Listen to a young person’s experience from South Gloucestershire. Dieting started when she was younger after feeling over weight. This later led to comparing herself to friends who were becoming thinner than her. After a period of repeatedly being sick following eating she just stopped eating. The GP monitored her weight and this ended with an emergency appointment to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). She and her family then started intensive support from the South Glos CAMH service.
She describes the slow process of her accepting help, the importance of family relationships and working with the family therapists to find the best way through. Her message for those starting out is to stick with it and to realise the best of life is still to come.
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Audio File: A Young Person's Perspective - Eating Disorders
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They learnt to understand my personality and my ways enough to get me to a well stage...I am significantly a lot happier than when I was fifteen and before I got the eating disorder and I think all I would say to anyone who gets an eating disorder; just hang in there because you have only got good things to come, your life will get better.