May 12, 2017 – Our Creative Haven

So this week is mental health awareness week. It’s a week that focuses on hope, sharing, breaking stigmas and raising awareness. 1 in 4 people per year in the UK alone are diagnosed with a mental health disorder (Mind, 2013). And yet mental health is still sadly widely considered a bit of a taboo subject, something people choose to not talk about and hideaway for many reasons. So in light of this, for this week’s blog I thought I’d try something a little different and share a story very close to my heart.

It all started around 8 years ago when I was visiting home from uni. I went to steal a glue stick out of my sister’s desk draw. As I picked it up, a notebook fell open and I couldn’t stop my eyes from scanning the open page. The page was filled with hate filled words of absolute loath and disgust, how she didn’t deserve to eat, how she’d vomit to punish herself. This was all written by my beautiful baby sister about herself. I sat on the floor and cried. I cried for her suffering, for not picking up on it, for not being there for her, for her not feeling like she could talk to me about it, for not being able to un-read what I saw. Right there and then I knew what it felt like to feel my heart break. The day after, I went back to uni and was there for a month – keeping this information to myself and not knowing what to do. When I came home again, I finally plucked up the courage to talk to her. I was so scared she would hate me for reading her diary, for snooping, that she wouldn’t let me in. But when I told her that I knew, she just cried and hugged me. She said she was so relieved she finally had someone to share this burden with.

For the next 2-3 years we struggled on. I knew that if I mentioned anything to anyone it would ruin our relationship and she would no longer trust me. She would ring me most days and tell me in detail what – if anything – she had eaten, how much exercise she had done and if she had been sick. For a while I naively thought she was starting to get better, but then in the spring/ early summer 2012 it all started to change. She stopped calling me as often and would no longer tell me what she was eating, her behaviour changed, became more angry, manipulative even malicious at times. I knew that this was her illness and not her, and I could feel her spiralling out of control and day by day as she became more unwell. Our parents started to suspect something was going on and her weight started to plummet. She was barely eating, dog walking for 3-4 hours a day for work, and then spending 2-3 hours in the gym in the evening. If I suggest that she was pushing herself too hard, that she needed to get help it was because I had to love her as I was her sister.

I remember praying to God to find a way to get through to her, because I knew that I was losing my sister, not just emotionally, her body was literally starting to shut down. To edit a long story short, that summer she joined a triathlon club and met a guy and they started dating. After many family rows, and her realising that someone who didn’t ‘have’ to care for her but did anyway, she finally began to see that she needed to get help.

She finally plucked up the courage to go to the GP and ask for help. However when she had her appointment she was told by the Doctor that “Boys don’t like skinny girls” so she should eat more. And that was that. At the time I was furious!! Now with hindsight it no longer makes my blood boil, but I was disappointed that this was so obviously a cry for help, and yet she was met with a stigma and prejudice from a senior health care professional. I now however realise we are all merely human. Fortunately she agreed to go back to a different GP if I went with her and didn’t use that previous consultation as confirmation and encouragement that there was nothing wrong with her! We went and saw an amazing doctor who recognised the severity of the situation straight away and referred my sister to a dietitian. Again to cut a long story short, she found a place for her at an eating disorder clinic as an out-patient, meaning that although clinically she qualified to be admitted as an inpatient, her GP took a risk in keeping her at home as she felt it was the right thing for my sister. Here she was diagnosed with anorexia with bulimic tendencies and at her lowest weighed 5 stone 8. Her GP having the foresight to keep my sister at home paid off incredibly well. Within weeks she was slowly starting to put weight on and within months she started to come back to life. I’ll never forget the day when I realised that I had my sister back, her smile was reaching her eyes again and her laugh was infectious and alive. You’d never have guessed that a few months earlier we nearly lost her. She is now a strong, healthy and passionate young woman, who will always have a daily battle with her mental health but now the difference is that SHE is in control. I have had the honour of running alongside her in mud runs over the last few years and I couldn’t be prouder of her success in her home and work life and in the physical strength she now has.

We were extremely blessed that she responded so well to cognitive behaviour therapy, and as a nurse I am all too aware of how this isn’t a story for a lot of people. For many this struggle continues for a very long time. But I wanted to share a story of hope with you today. And that’s what this journey has taught us; never give up, God answers our prayers (not always on our timescales) and there is always hope even in the darkest times.