YOU CAN HELP PEOPLE LIKE SARAH

Sarah saw dozens of health professionals in a desperate attempt to get help but was told that her weight loss was a good thing. Doctors gave Sarah harmful advice, telling her she needed to lose weight, or she would die. They gave her weight loss medication and a restrictive meal plan.

Sarah began starving herself.

She became extremely unwell. She developed a life-threatening eating disorder that led to dizziness, anxiety, and even fainting. Less and less able to cope, she lost her job, her home, and Child Safety removed her child from her care. “I lost everything,” she says. Sarah was hospitalised more than a dozen times. She was stuck in a constant cycle of being admitted, and then released – only to be back in hospital again within weeks.

She described the noise in her head as non-stop. “One minute it’s telling you ‘You’re fat, awful, ugly, a failure’. And the next minute, it says, ‘But if you do what I say, I can help you’. It promises you the world.” It’s like an intruder in your mind, a relentless, overwhelming and unwanted noise telling a person what to eat and how to behave. It makes people feel worthless and desperate, and it can increase the severity of an eating disorder.

Sadly, Sarah’s experience is not isolated. That’s why we need you now more than ever, because more than 1.1 million Australians are battling an eating disorder, and less than a quarter of them are receiving the help that they need.

Your tax-deductible gift can help quiet the noise for people like Sarah.

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