BEING ASKED TO WRITE THIS BLOG
When I was asked by Natasha to write this blog, I was a little nervous but without hesitation was willing to share my story. If this helps at least one person suffering with an eating disorder or others to understand what someone may be going through, then it’s certainly a story worth sharing.
HOW IT STARTED
I remember being body conscious from a young age. I was a dancer and had always been very slim as a young child, but I think thoughts started to creep in when I started noticing my body changing quite quickly. Going through puberty and noticing more weight around my middle and comparing myself to other kids and having discussions about these things is how it began. I was always conscious probably from the age of about 10 all through to my teenage years. It wasn’t until later on that it really became what would be diagnosed as an eating disorder. I grew up watching a close family member suffer with anorexia and I remember thinking at the time how selfish they were for what they were putting everyone else through - little did I understand then. My eating disorder really began to take over and I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa when I was in my early 20’s. I was living alone in London, all of my other family members had moved back abroad (where I grew up) and I made the choice to stay in London. Quite a few things had happened the year before. I was still living with my Dad and Step mum in London when we had a loss in the family (my step brother) followed by my Step mum being diagnosed with cancer and becoming very ill during her treatment. We were very lucky to be able to say she beat it but shortly after her recovery, my Dad was also diagnosed with a similar but less aggressive type of cancer, being fortunate enough to battle it into remission. All of these things combined was certainly a year that was a turning point for me and when the eating disorder really began to consume me. I went from being overly conscious about food to completely obsessed with what I was eating.
DAILY HABITS
My daily habits were very strict and regimented. I HAD to run in the mornings before work, a minimum of 4-5km. I remember some days feeling so tired that my body would feel as hard as lead and despite wanting to cry, I would push through anyway. In the evenings I would go to the gym. Exercise for me back then was a punishment, not something that was enjoyable. I would have all sorts of strange rules in my head around food which looking back, made no sense at all but I HAD to stick to them and if I didn’t, I felt like I had somehow failed and felt completely out of control.
I don’t like to share too much detail of how much or how little I would eat and exact numbers as it can be triggering for some, but it was more or less the same every day apart from the weekend when I would maybe ‘allow myself’ a little extra. If I did eat things that I then deemed as ‘bad’ then it was usually in private through fear of being judged or commented on.
Socialising and going for meals with friends would make me anxious and I would often make excuses why I couldn’t go, at the same time trying to hide what was really going on. It wasn’t just the anxiety around the food, it was also the fact that I was just so exhausted all the time and had no energy. I withdrew completely and just wanted to be left alone in my little bubble which to me I suppose felt safe.
TRIGGERS
Triggers can be so different from one person to another. For me, people commenting on what I was or wasn’t eating was certainly one. If I was eating chocolate, sweets or carbs, comments like “oh I didn’t think you ate that,” or “are you actually eating chocolate?” and even “well done for eating all of that you did really well” had the complete opposite effect to what they were intended. Having the best intentions in the world, these comments would trigger a voice in my head that I’d eaten too much and had done a bad thing. Nobody meant any harm by any of these comments and some of them were even intended as encouragement, but when you’re battling with an eating disorder they really stick.
You could say I was in complete denial. remember being out once and seeing a girl slightly younger looking than me, who was extremely thin and I remember thinking to myself that I wasn’t as small as her, that compared to her, I wasn’t thin enough to be considered “unwell” or “anorexic” or in need of help. I would just tell myself people were over-reacting and it really wasn’t that bad.
Looking back now, it was serious. The worst comment I received came from a family friend who clearly didn’t understand what I was going through: “you look like you’ve just walked out of Auschwitz”. To be honest, I can’t even recall how I felt about the comment at the time because I became numb to everything.
HITTING MY LOWEST
When I was at my lowest point with the disorder my health and body really started to deteriorate. I prefer not to share my exact weight as that can be triggering for anyone suffering who may be reading this, but I was diagnosed with osteopenia, amenorrhea (loss of menstrual cycle) and anaemia. I was also sent for multiple echocardiograms because I was having bad palpitations and dizziness. My skin and my hair really began to suffer too, my hair in particular became really thin. I also began having bad anxiety and panic attacks which in all honesty got worse during my recovery before they got better.
RECOVERY
Despite all of the above my recovery was actually triggered by one thing, not wanting to die, that’s what it came down to. I couldn’t bear feeling sick and tired all the time, it was draining me. I knew I only had two choices and it wasn’t going to be death. It certainly wasn’t a straightforward recovery, there were a lot of ups and downs and it was a slow process. I was holding myself back a lot in the sense of recovering, getting out of the danger zone but still not quite letting go of the control of my daily habits. If I could do one thing differently looking back now, it would have been to stick with professional help as I do feel it would have taken me to a better place more quickly. I feel it's really important to have that neutral person outside of the family to be accountable to through recovery. It took a long time to really fight back against the voices in my head and all the habits and rules I had built for myself around food and exercise which really made no sense.
HOW I GOT TO TODAY
It's a very surreal feeling when I look back and talk about it, it’s as if I am talking about someone else, I just don’t identify at all with that person anymore. I think if you asked any of my family or friends who knew me back then they would probably say the same thing. I don’t have a lot of pictures of that time and deleted the majority of them because once I recovered, I found them very hard to look at, not because it was triggering but more because of the reality of seeing what I put my body through.
One thing that has remained to this day is my love of weight training. Polar opposite to my running regime when I was suffering, weights definitely helped with my recovery. I know you are told to refrain from exercise whilst recovering as it can be part of the addiction and also to ensure you gain a healthy amount of weight, but I don’t necessarily agree that is the right thing for everyone. For me, strength training became my therapy. Exercise stopped being a punishment, completely different to how I trained when I wasn’t well, as it completely altered my mindset around exercise. I wasn’t doing it to burn calories, rather I loved feeling myself getting stronger and stronger and pushing myself but in a completely different way. I didn’t want to be weak and frail anymore, I wanted to be strong. I knew that in order to do that I needed to eat properly and fuel my body and my priority was ensuring I was eating ENOUGH. I also educated myself a lot with regards to nutrition and that also helped me. I started viewing food differently, enjoying it as fuel and really understanding it. It helped me to further banish the ‘rules’ and negative habits I had built. All my health markers improved including my DEXA scan which showed that not only had I not lost anymore bone density but that it had actually improved, a massive bonus of the strength training.
I later went on to do a course in nutrition. I do feel like education around food is pivotal and it’s something that is lacking for a lot of people. This is also why I’m so big on educating my clients too, I want them to understand what they are doing and why without any unnecessary rules or fear around certain foods.
The only real way I got away from the bad habits and rules I had created in my head was to break them, do the things I was scared of doing, eat the foods I was scared to eat. The more I did this, the easier it became. I have since even done multiple building phases (building muscle) which requires eating in a surplus and aiming for an increase on the scales (something that would have been a huge fear for me in the past) and it has been so empowering.
ADVICE FOR THOSE SUFFERING AND THOSE SUPPORTING SOMEONE WITH A DISORDER
I cannot stress this enough. It’s a big misconception that everyone suffering with anorexia is obsessed with how they look and that it’s just a vain disease, but it’s so much more than that. It's about control, at least that was most certainly the case for me. When you’ve had a lot of bad things happen that you’ve had no control over, it’s a way of finding and gaining some control back. The sad fact of the matter is ironically with this disorder you aren’t in control at all, the illness controls you. An eating disorder isn’t a look. The way you look is only sometimes a by-product of an eating disorder, someone can still be suffering from an eating disorder or disordered eating without “looking” a certain way.
If you’re trying to help someone going through an eating disorder, don’t comment on how they look or what they are or aren’t eating and don’t accuse them of just caring about how they look because it’s about so much more than that. The illness is different for everyone but if they are like I was, then there is someone in there who does want to get better and does want help even if they are pushing you away and behaving otherwise. Just be there for them with no judgment and support and assist them in getting the help that they need, because that alone can be overwhelming. I for one didn’t know where to start.
My advice to anyone suffering. It may seem impossible but you CAN beat it, you CAN have a full life that isn’t ruled by the disorder, as unbelievable as it may seem at the moment. The eating disorder is not your identity. I urge you to let people in and accept help because you deserve a full life too. It saddens me when I look back at how much of my life I feel like I missed out on. You will never look back and regret the decision to get better. If anyone is struggling and wants to reach out to me then I am always happy to talk. *Disclaimer: I wouldn’t try to treat anyone, I would always recommend a professional l in that field*.
I am where I am today because I chose to change my mindset, my knowledge on nutrition and because I wanted a future where I was able to live the life I choose to have now. I want to help people regardless of where they are in their journey, overweight, underweight weak or strong and THAT is the reason why I became a personal trainer.
Find me on Instagram @charlotte.melville If I managed to change my life around, then you can too.
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