Where do I start ?

I started experiencing bulimia at the age of 12. To tell you the truth I got the idea from home and away, a show I grew up watching religiously as a kid. I was picked on as I transitioned from a child to an awkwardly shaped teenager as my hormones went crazy during adolescence. I hated the changes and I hated even more the critical remarks that came with it from other kids my age. Self esteem dropping off me aligning with every kilo that also fell from my frame.

Bulimia followed me around for the next few years hanging over my head and causing chaos at all times in my mind. It never left, and my self esteem never returned. I was 17 in my last year of high school. I met a boy a few years older. Little did I know he would crush my delicate heart and mind into a million tiny broken pieces over the next five years. I stayed trapped in a mentally and physically abusing relationship with him over the next five years where my soul eventually turned black and any little bit of happiness I possibly had left was completely gone.

Bulimia turned into a combination of starving for days on end, laxative abuse and purging. I had no control over my life, no self esteem and my eating disorder became my coping mechanism for dealing with the pain of my relentless relationship. I fell pregnant to him, and instantly, somehow my mind was strong enough to put another life before my own and I stopped all symptoms of my eating disorder to care for the new life growing inside of me. My son gave me the strength to leave the abusive relationship in was in because I knew that my son did not deserve to grow up in an environment when he would endure that type of mentally damaging life.

Over the years, the stress, lack of self esteem, the hurting, the pain and all the emotional scars have lead to me becoming anorexic. I am currently trying to get help as I have in the past, however am very frustrated with the lack of medical support and resources available. My mum recently contacted an inpatient facility in Brisbane but that came at a price of $8000 a week. I

n all reality who can possibly afford that. My mindset wants to give up. It’s cheaper for me to slowly die in all reality but I have a son who needs me in his life so I have to keep fighting for his sake. Something in our health care system needs to change. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate than any other mental illness yet when you go knocking for help, there is lack of medical assistance available.