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Search forMickleover teenager's battle with anorexia
Tuesday, August 05, 2008, 07:30
The 16-year-old anorexic shivered with fear as she listened to her doctor's shocking ultimatum.
“My world tumbled down,” she said. “I knew I was ill but I didn't realise just how bad I was. I was very frightened.”
Two minutes later, Lindsey's GP delivered another blow.
“He said I might not be well enough to take my exams this summer and I was gutted,” she explained. “All I ever wanted to do was achieve at school. He said if I continued to starve myself, I wouldn't be here.”
This month, Lindsey receives the exam results she's been desperately waiting for. She battled with her eating disorder, slowly turned her life around and is now anxious to find out how she did in her nine GCSEs.
“I'm hoping for great things on August 21, when the results come out,” smiled the John Port School pupil. “I was really good at school, but I lost valuable time.”
At her lowest moment, Lindsey weighed seven stone and seven pounds and size eight clothes hung from her skeletal body. She restricted herself to eating only 300 calories a day and exercised for hours in the gym. She hopped on the scales at least six times a day and once starved herself for four days.
“The last 12 months have been the worst of my life,” said Lindsey, who lives in Mickleover with her parents. “It all started to go wrong when I got bullied at school. Then my aunt died and I loved her very much. She had cancer.
“From an early age, I'd always wanted to be perfect. To achieve beyond achievement. When I started to get thinner and thinner, I felt like I'd started to achieve this.
“I liked school. My primary years came and went with perfection. But secondary school brought all kinds of issues.
“By the age of 12, I was coming home from school with tears streaming down my face.
“All I could find to dull the pain was food. I'd seize chocolates, sweets and biscuits. Anything to make me feel better. I started to binge.
“When my weight hit a hefty 11 stone I found a new healer – exercise.
“Then I started to cut out meals. In just two weeks I had lost almost a stone in weight. My two-mile runs became five-mile runs and I went from going twice a week to everyday.”
Lindsey found it easy to lose weight and became an expert at hiding the fact she was suffering from an eating disorder.
Her diet consisted of chicken, vegetables and salad but her portions were always small and she rarely finished a meal.
“I bought diet pills and laxatives – anything to help me get thinner. I just wanted to be accepted.”
It was a photograph taken by one of her friends which made Lindsey realise that her condition had spiralled out of control.
“I still thought that I looked fat, but I wasn't. The photograph was shocking. I thought I was still the same fat, unhappy girl. But that wasn't the case.”
The monumental visit to her doctor, which Lindsey says helped change her life, came after she fainted in one of her mock GCSE exams.
“I didn't have the energy to concentrate,” said Lindsey.
“I felt weak, tired, emotionless and dizzy. I kept reading and reading the same question but everything was so confusing and distant – like I was in a dream.
“Moments later, things went black and my muscles felt non-functional. When I came round, I was taken from the exam and advised to see a doctor.”
At 5ft 5in tall, she should have been a healthy nine stone seven pounds – but she wasn't.
“I was very underweight. My legs were so skinny and my ribs stuck out. I was a mess.”
Support from Derby's First Steps Eating Disorder Group helped Lindsey confront her illness.
Sessions with a counsellor also helped her to deal with other problems in her life, like the death of her aunt.
“When I started to attend the group, I began to understand what life really meant to me. I started to gain a whole new confidence.”
Within a few weeks, Lindsey started to gain weight. She also stopped exercising quite so much and started to eat more.
“I even managed to revise,” said Lindsey.
“It was hard because I still felt burdened by my eating disorder, but I tried.
“I felt like I'd be given one last chance to do well.
Lindsey does not know what the future holds.
She's developed a better relationship with food and has become a more healthy weight.
“I've taken huge steps on my journey of recovery.
“The first step I needed to take was all about acceptance. Not only did I have to accept that I had a problem but I also had to accept myself.
“Although I'm not completely well yet, I am happier than I've been all year. I'm keeping everything crossed for the day I receive my exam results. I want to do myself proud. I think I deserve it.”
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getting better: Lindsey with her mum Pamela and right, when she suffered from anorexia
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