Raw: The diary of an anorexic
Lydia was 19 years old and enjoying university with a loving family and great friends when she became anorexic. The doctors told her that she would die.This is Lydia’s account of what anorexia did to her, how it changed her and how it impacted on her family, friends and all her choices in life. Her story is told through letters and blogs that Lydia wrote at the best and worst of times, notes from her parent s and friends desperately trying to find a way through to her and doctors notes with the horrific exacting details.Lydia is now 23 and ‘recovering’. She strongly believes that recovery is possible, and feels she is almost there. She wrote her book to explain her deepest thoughts and to explain the painful mental torture that she endured and overcame. And she wrote it in the hope that others suffering would relate to it, and that other families watching their loved ones will be touched and understand more deeply how an eating disorder really feels.
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Raw
The diary of an anorexic
Lydia Davies
Certain names in this book have been omitted to protect the privacy of those involved.
HarperTrueLife
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London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperTrueLife 2015
FIRST EDITION
Text © Lydia Davies 2015
Cover photo © Shutterstock
Cover layout © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
A catalogue record of this book isavailable from the British Library
Lydia Davies asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
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Contents
At the age of 19 I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. Through this illness, I lost so much more than just an excessive amount of weight. I was ripped away from the life I had created at university in Newcastle, thus taking away my degree, two and a half yearsâ worth of work, my freedom, friends, boyfriend and independence. I was transported back to the life a child lives, being nursed, cared for and catered to by my incredible family. Every sense of normality in life that I knew was gone, and so was my sanity.
The pages that follow are a raw record of the unexpected journey I found myself on. Along with original letters from my doctors, I have included letters to and from family members and friends, messages of support and encouragement from loads of amazing people when I was really struggling, posts from my blog which I wrote throughout my attempts at recovery, personal notes from my phone and suicide notes that I wrote in desperate times.
The first letter from my mother is, I now realise, the starting point of when my secret (which I didnât know I had) was out. I was in complete denial, and absolutely oblivious to the fact that I was anorexic. To be looked in the eye and told by a medical professional that you are going to die should be one of the most terrifying moments imaginable. When I was told this on three separate occasions, not once did it hit me. I was so far away in a separate realm to reality that my concept of everything was gone.
Two years on, what happened to me is still extremely raw, and it consumes a large space of my mind, dominating most of my memories. Through recovery I developed bulimia nervosa, attempted suicide on more occasions than I would like to mention, have been at my absolute lowest mentally and physically, and ripped my familyâs hearts out.
This chronological map of words and documents may help people to understand the damaged and delicate mind of a sufferer. I want people to be informed about what it is really like to get pulled down so deep into the dangerous world of disordered eating, and I want other sufferers to feel comfort, and perhaps gain courage from this open book of my most personal secrets.
It was on the nineteenth of October 2011 that I received a letter from my mother via email, which cut through my heart like a knife. My stomach dropped and I burst into tears as I read it. I had been completely emotionless and glassy-eyed for some time up until this point.
