Sharing my story

How does one capitulate one’s story in less than 500 words?

I guess I deem myself to be a survivor of this debilitating illness. I have lived and still live with components of this illness. This illness I have battled with for a really long time. It has debilitated my existence, crippled the relationships; with the people I loved and cared about. And it took away every inch of who I was, who Hannah was.

I’ve had to tap into my inner warrior every single day as I fight in recovery from this extensive battle with an eating disorder. I don’t claim I am recovered by any means. I fight every day for the things that are important to me and fight for the life I want to live outside of a life consumed with and by my eating disorder.

For years I couldn’t see myself or a life for myself out of hospital walls. This had become a reoccurring reality for me. And a reality I came to believe that this was my future, in and out of hospital.

I had lost hope, purpose, direction, and I had lost my fight. I had lost Hannah.

But I have proved to myself that the future can be different.

Well over a year and half ago now, with support of my treating professionals and my family, I tried to start recovery from home. Opposed to the hospital setting I had been in and out.

I had to start from the basics with food, learning to eat again. I had been obsessed about calories and numbers, it basically become impossible for me to make a meal anymore.

Before and after meals, I’d be crying. I’d experienced so much anxiety that would result in panic attacks. I’d be back up in my room sobbing my eyes out, crying hysterically and hyperventilating again and again. The voices inside my head, felt like I was sitting on one side of the door and my mind on the other side of it trying to bash the door down. I’d just wanted it all to stop, for it to all go away.

I felt hopeless, alongside with feeling like a burden constantly. And even though I was surrounded by my loving family, my amazing step-mum and a treating team with me for this journey. I still felt so alone and isolated.

I could revert back to restriction or obsessive exercise, especially when life gets stressful or maybe I’m not coping so well. If I’m honest, sometimes I do fall back into my eating disorder. But I have a choice, and recovery is a choice I make every day.

Those months right in the thick of the storm were some of my hardest, but I am such a stronger, more resilient, wiser, happier than what I was, and although the challenges in my head don’t always seem to get much easier, other people around me see a very big difference in the person I was to the person I am today.

Right now, you’re suffering so deeply. And I want to give you hope that you can get better, that life can get better. I am proof of that.

All my love,

Han xx