Sibby's story - eating disorders and disability

Trigger warning: This piece discusses childhood trauma, bullying, eating disorders, blindness, medical trauma, anxiety, and hospitalisation. Please take care of yourself while reading.

Sometimes I try to trace where everything began, as if there might be one clear starting point that explains how I arrived here. But pain doesn’t begin like that. It doesn’t come with a single moment you can point to. It builds quietly, over time, layering itself into your life until one day you realise it has been there all along, shaping you in ways you didn’t yet have the words to understand.

I wasn’t born broken. I was a little girl with soft, rounded cheeks and pigtails that never stayed neat. My hair bobbles were always slipping loose because I was always moving, always daydreaming, always running toward something imaginary. I wore thick Minnie Mouse glasses that magnified my eyes, making them look far too big for my small face. They slid down my nose constantly, but I didn’t care. Behind them, the world was blurred and unfinished. Colours melted into one another, edges softened, shapes never quite settled. But to me, it was still beautiful.

I was gentle. I was curious. I was full of feeling. Too full, sometimes. Even as a very small child, I carried more emotion than I knew how to hold. I had already been through things that left quiet scars, things I didn’t understand yet. I didn’t know how to explain the ache of learning too early that not all adults protect, and not all systems support. I was too small to put words to it, but my body remembered. My heart remembered.

Before the age of ten, I was in mainstream school, and it was not kind to me. I was bullied. I was abused. I was different, and difference made me a target. Those experiences lived inside me long after the school days ended. I didn’t have the language for trauma. I didn’t know how to say, this hurts, or this isn’t fair, or I am scared. I just knew that something inside me felt heavy and unsafe.

Food became comfort. Sweetness became relief. Biscuits, chocolate, treats that softened the sharp edges of the world. When I ate, something inside me settled. The noise quietened. My chest felt less tight. Food held me when I didn’t feel held. It wasn’t about hunger. It was about safety.

I escaped into books. Enid Blyton worlds felt safer than the real one. In my imagination there were secret doors and hidden forests, magic trees and children who belonged exactly as they were. I could disappear there without needing permission. I didn’t go because I hated life. I went because I felt everything so deeply that I needed somewhere to put it.

As I grew older, nothing became simpler. My vision worsened. My emotions intensified. My body began to change in ways I didn’t understand or feel in control of. Because I couldn’t fully see myself, I relied on others to describe me. Their words carried enormous weight. Their opinions felt like facts. Judgement landed heavily when you don’t have a clear mirror of your own to push back with.

My weight never stayed still. It went up. It came down. It never settled. I felt like a human yo-yo, pulled between extremes, never allowed to exist comfortably in the middle. I was trying desperately to feel okay in a body that never felt like home.

When I was sixteen, there was an accident. It was just that. An accident. Another student was coming through a door at the same time as me, and we collided. It was ordinary. No drama. Nobody at fault. Afterwards, I felt unwell. Dizzy. Sick. Exhausted. I lay down to rest. I slept. And when I woke up, the world didn’t come back.

There were no shadows. No colours. No light. Not darkness, but absence. Like the world had been switched off while I was asleep.

Blindness arrived all at once. There was no time to prepare, no gradual adjustment. Childhood ended without warning. Life continued around me while I stood still, trying to understand how something so fundamental could disappear overnight.

In the aftermath of that loss, anorexia took hold. If I couldn’t control what I saw, maybe I could control my body. Hunger felt easier than grief. Numbers felt safer than emotions. Restriction gave me structure when everything else felt chaotic. My body became the place where all the pain I couldn’t speak went to live.

In my late teens and early twenties, another layer was added. I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome. My hormones felt constantly out of balance. My weight changed no matter what I did. My body didn’t respond the way I was told it should. I tried everything physically. Diets. Exercise. Control. Discipline. But emotionally, I was exhausted. Nothing felt easy. Nothing felt stable. Living with blindness, an eating disorder, and PCOS felt like fighting a battle with no clear rules and no finish line.

Years passed. I became an adult carrying childhood sensitivity, teenage trauma, hormonal imbalance, and a body I didn’t feel safe inside. My weight continued to fluctuate. People commented. People noticed. People speculated. No one heard how loud my head was, how every change felt like confirmation that I was failing at being human.

Fast forward several years. It is September 2025. I am trying to book a doctor’s appointment because something doesn’t feel right. Swallowing feels unsafe. My chest feels tight. I feel breathless. I know anxiety well, but this feels different. This feels physical.

Within six weeks, everything escalates. By mid-October, I am admitted to hospital. I am struggling to swallow, struggling to breathe, and there are concerns about my heart. This admission has nothing to do with anorexia. It is about a real, physiological problem. Reflux makes swallowing terrifying. Every attempt to eat feels like a risk. My throat tightens. Panic takes over. I am afraid I will choke.

I stay in hospital for two months. My freedom disappears. My autonomy is stripped away. Toward the end of my stay, I feel my eating disorder returning in a way that breaks my heart. Not because I want it to, but because fear and control have always been linked for me.

Things become harder. My anxiety increases. I am forced to keep my side room door open all day, not just at meal times. For someone sensitive to noise, and unable to see or hear when people enter, this is terrifying. People appear without warning. Sound crashes into me. I have no privacy, no control, no sense of safety.

I am discharged, but I am not healed. I struggle daily. Recovery is not neat or inspiring. It is slow and frightening and exhausting. But I am here.

I think often about that little girl with pigtails and slipping glasses. She didn’t survive everything she did for me to give up now. Her softness was never a flaw. Her need for comfort was never weakness.

And if you are reading this and see yourself in these words, please know you are not alone. In the UK, Beat is a charity that supports people affected by eating disorders and those who care about them. They listen. They understand. They remind people like me that support is allowed.

I am still scared. I am still learning. But I am staying.

And today, that is enough.

If Sibby's story resonates with you, please reach out to our Helpline via one-to-one webchat, email or phone call: our Helpline