I’m Worth It

I first started binge eating after I finished year 12. At the time I wasn’t working, my old school friends and I had started to naturally drift apart as we went out into the world, and my shyness meant that I had trouble getting out of the house and being involved in activities. Buying and eating large amounts started as something to alleviate the boredom, but it soon became a sort of addiction. At the same time, I was ashamed. I hid my bingeing from family and friends while I tried to make myself stop. Like a lot of people, I fell into a terrible trap of thinking that if I could just manage to hate myself enough I would be motivated to change. My bingeing started to lead to health problems, which was a scary time for me. I couldn’t bring myself to admit my bingeing to my GP but I think she must have sensed that there was something more to my struggles because she referred me to a psychologist who specialises in eating disorders. Seeing this wonderful psychologist changed my life. I learned so many important lessons and practical strategies with her. The most important was that you need to love and value yourself to believe that you’re worth the massive struggle it takes to fight an eating disorder. It wasn’t easy to change the way I saw myself. But realising I was worth it has made the most enormous positive impact. I still have a long way to go in my recovery and have fallen off the wagon more times than I care to admit. But the wonderful thing is that the wagon never goes backwards. It stops where it is and waits until you’re ready to get back on and start moving forward again. Please anybody else who is struggling with binge eating and don’t feel like they have somebody to turn to that would understand, know this: there is an amazing community of medical professionals and organisations like the Butterfly Foundation out there who value you, who understand how hard you’re battling your urges, and who genuinely want to help make your life better. The best thing you can do is reach out to them for their help.