Recovery story

Cheryl, 42

'After 25 years I am finally beating anorexia’

‘It was just a few weeks away from my 40^th birthday. I sat at my kitchen table with my head resting against my clenched fists and sobbed. When my tears were spent, I decided it was time to get well.  Perhaps it was the onset of a milestone birthday. Or simply that the time had finally come. But after more than 20 years battling anorexia nervosa – an illness that had left me with osteoporosis and robbed me of the chance of motherhood - I knew it was now or never. 

So in August 2008 I lifted the phone and made an appointment with my GP. And so began my path to freedom. It wasn’t the first time I’d contacted a doctor. Since the age of 19 I’ve been in hospital six times. But no amount of cajoling or therapy can get you to put a forkful of food into your mouth if your heart isn’t in it.

I was first admitted to a Mental Health Hospital where I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and put on anti-depressants.  It was an old-fashioned mental institution -  the kind of which don’t exist nowadays - and after five weeks, and against medical advice, my family brought me home.

Over the years followed several more admissions and by the time I was 26 my weight had dropped to an extremely dangerous level. Living on my own Mum would phone every day without fail. (I later learned that it was to check on whether I was still alive). She’d bite back her tears whenever she came over, I could just tell. I was a mess, I knew it, but I wouldn’t heed anyone’s advice.

In March 1999, on a weekend at home shortly before being discharged from yet another inpatient stay, I met my now husband and began a relationship. He obviously wasn’t the type to be put off, but how would he take the news that I’d spent years locked up in various psychiatric hospitals? In fact, he took it in his stride, saying we could deal with my illness together.

As my 40^th birthday approached I realised then that I had three choices: get better now and get on with my life; get better later and waste more time or never get better. I decided I’d wasted enough of my life. Through my GP I was referred to a clinical psychologist with   His field was in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) which works on recognising and challenging negative thought patterns. While I’d had it in the past, I’d never approached it before with this newfound determination.

His unpatronising and optimistic approach took me totally by surprise, so used had I become to being spoken to like a child or a foolish woman who was beyond help. I had been seeing him for a year when he asked me to go back into hospital to get my weight up, and although it was humiliating going back and seeing some of the same staff who had been there during my last stay 15 years earlier, after five weeks I’d gained almost a stone and this time as I walked out, I promised myself I would never come back.

I only wish there was more understanding for that “forgotten generation” of women who still battle this hideous disease in their 40s and 50s. I’d say to them, ‘Don’t give up, it’s never too late to get well. I did it and so can you’. Anorexia will always lurk in the shadows, trying to lure me back. But I’m strong enough to resist it now.'

Excerpt from original article written by Julie Hunt; First appeared in Prima Magazine Feb 2010