When I met my husband, everything changed. I already had a great job, and we moved to the UK in 2004. That was the moment when I got pregnant with my daughter, Nicole. Everything shifted, and I couldn’t understand why, but was I bothered to know why? Of course not. ED was gone and completely gone. I didn’t realise that it was because I stopped restricting!
The simple truth about restrictive eating disorder was that the main reason ED came into my life was because I was restricting! And until my relapse, I was living completely unaware of it.
I was eating everything. When I gave birth to my baby, I ate lots of chicken and chocolate, and I didn’t worry about my weight. I was so perfectly balanced and happy that I couldn’t believe it. I was free, eating everything and not dieting! I was a mum responsible for a new life, my baby, my everything. Eating disorders became a distant memory. Two years later, I gave birth to Oliver, and life wasn’t easy, but ED wasn’t there.
Until the moment of my divorce, but it wasn’t just a moment. I always had a restrictive mind. I signed up for dance classes and, at the same time, started slowly eating less and less. My marriage was heading downhill, too. Unaware of that fact, I continued to restrict myself for over a year.
I wasn’t aware of the golden rule that I couldn’t restrict food ever again, as that could cause the ED to come back.
And it happened. I entered the divorce stage, and the rollercoaster of my eating disorder backfired with a vengeance.
I was eating, purging, starving. Worse and worse every week. Each day, I was saying never again, and each time I relapsed, I didn’t know what to do. I knew that I would die if I didn’t act quickly.
I was a single mum with two children and a small business there. I felt completely desperate.
One night, I lay on the floor and started crying. That is it. I must do something. I am at the bottom. I cried for hours.
Then I searched through the internet and began my search for help. I found a clinic, Ring, ring “Hello?'” I told them what was happening. “We charge £5000 per week, and you must come and stay here for a while”. I wasn’t lucky with my first call. But the person on the phone said something which made me think, “Have you started restricting again?”. This moment was the moment when my transformation started. He said, “Restricting”. I was binging, starving and so on. How can that be a restriction? But he was right.
And then, like a miracle, I found the website with a forum created by Shaye Boddington, who created a program to help people recover from restrictive eating disorders. I signed up immediately. I didn’t have to call anyone, speak to anyone or explain anything. Just sign up, and I would be able to talk to other people who suffered and receive a daily email with steps of my recovery path. That solution sounded great. And it didn’t cost a fortune, only $7/ month. And truly, it allowed me to find the strength inside me to recover from ED. The strength I’m sharing today with you.
And my transformation started. Today, I am me.
The Power in You 