MY JOURNEY

My Eating disorder began at the age of 15. I was in boarding school at the time. It didn’t start out as a struggle with either food or body image, rather my whole life felt it would collapse with the news of the death of my Mother at the young age of 49.  My siblings, 3 sisters and a brother and I were absolutely heartbroken. My Dad now had 5 kids to raise and one of whom, has many disabilities.  I turned to food the night of my Mums funeral and spent the next few years in restriction and anorexia nervosa. ‘It was my way to control and find security in my life given my main source of security was gone. I had a very close relationship with my Dad but I didn’t want to cause any more stress by opening up and saying that I was really struggling with her death’. I was in junior cert and at boarding school at the time and could keep it hidden up to a point. My friends began to notice. My teachers, I was so angry when friends intervened and calling my Dad. Looking back, I needed it and at the age of 18 it was suggested that it would be more beneficial for me to leave the school, study at home for my Leaving Cert and come back in the June to sit it. I studied very hard, being the high achiever and perfectionist [common traits of an Eating Disorder]! I locked myself in my room studying up to 8 hours a day. I had wanted to go on a friends holiday to IOS for the summer and agreed with my Dad that I would do my best to eat and gain weight, only then could I go with my friends. I looked better, on the outside and to others to be/have recovered, on the inside I felt awful, comparing myself to other people’s bodies and so unhappy in the one I lived in, I turned to other ways of keeping my body weight down and this went on for my college years and into mid twenties. 

Frustrated that I couldn’t return to my full restriction days, at 25 I realised through binge eating and over exercise that I couldn’t live this way, their had to be more to life. I embarked on my recovery journey and spent 6 weeks residential in the Rutland Clinic in Dublin. I worked very hard and still continued to attend on a weekly basis. I was well enough to go to Thailand and Australia for a year with my boyfriend at the time. However, the stress of the relationship, being away from home and unhappy in the relationship, I began to feel all the feelings my ED pushed down, fear, insecurity, overwhelm and I started to berate my body again and compare to others. I came home then with my Dad and remained in the Eating Disorder cycle. I went to treatment in Canada with another friend suffering and lasted 2 weeks under the care of an Eating disorder specialist who wanted me to stay for the year. It felt too much for me and for my Dad to have me so far away so I returned home I then walked into my first meeting at the Marino Therapy Centre in Dublin and knew that I had landed. I felt safe, listened to, heard and inspired by those recovering. I threw myself into recovery, put it as number 1. Had intensive weekly sessions with counsellors, another weekly session with a careworker and attended group sessions every week while working as a teacher in a Secondary school. It was then I met my husband and life began to get easier then. I felt more recovered than ever and happier in my own skin but still had rules around eating and felt safer eating mechanically as per my eating disorder team.  As time passed, I recovered and began to work as a careworker in Marino, I absolutely loved it and knew I wanted to spend my life helping others work through the pain I had lived through. 

Then I got pregnant and didn’t have as much time to attend sessions, group therapy etc. I had recovered in a body but not a postpartum body and having a tiny baby to be responsible for meant I began to put all the pressure on myself to do everything perfectly. I had a secondary haemorrhage after a month, all the comments began of how thin I had got and I revelled in them. Only over time as I began to regain back my natural weight did I realise the Eating Disorder was back and I had taken my eye off the ball. I returned to my therapist to work things through. The universe was listening and watching, I needed to slow down and in 2017, I had a stroke. A complete freak accident, caused by a Pilates move, called a cartilage embolism. I lost complete power in my left arm and hand, felt numb through the right side of my back and was forced to stop exercising and stop everything. It was the most difficult time in my  life and to be told I would never do yoga again. With time, working again with my therapist, a physio team, a Pilates team, I regained strength and fell pregnant with my second child. 

I believe in the incredible healing power of the body and still with loss of muscle in my left hand and weakness as a result, I practice and teaches regularly with no pain. On each pregnancy, the overwhelm of responsibility, my ED seemed to resurface. Not as strongly as it was but I had enough and finally wanted full freedom for myself and my children.  I began working with an amazing coach whom I had been in recovery with. Finally, I was asked what did I want? What did I love to do and I started to truly learn and hear my own voice and not what I was being told to do. I happened upon Intuituve Eating at the time and the rest is history. 

I feel 100% free from body and weight obsession, years of hard work and tears have paid off. It all got me to where I am today but I do not really feel coaching with someone who had an eating disorder made all the difference and never giving up. I credit my yoga and meditation practice to being able to listen deeply to myself and will dedicate my life now to helping others not live in the chains of Disordered Eating as long as I have.  

If you have experienced any of the above and need some help to work through any issues, please do get in touch.