Eating Disorders 'Letting Go' transcript
Christine (experienced anorexia and bulimia) - I didn't want to have a life where, that was it. Where my food was my way of coping. I hated that way of life. I hated stuffing my face with food. And I also hated not eating.
Kath (suffered from anorexia as a child and young adult) - The turning point I guess, for me in seeking help was, one day at school we were taking our students on an excursion and I actually collapsed in front of the girls and some of the other staff. That very night, I went to the doctors.
Sarah W (suffered from anorexia as a teenager) - I knew something was wrong. I didn't know I had an eating disorder. I didn't know I was so terribly underweight. And I didn't realise I looked so different - and so ill.
Christine - I knew that I had a problem with food, but I didn't know the label. At the beginning, I went to a doctor and said, "look, I'm having a problem. I don't know how to eat. I've forgotten how to eat. I don't have normal feelings about food." And he prescribed me medication. Take these and you'll be right. I went back to him 6 months later and said I was no better. I still had these feelings, I still ate copious amounts of food, to the point where I feel sick and I can't walk. And he said to me, "Oh, are you still doing that?" And that was it.
Sarah H (suffered from bulimia) - I guess sometimes what triggers your recovery can be a big thing - you can fall down. Or it can be a really small thing. In my case, it was a really small thing. Somebody showed me... my mum showed me a photo of myself when I was quite young. I had always thought that I was just this enormous, enormous person, that I was really, really fat - especially as a child - and this photo was just of this normal-looking kid! Totally normal-looking kid. And I looked at this photo, I thought, well, maybe if I was wrong about that, what I thought about that. What I thought about myself. Well, maybe I'm wrong about a lot of different things. And, basically, what this did was set off a chain of events for me, to end up seeking help.
Lee's - I remember going to a doctor once and I said to her that I feel like I've lost control of my eating. And my weight was going up and I was concerned about my weight. And she said to me, "don't worry about it. Just eat a little bit less." And I said, "well, is that a little bit less on the days that I eat nothing at all, or is that a little bit less on the days when I start breakfast with a block of chocolate in the morning?" Like, where was the middle of the road? I had lost that place, and didn't know what normal was.
Kath - When I had an eating disorder, I wasn't able to have children. Because my body weight was too low. So I never would have been able to conceive a child. I guess a long-term concern for someone who's had a chronic eating disorder, like I did, is that you'll never ever be able to be fertile again. Because you lose your fertility during that time. And it was something that really worried me incessantly. It was something that I always wanted to do, as a woman, as a wife, and as something normal and natural in life. I wanted to have a child, and I never ever thought that would happen. My husband had probably given up hope of that ever happening as well. But we've been married 9 years now, and we actually had a little boy 21 months ago. He's nearly 2 now. He's the pride and joy of our lives.
Sarah H - I really went into it, really wanting to recover. I was in the perfect state of mind for myself. I was exactly the right state of mind for myself. I was completely desperate. I was really, really sick. So, I was really desperate. At that stage, I was so desperately needing help that I still hadn't told anybody in my life what was going on. So I was on my own.
Sarah W - People became aware of how underweight I was. They had approached me without any sort of response or acknowledgement from myself. It got to a point where a relative of mine flew from interstate to say, "Look, you've got a problem. Let's go to the doctor together and talk about this. And see how we can get you some help." But, that was the first step towards acknowledging it, but it didn't sink in for a long time after that.
Abi (has struggled with bulimia) - And it does take a lot of courage. It really does take a lot of courage to go, "I've got a problem". Because when you say, "I've got a problem", you admit that you're not in control. And you just have to understand that it's ok that you're not in control, and just to trust that if you open up, people will take care of you.
