Know The Skin You're In, Know Yourself, Know Your HealthSophie EspositoJanuary 03, 2021Jan 20211 Comment

The Road to Recovery

Know The Skin You're In, Know Yourself, Know Your HealthSophie EspositoJanuary 03, 2021Jan 20211 Comment

Abbie Harris: eating disorders and the road to recovery

There are an estimated 1.6 million people in the UK suffering with an eating disorder, 75% of which are female. The numbers are most likely higher, and some put the estimate at 4 million people. There has been a 15% rise in those being diagnosed with an eating disorder since the year 2000 and there were more people being treated for an eating disorder in 2017/2018 than in the four previous years. Body image problems, eating disorders and mental ill-health are major problems sweeping the younger generations in the UK, with most cases of eating disorder being found in those aged between 10 and 22.

Abbie Harris is 18 years old and has suffered with atypical anorexia for 4 years. She describes her form of anorexia as a sub-type of anorexia nervosa, which is associated with purging (self-induced vomiting) and a normal body weight. She started her road to recovery last year, after initially reaching out to professionals and her family in July. That "was when it got too much for me. It overloaded the boat and the stress of not knowing what I was doing next year, and the uncertainty of that and of lockdown, set me off and put me over the edge”. She says she reached out to start her recovery but “was so uncommitted, I did not want to recover. I just wanted to carry on with my coping mechanisms that weren’t helping, because they were all I knew”.

When she went to university in September she found it hard and it set her back. University "was a really awful experience. I was going through a really bad break up at the time and had no self-worth. I knew if I kept going down the road I was going down, I would never get anywhere”. After she came back from university to be closer to her support network, she decided to try recovery again. “I was so determined to have a purpose in my life”.

Abbie now goes to therapy once a week and writes a blog about the things that affect her in order to help herself and others. “I’ve always [enjoyed] writing. For as long as I can remember, it's always been cathartic. I always wanted to do something like a blog but I never knew what my niche should be”. She says she has had an amazing response and has even learned that eating disorders have affected her friends too. “I get some people that I know text me who don’t usually talk to me, telling me that they too have also struggled [with an eating disorder], and I never knew that”.

The stigma around eating disorders, as well as the fact that despite her anorexia Abbie was always a healthy weight, made her recovery harder she says.

“If you looked at me physically and thought of the stereotypes, I match none. I am a healthy weight and BMI, I do bloods [tests] every week and the results are always normal, I look healthy. There is nothing about me that reveals I have an eating disorder, and this makes my diagnosis impossible, even though I technically do still have all the mental tendencies of anorexia.” She says it’s like “a kick in the teeth because you know you have it, you know you have a problem”. She even recalls a time when it stopped her getting medication or proper treatment. “I remember once I had a scare and my heart rate was ridiculous, like over 100. I had to call for an ambulance as it got really bad. I was in A&E for 6-7 hours during lockdown. I eventually got called through and saw the doctor. The one thing he said to me was “Just go and eat”, that was exactly what he said to me, that was the advice I got, no medication, no advice, no referral. I tried to explain my difficulty, but this didn’t make a difference to the way he treated me.

Abbie’s advice to others struggling with eating disorders is “don’t be scared of it. The one thing you should do is separate yourself from it. There is you and then there is your eating disorder. They’re two separate things. Your eating disorder is like the bully in your school class that you hated. They want to see you fail, they want to punch you when your down, they want to see you get to your lowest”. She says, “you have to learn to love yourself, not change yourself, and that is one of my mottos. I have it tattooed on my ribs, “love yourself first”. That is my motto and I look at it every day to remind myself.”

Abbie says that one of the best things she did on her road to recovery was “removing any negative followers and influencers on my [Instagram] feed. I didn’t realise how many people that I followed promoted dieting and body image culture. As soon as I deleted all of those and replaced them with body positivity content, it literally changed everything. Remove anything negative, any triggers and anything that could set you off”. But she says that, ultimately, pursuing her passion was her way out. “I had a passion [for writing] and I made it into something. If you also have that, I’d say it’s a very good step forward”.

In these hard times, it’s important to remember that recovery and battles with mental ill-health are not flat roads; they certainly have their ups and downs. You can get through them and you will see better days on the other side, but please, if you are feeling low or vulnerable, reach out for support.