everyone got so used to me turning down invitations and
slowly they stopped coming.
I began to realise I had a problem during my last year of A levels and I
resolved to eat more once I left school. I did keep that promise, but the
restricted diet still remained, I didn't seek outside help so just put 500
calories onto my 800 calorie diet and thought that would be enough... I didn’t
just do that though, I then discovered exercise and, after 3 years I'd not
gained a single pound - I'd lost 10 more.
The turning point for me was just before I turned 21, I'd been having dizzy
spells and I kept having the same dream - I was dying, crying out for help but
the sound wouldn't come and nobody could hear me. That was when I first
went to my GP and asked for help.
The first counsellor that I saw I found quite hopeless, the way she spoke was as
if I could just get better now that I knew that I had a problem, but she didn't
help me to work through the fears that I had, fears that I'd hate the body
that I developed through recovery, fears that I'd spend the rest of my life
miserable because of my body. I didn’t understand recovery and change was
scary to me, anorexia was all I knew, it was my comfort blanket and, in all
honesty, it felt like the only thing in my life that made me special and unique.
For my counsellor it seemed as simple as telling me I'd like myself once I
gained weight, that if I thought happy thoughts I would be happy, but I didn't
see how that would work and soon I stopped attending sessions.
One day in 2011 something clicked, I was so tired of just existing in this
groundhog day of calculating calories and exercise. I was also 24 and in a long
term relationship and I wanted more than anything to become a mum, it
was that that suddenly felt more important than being thin. I sought help
again and this time I was fully ready to embrace it.
I started seeing a CPN in August 2011 and this time I had the answers that
I needed - a beginning, middle and end to recovery, an explanation of
everything I could expect to happen to my body during recovery. I saw a
dietician too, he explained how weight and food affected my perception and
gave a great analogy about weight dispersal - the house one, the one where
you have to build all the foundations before you do the aesthetics and how my
body would take on the weight in the same way, by repairing the internal
damage before it laid down any fat.
I was so surprised by the amount I was eating just to gain small amounts of
weight and it was all a much slower process that I thought it would be. It took
5 months for me to get into a healthy weight range and, much to my
surprise, I wasn't fat at all.
More than the weight, I started to get a social life back because my life wasn't
solely about locking myself away with my exercise bike. I started meeting up
with friends and I started having takeaways. I also left the relationship that I
was in, because it was an abusive relationship, but something that gave me
consistency in my life, but once I had physical strength, I became emotionally
strong too and I realised how damaging that relationship actually was.
My weight fluctuated in the first 18 months of recovery (something that the
dietician has warned would probably happen) and it finally settled down to a
healthy weight, perfect for my height but so much heavier than I'd previously
thought I'd be happy with, but I was happy and I most definitely didn't feel
fat.
I met my current partner in 2013, at a time where I'd learnt to be alone, to
rely only on myself and, more importantly, at a time when I had slowly
learnt to like myself. In December the same year I found out that I was
pregnant, which was the greatest thing to come out of my recovery. I was
worried that I'd struggle with seeing my body change, but I have never felt as
beautiful as I did when I was pregnant. Funny really, I'd always equated being
thin with being happy, but I gained 3 stone during that pregnancy and it was
the happiest I'd ever felt.
Today I have been weight restored for 5 years and my life has changed so
much. I now have two children and a fiancé who make me infinitely more
happy than that eating disorder did. I have a life, I have a family and I have
friends. I can't relate to that anorexic version of me anymore, I feel sad for
her. Recovery was honestly the best thing I have ever done and I know that
my little boys mean that I will never slip back, because I want to live and I
want to be happy for them.