I came from a very loving family, but my struggles began when I was only eight years old. I was bullied in primary school and around the estate where I lived. I was a very sensitive girl on the inside, but on the outside, I put on a show and pretended that I was fine.

When I came home, I would sit on the back step with my dog and cry. I told him all my problems because I did not know how to tell anyone else. My family had no idea what was happening inside me.

At school, I needed extra educational support. Sometimes, the teacher made me do the work in front of the whole class. I remember wanting the world to swallow me up. The bullying continued, and when I entered secondary school, it became much worse. In my first year, I was bullied about my weight, my intelligence, not having enough friends, and not being social enough.

All my life, I had masked and buried the problems I did not want to face. I blocked them out and kept everything inside until I began projecting my pain onto my body. Deep down, I had no sense of self-worth. The bullying had reinforced the belief that I was not good enough.

Social media made those feelings worse. I looked at images of perfection and compared myself to everyone I saw. Every comparison made me feel more worthless. This kind of pressure can affect anyone. It can also be widespread among boys and men, particularly through gym culture and the pressure to achieve a certain body type.

Falling Into the Spiral

Once I started losing weight, I cut out more and more foods. Eventually, I could not think about anything other than my eating disorder. It took over my entire mind and dictated every part of my life.

I remember looking in the mirror and seeing how unwell I had become, yet somehow I still did not believe I was ill enough. That is one of the terrifying contradictions of an eating disorder: even when your body is in danger, the illness can convince you that you have not gone far enough. I could not escape that spiral.

I became obsessed with exercising and found ways to do it without my family knowing. I weighed myself every morning. When my dad discovered this, he took a hammer to the scales. At the time, I may not have understood it, but it was one of the best things he could have done.

There was a period when eating became incredibly difficult for me. My dad did everything he could to help keep me eating, and my mam would sit beside me, hold my hand, and stay with me while I cried.

I pushed my family away so many times, but they never let me go.

Treatment and Recovery

I was diagnosed at the age of 12. By 14, I was so unwell in the hospital that I received the last rites. Even then, I never truly believed that I could die from the illness.

At 15, I was admitted to another hospital. Everything began to change when I met a great consultant who treated me like a normal human being. I was eventually discharged at 23, and I had ten good years.

Later, I returned to this hospital for seven years. After that, I began attending day care, and I also started caring for my mam.

Recovery was not a straight line. It involved setbacks, treatment, routines, support, and slowly learning how to live beyond the eating disorder.

A nurse once said something to me that has always stayed in my mind:

“Food is the weapon, not the source.”

The illness was never really about food. Food was the weapon I used against myself, but underneath it were years of bullying, buried pain, low self-worth, and feelings I did not know how to express.

What Helped Me Keep Going

Routine became incredibly important. When I did not have a routine, I felt as though I was climbing the walls. I needed structure, compassionate professional care, and people who could see beyond my behaviour to the pain underneath it.

After my dad passed away, I made my mam a promise that I would not go back there again. I wanted to make her proud, and I never wanted to put my family through that pain again. Regardless of everything that happened, they had always stood by me.

My family could not fix the illness for me, but their love reminded me that I was still worth fighting for. Even when I could not see a future for myself, they kept believing that one existed.

After my dad became sick, I began to spiral again. I stopped eating properly, worked crazy hours, and slowly started to lose control. My sisters noticed that something was wrong and contacted my housemate to find out what I was actually eating. She told them that she hardly ever saw me eat.

I knew then that things were getting bad again, so I made an appointment with my consultant in the hospital and also saw a dietician. But despite all the help around me, I could not seem to pull myself out of it.

Eventually, I moved home because I wanted to help care for Dad and support Mum. But as Dad became more unwell, I became more unwell too. I was so focused on wanting my dad back to the person he had always been that I stopped caring about myself.

Dad had stage-four cancer, but he fought so hard and never showed us how much pain he was in. He was incredibly strong, and I just wanted everything to be a nightmare that we could somehow wake up from.

When Dad passed away, I stayed at home with Mum, but my eating disorder continued to spiral out of control. It became so severe that I needed major surgery because of the damage the illness had done to my organs.

I moved in with my sister for a while to give Mum a break. My sister tried so hard to help me, but eventually I was admitted to hospital again.

When I was discharged, I moved back home to Mum and was doing a little better. Then Mum became sick with cancer, and everything changed again.

I realised that the most important person in my life was very sick, and I had to toughen up. I had to remember all the tools I had learned throughout my years of treatment and recovery and start putting them into practice.

It was my time to step up and care for Mum because she needed me now more than ever. I had to think beyond myself and ask myself: what was more important — my illness or my mum?

There was no question. My mother was my world.

It became real that Mum was very sick and that I needed to be there for her. Our whole family came together to support Mum, just as we had supported Dad.

Mum made me realise that there are things in life that are more important than my illness. She made me stand up and be strong for her, and caring for her gave me a purpose in life.

I was incredibly lucky to have five precious years caring for Mum. Those years changed me. They made me stronger, more compassionate, and a better person. They also gave me something I had struggled to find for so long: a life and a purpose beyond my eating disorder.

Looking back from the outside now, I can see how completely anorexia can control a person’s mind and lifestyle. From the outside, it can seem selfish or self-absorbed because the illness takes over every thought, every decision, every day.

But there is still a person underneath it all.

There is a soul inside that illness — a person crying to get out, crying for help, and wanting to be part of the world again.

I was so lucky because my dad, my mum, my sisters, my family, and the professionals who cared for me never stopped seeing that person. They never gave up on me, even when I had almost given up on myself.

When Mum passed away, I made her a promise that I would never go back to that place again. I made that promise because I wanted to make her proud, but also because everything she had taught me had given me the strength to believe that I could live differently.

I had spent so many years fighting my illness, but Mum helped me understand what I was fighting for.

So, to every family who has a loved one with an eating disorder: never, ever lose hope.

Even when they are at rock bottom, even when they push you away, even when the illness seems to have taken over completely, there is still a person in there.

There is still a little part of them crying to get out and be part of the world again — in every possible way.

Keep believing in that person. Keep reminding them that they are more than their illness.

And, most importantly, never let them go.

What I Want Families to Know

A person can become an expert at masking. You cannot always tell what is going on inside someone by looking at them. I appeared fine while privately falling apart, and I became very skilled at hiding the things I was doing.

Talk to children like human beings. Speak to them as a trusted friend would, and build a relationship in which they feel safe enough to tell the truth. Ask what is happening in their lives, listen without judgement, and continue to be there even when they push you away.

Do not assume that an eating disorder is simply about food, and do not respond by pressuring a child to eat. They still need appropriate nutritional and medical support, but force, shame, and confrontation can make it harder for them to communicate.

Try to understand the pain behind the behaviour and involve qualified professionals as early as possible.

Bullying can have a devastating effect on a child, especially when that child already struggles with self-worth. The effects may remain hidden for years. Social media can deepen those wounds by surrounding young people with unrealistic ideas of perfection and encouraging constant comparison.

My eating disorder took years of my life, and recovery was neither quick nor simple.

But my story is also about the people who refused to give up on me.

I pushed my family away again and again, but they never let me go.

And today, when I look back, I understand something I could not understand when I was sick:

Recovery is not only about leaving an illness behind. It is about discovering what you are living for.

For me, it was my family. It was my mum. It was the love that never disappeared, even when I could not love myself.

And it was finally finding the person underneath the illness again.

That person had never really gone away.

She was just waiting to be found

-Mairead