Leah’s story: 

I have been struggling with anorexia nervosa for almost 5 years since I was 12 yeas old, I was absolutely petrified of food and the idea of weight gain, I would have panic attacks almost everyday at my worst and would get upset and angry over the smallest things such as being given a yoghurt that was 10 calories more and not being allowed to use a fork to eat raisins, my struggles have been difficult to overcome because my starved brain could not think rationally but I am showing resilience and strength to get through this. My first struggle was with exercise, I used to secretly exercise in my room everyday from the age of 12-14. And then when lockdown came and me and my siblings started doing YouTube workouts together, it became even worse and I got even more obsessed with exercise. Then when lockdown ended, I got a gym membership and started exercising even more intensely to the point I felt like I was going to collapse. I became obsessed with how my body looked and didn’t want it to change so I started to restrict food so I’d only eat “healthy” foods. At this point my eating disorder thoughts got worse and I was starving myself so I began to rapidly lose weight. I was in denial that I had an eating disorder, and pretended I didn’t care about the number on the scales but in reality I thought it was the most important thing about me and I let it control me. I was referred to the eating disorder service in march 2021. At this point my eating disorder thoughts were really bad and I didn’t listen to anything my community team was telling me and I just got worse and worse. My weight got so low that I was admitted to general hospital in may 2021. The doctors in hospital told me I needed to eat, otherwise I would die and if I didn’t eat I’d be put on an ng tube so I listened to them and started following my meal plan in hospital. However, my anxiety around food got so much worse and I refused to be put on medication to help with this. I developed severe vocal and motor tics because of my anxiety so I couldn’t control my words and actions when food was put in front of me. My anxiety was so bad that the professional in charge of my care decided to put me on an ng tube for all my food in take. After 3 months in general hospital I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on an eating disorder ward. I remained on ng for 8 months and slowly transitioned off it. However my anxiety around food was still extremely high and I was still refusing to go on medication.  I was sectioned under the mental health act so they could put the medication down my ng tube. I was on a full solid food meal plan from February 2022 and soon after this I started taking my medication orally and came off the section 3. I reached a healthy weight but was still struggling with my thoughts. I was discharged in July 2022 after 14 months in hospital. I carried on following a meal plan at home under the care of my community team. Then in November 2022 I decided to come off my meal plan and start all in recovery. This means I started to eat intuitively. All in recovery has been extremely difficult and I found that my eating disorder thoughts got a lot worse than when I was following a meal plan but I felt strong enough to ignore the thoughts and carry on with recovery. I have been working on reaching full recovery ever since I was discharged from hospital and have been all in for 4 months now. I have come such a long way and I wouldn’t be in the place I am today without the help and support of my family, friends and all the professionals that have helped me along my journey and I will be forever grateful for this. Recovery had shown me how amazing life will be without an eating disorder and I will continue to work on myself and hopefully will be able to reach full recovery.

Liv’s story:

I started struggling with my mental health when i was 9 years old. What started as panic attacks multiple times a day, turned into self harm at 11 and eventually an eating disorder at 14.
It started as rules around calorie counting and exercise, but went from zero to one hundred over night where i was suddenly barely eating anything and exercising obsessively.
I lost weight rapidly and my parents knew something wasn’t right, so took me to the GP where i was immediately sent to cahms, and eventually ceds services.
I was slowly getting worse and worse, and when lockdown hit in 2020 things spiralled again.
After a serious health deterioration, i was finally diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and was told i needed to gain weight.
I hated what my eating disorder was doing to my family, so i made the decision to change and started to get better by restoring weight until i got my period back, but mentally things hadn’t improved at all, and due to external factors and some bad decisions from my treatment team, i relapsed badly and my health deteriorated rapidly once again.
I ended up worse than i’d ever been, was refusing to cooperate and this led to me being admitted to general hospital because i was barely having any intake, my heart rate was dangerously low and i’d contracted hypothermia.
I didn’t stay long, it was during a covid wave the staff were constantly busy and no one knew how to help me.
my community team decided i’d do much better outside of hospital and so i was discharged on a strict refeeding meal plan and daily bloods back at the hospital after id been medically stabilised.
I regained a bit of weight, but this plateaued and by the end of the year (2020) i was restricting again.
This time my weight loss was gradual, but i was being really sneaky, hiding food constantly, sometimes doing disgusting things like putting food in my underwear and spitting food into napkins. I was going out for walks whenever i could and pacing the house when my parents weren’t in the room.
My mental state was awful.
In summer 2021, things got bad again. My weight loss increased and inpatient referrals were being sent through. I was mentally and physically deteriorating and i couldn’t see a way out at this point.
By august, inpatient was inevitable and by september, i’d been admitted as an emergency to a specialist eating disorder unit.
I struggled lots going in, was fed by an ng tube for almost 3 months and for a further 4 months was stuck on supplement drinks for a chunk of my diet.
After starting home leave at the end of march 2022, the team decided i was doing so much better at home than at the unit, so they discharged me in may 2022 after 8 months of being in hospital.
I was doing the best i ever had after being discharged, i went on holiday with my family, drunk cocktails, was free with food and i was the happiest id been since my teenage years began.
Recently i’ve been struggling again but this time i’m actually fighting for myself and i’m determined to keep going and someday fully recover to achieve my aspirations and live a normal live that was restricted during my teenage years.

We have decided to raise money for beat because we know how much eating disorders affect lives from personal experience and want to help people so their lives aren’t controlled by eating disorders too.