You, me and ANOREXIA

Laura Sylvester credits her best friend for helping her through some of the hardest times in her life

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Waiting in my room at the mental health hospital for my best friend Hannah, I still couldn’t believe this was where we were meeting. The days of watching The X Factor together then heading out clubbing felt like a distant memory. Now I was an inpatient being treated for anorexia. I’d refused to allow other friends to visit, as it was too difficult to let them see me so vulnerable. But I knew Hannah would never judge me or push me to explain how I’d ended up here, when I barely understood myself.

Hannah and I met at college in 2008, when we were 16. We bonded over our mutual love of fashion and the Arctic Monkeys, and loved going out in our hometown of Preston. Warm, laid-back and kind, Hannah was lovely to be around.

My eating disorder was never anything to do with being unhappy with my size-6, 5ft 2in body. I’d always been naturally slight and sporty. Instead, I believe now that it developed as a result of an intense relationship I found myself in from the age of 17, and a need to find something I could control. Over the course of a year, my weight dropped from 7st to around 5st. I dressed in baggy clothes to conceal my changing body, and if anyone noticed, they didn’t say. I spent as little time as possible at home, or else stayed locked in my bedroom, to avoid spending time with my mum.

Then, in late August 2009, aged 18, I blacked out at home because I was so weak. After coming round, I felt so scared and told Mum what had been happening. She was shocked and upset that she hadn’t realised, and took me to the GP the following day.