The beginning

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By Georgie Atkinson

Well hello there! I’m glad you have found this small corner of the internet, welcome. Thank you for taking time out of the day (even if you are procrastinating) to read this blog.

My journey like most journeys has been a somewhat hilly one, with copious amounts of mountains that have been climbed. I’m sure that there are many more on the horizon but I am having a positive half an hour and feel rather at peace with myself and the world. Anyway, I am rambling… let me start from the beginning, as Julie Andrews once sang… it’s a very good place to start.

Shadow of Depression

Let’s rewind to 2011, the year of the Royal Wedding and where my mental health journey starts. The first time I remember something being actively wrong was when after the copious amounts of bank holidays around the Royal Wedding, I didn’t want to return to school. My mother at first put this down to my teenage hormones and generally being a teenager. However, the days turned into weeks and then the weeks turned into months. Things steadily grew worse and by the time the autumn came, it was clear, something was wrong. I can’t quite remember this period, but I know it was a time where I reached the depths of what would soon become like a shadow stuck to me, depression.

Thankfully after months of avoiding my therapist she referred me to my consultant, who I believe saved my life. Goodness knows what would have happened but thankfully I was admitted into a psychiatric hospital in February 2012, aged 15. This was a unique experience and not one I would wish on my worst enemy, but I think essential in keeping me alive. After three months, where a lot of tears were shed, I was discharged with continuing support from my consultant. The next few years were tricky to say the least, constantly swimming against the tide that was my chronic depression.

Unfortunately, I managed to acquire a stalker at the end of 2013 and alongside this my father suffered a stroke and my grandmother died. These three quite unsettlingly events caused my depression to rear its ugly head and once again I started to miss school and I found myself in rather a dark place. Somehow I managed to get three a-levels and a place to study Ancient History at Durham University. Which on paper seems like a good result, however during my A-levels I contracted an eating disorder, not by choice, but dieting in order to fit into a dress for my leavers ball led me down a very slippery slope. Little did I know how this well intentioned dieting would lead me to the very edge of life and reality.

Current Day

My current battle is around food and eating, being scared of food sounds ridiculous but for me it has become every waking moment. Again, I wouldn’t wish my brain on my worst enemy. This blog is a way of me sharing my story, one post at a time. Hopefully documenting both the dark and lighter moments that come with recovering from an eating disorder. I will try to inject as much humour as physically possible into a subject that can be seen as taboo.

Thanking you kindly for reading,
George.