I’ve spent a long time deciding how and when to share my story. Now feels like the right time to do so.
In the early days of my recovery, I would post on social media, hoping that being open might help others. Looking back now, I realise that although those posts came from a good place, they weren’t always as helpful as I thought they were. Time and healing have given me perspective and it’s only now, as someone who has rebuilt their relationship with food, that I feel ready to speak honestly and responsibly about my experience and what recovery really looks like.
Recovery isn’t something you achieve once and tick off a list. It’s a choice you make every day. The voice of my eating disorder still shows up sometimes, but my own voice is much louder and stronger now. I live a full life alongside that reality. I beat bulimia and anorexia, and I truly believe that if I can do it, others can too.
I wouldn’t be here without my family, or the network of support I had around me: NHS services, CAMHS, hospital staA, counsellors, GPs, and Beat. Community has played such a huge role in my journey and that’s why this feels like the right time to talk.
I can trace the start of my body image struggles back to being around twelve years old. I became very aware of my body and deeply afraid of gaining weight. As I grew older, this turned into cycles of dieting and trying different “quick fixes”, without really understanding the damage I was doing.
When I was sixteen, things escalated. I thought I had come up with a practical way to eat without gaining weight and purged for months after meals. I didn’t know what bulimia was, let alone realise it was something I’d developed. That belief shattered one evening when my mum sat on my bed beside me, holding the NHS Choices website on her phone.
She asked gently, “Do you think this sounds like what you’re going through?”
I read through the page and thought, this is exactly me. Then she scrolled to the top. The heading said Bulimia.
It was one of the most confronting moments of my life. But it was also the beginning of getting help. Because my mum understood eating disorders, she knew what to look for and how to start seeking support. We reached out to my GP, and I began treatment.
Without her knowledge and willingness to act, I don’t like to think about how different my story could have been.
As I tried to stop purging, something else quietly took over. My eating became more restrictive, and anorexia set in. What began as attempts to recover shifted into a different form of illness. My body was already weak, and over time my condition worsened, leading to multiple admissions to hospitals and treatment centres.
One admission stands out as a turning point. I had developed pneumonia. This was the first time I truly wondered whether I might die. That day, neither my mum nor I knew how serious things had become. Facing that reality changed something in me. It forced me to see how far things had gone, and how much I still wanted to live.
From that moment, I knew I had to fight.
The months that followed were some of the hardest of my life. Recovery felt messy and exhausting. Some days it felt like progress, others felt like everything was slipping backwards. It was never a straight line. That might be hard to hear for someone just starting their journey, but it’s something I wish I’d known at the beginning - I would have felt less guilty on the days that I struggled.
I kept going because I was tired of missing out on life. I was tired of losing Christmases, birthdays and time with friends. I didn’t want my world to keep shrinking.
When I turned eighteen, I was discharged from CAMHS. Suddenly, a lot of the structured support I’d relied on disappeared. I leaned heavily on my family and organisations like Beat, but there were times when I felt incredibly alone.
Still, I kept choosing to move forward.
One of the most important things I’ve learned is that setbacks don’t mean failure. Recovery isn’t neat or predictable. There will be difficult days. But if you can find even a small part of yourself willing to keep going, you’ll realise you’re capable of far more than you think.
Looking back, I wish I’d been taught more about eating disorders at school and from a younger age. I wish I’d understood the real risks, the warning signs and where to go for help.
We live in a world saturated with diet culture and changing body trends. From weight loss injections to shifting ideals promoted by the media, there’s constant pressure to look a certain way. Yet many people still don’t truly understand eating disorders, how complex they are, how serious they can be, or how to support someone who’s struggling.
If my mum hadn’t recognised the signs, my story could have taken a very different path.
It’s hard to pinpoint one single thing that helped me recover. A lot of it came down to slowly building resilience and learning to fight for myself. Anorexia can be incredibly isolating. You start to befriend the illness, letting it become your identity. Recovery meant learning how to befriend myself instead. This is something I still work on every day.
I also wish I’d understood sooner how much social media could affect my self-worth. Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest played a big role in reinforcing harmful beliefs for me, both justifying my eating habits through “thinspo” culture and pushing me to chase a body type that was never meant to be mine.
Another lesson I learned the hard way is how competitive eating disorders can be, especially in treatment settings. It’s natural to form close bonds with others who understand what you’re going through, but relapse can ripple through groups. Protecting your own recovery sometimes means setting boundaries, even when it feels uncomfortable.
If you’re reading this while struggling, I want you to know this: Recovery is tough, but you can do tough things.
You don’t have to feel ready or confident. You just have to be willing to try. Choose recovery today and then choose it again tomorrow. Some days that choice will feel small. Other days it will feel overwhelming. Both count. You are not weak for finding this difficult. You are brave for continuing.
Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself and know that progress doesn’t have to be perfect to be happening.
Even when you feel lonely, you are not alone. Support exists, and people genuinely want to help. Whether that’s family, friends, healthcare professionals, or organisations like Beat.
Life on the other side of an eating disorder is possible. I am living proof of that.
And if you can hold onto even a tiny bit of hope right now, let it be this: things can and do get easier, but only if you give yourself the chance.
Donate today to help us provide more vital support to people who are affected by eating disorders.
When Michelle was unwell with an eating disorder, she never imagined she'd be able to not only recover, but take on challenges!
Jaden shares how it wasn't recovery that was the hardest part of her eating disorder, but letting go of the past.
Pat shares how once he opened up to his loved ones and was diagnosed as autistic, he began his road to eating disorder recovery.