Is this the life that your younger child dreamed of living?

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I just hope I may be able to help give that little bit of hope to someone battling through the same voices in their head that I did.

As a young girl, I was extremely sporty. Athletics was my passion. In primary school I didn’t have any friends, and would always be picked on for looking different to the other girls. I was much stronger than everybody else, and this lead me to believe that being muscular was a bad thing. I became aware of my body and very self conscious towards the end of primary school. I seemed to think that if I could just become that little bit smaller, I would be accepted and possibly improve my running times. Heading into high school, I spiralled out of control. After only a few weeks of restricting my intake, I noticed I was far too weak to even continue competing in my athletics competitions. Little did I know, it would be 10 years until I had the strength to continue. I could say goodbye to my dreams. Fast forward a few years and many hospital admissions later, I was blind to the fact that all of my relationships had fallen apart. I was completely unaware of how my actions were not only hurting me, but breaking my families hearts. I would always tell myself that “I will recover later, or I will just try harder tomorrow, I’m not even that bad…” But the thing is, you need to turn that “one day” into “today”. If you do not prioritise your recovery, before you know it, many years will pass. It’s like your entire life is on fast forward, meanwhile you are stuck in the same place.

My recovery was a roller coaster ride, and you must know that it is never linear, and it is not easy. But little steps turn into big results, and nothing ever goes wasted. Every little battle or challenge you go through, will help you to get your life back. Having an eating disorder is not living, you are merely surviving. And just think about it, one day in the future when you have beautiful little grandchildren, don’t you want to have many wonderful stories to share with them? What stories will you have to share, if you stay stuck where you are now? Recovery is so so worth it, and I am proud to say that I have been able to find my passions once again, and have been lucky enough to represent our beautiful country for athletics. I didn’t realise how I had completely lost my entire personality while I was in the depths of my eating disorder, and I forgot I even had a great sense of humour. My younger self dreamed of becoming a doctor, a sports scientist or a physiotherapist, not lying to my family all the time, and definitely not trying to take up as little space in this world as she could. She wanted to help people and make a difference. Make your younger self proud. Become who you dreamed of becoming. Do it for the little you, and the grandma you.

You can do this, I believe in you, we all do:) xxx