People often asked me what started my anorexia. My old self had been forgotten and I was learning how to get her back again.
I don't recall booking a flight for two, but there you were, firmly planted into the seat next to me.
If you ran a marathon without any shoes on you certainly wouldn’t win, so don’t punish yourself if you’ve had setbacks because of an eating disorder.
I woke up a few years back with a voice in my head, at first, I thought it was my friend but over time it filled me with dread.
If I could speak to myself at each of the pivotal moments in my illness, starting when my anorexia developed after my 16th birthday, this is what I'd say.
My story begins when I was 16 with a motivation to shift a few pounds to look ‘slimmer’ in prom photos. It became a monster of an eating disorder.
So I'm visiting the place where, in one respect, it all ended but, in another, where it all began.
It was a shock to be diagnosed with anorexia at the age of 32. I wasn’t a teenager, I didn’t see myself as skinny, I was still eating.
Anorexia isn’t the same for everyone, & whilst the majority of patients share negative attitudes towards food, it doesn’t manifest itself in the same ways.
I never wanted to play football at school; I never really wanted to take part in anything like that. I did occasionally partake in table tennis.
For me, letting go of anorexia and choosing recovery was about acknowledging that I had an identity separate from the eating disorder.
There are a lot of things that often trigger people recovering from an eating disorder. Here are some of them.