“I want to die. I don’t see the point of living anymore,” Constance
“Mealtimes were a battlefield. "We would get through one meal and then wonder how we would have the stamina to get through another," she says. "I would say things like 'This isn't going to make you fat, this is keeping you alive.' But you're not dealing with a sane, rational person. You're dealing with somebody who doesn't want to do what they need to do to survive," explains Sarah, Constance’s mother.
Mealtimes and Milestones: A Teenager's Diary of Moving on from Anorexia by Constance Barter is published by ¬Robinson
At 14, Constance Barter was running 25km and swimming 6km every week. But it was only to mask the fact that she was starving herself. Anorexia nearly killed her but, three years later and healthy, she talks about her experience in her new book. “My main hope is to provide hope and inspiration to other young sufferers," she says. "And to show it is possible to make a full ¬recovery.
So as ED Awareness week closes out, I just wanted to encourage those out there. As I remember my own struggles with the illness, I want to remind everyone out there who is currently struggling that recovery is both a possible and beautiful thing. It's not easy, but the best things in life never really are, and as someone who has been at the lowest, darkest, most hopeless points in the disease, I can honestly tell you that recovery, as impossible as it seems, is truly possible and absolutely worth it.
