Eating disorders are so prevalent, yet something still considered so taboo.
I struggled for years. I pretty much wasted my final years of school. When I should have been studying or enjoying being 17/18 and going out with my friends, I was fixated on my weight.
I think it started randomly one day when I decided enough is enough, “I need to lose weight, what should I cut”. But so quickly it became disordered eating, and each day became worse. I would think to myself, “I have gone without breakfast and lunch, I don’t really need dinner then I guess”, and the cycle continued.
By the time I finished year 12 I was 49 kg. Something I should have seen as a warning, but instead I was obsessed with the idea that I was so tiny and I looked good in the clothes I bought. I continued to buy more clothes as a result of feeling good about being skinny, which then just made me eat less.
This continued until I moved to the UK for a year, and gained the weight back healthily, although it hurt each time seeing the scales increase, I couldn’t live like that.
I thought my friends never knew what I was going through but they did, they just didn’t know how to approach it.
I still struggle today with eating and although I am healthy now, I am still conscious of my food intake and sometimes certain things just make me anxious, but personally it’s just about overcoming the voice in my head.
I know I’m not the only one to experience this, but I also probably haven’t been as vocal about it as I should be!
the skinny elephant 