‘Living nightmare’ is over
MADELINE Baker and twin Rachael always did everything together. They learned to walk and talk at the same time, started prep together and the first day of year 7.
But when Rachael was graduating year 12, Madeline was being tube-fed in hospital.
Now, more than three years later, Madeline will start her first day of university while Rachael starts the first day of her final uni year.
Ms Baker, 21, was suffering anorexia nervosa, obsessive compulsive disorder and depression when she was forced to quit school in year 10.
“I felt like the walls were closing in on me,” she said.
Ms Baker was a healthy grade 6 student and gymnast in 2008 when she was struck with pneumonia and became permanently sapped of energy. Doctors diagnosed her with chronic fatigue.
The self-described perfectionist was forced to give up competitive gymnastics and only allowed to go to school three days a week.
“(Not going to school) caused me to develop depression — because a lot of my selfesteem results from my achievements — and school was one of the main things that made me feel good about myself,” Ms Baker said.
She began binge eating — easily devouring a packet of chips and a block of chocolate in an afternoon — and put on around 15kg. She became determined to lose weight.
By 2012, aged 15 and halfway through year 10, she had lost up to 30kg. Doctors ordered she be admitted to hospital. Over two years she was hospitalised with anorexia nervosa 13 times.
“My pattern was I’d go in, I’d come out and I’d relapse,” Ms Baker said.
She was subjected to a “bootcamp”-like routine of eating six meals a day and said she “hated herself” more than ever when in hospital.
But attending Rachael’s year 12 graduation was the turning point.
“I was so proud, and I love her so much, but I just cried,” Ms Baker said. “I wanted to be up there with her. I was like, ‘Why did this happen to me?’.
“I wanted to graduate, I (then) wanted to get into vet science, to go travelling.”
Realising she was stuck in a loop that could last years, Ms Baker decided she had to recover to achieve her goals.
“I wrote all my goals on this piece of paper and realised I can’t do any of that if I don’t get better,” Ms Baker said.
“It was bloody hard, but I got there.”
In 2015, aged 18 she went back to school.
The Clonard College student studied VCE over three years, and won an Upstart Competition with three schoolmates for establishing a peer support program for people with eating disorders.
In 2017, aged 21, she graduated with a 94 ATAR score and will study a Bachelor of Vision Science and Masters of Optometry at Deakin.
“I’m just amazed I made it this far. While I was sick ... I didn’t think I’d ever get out of the eating disorder,” Ms Baker said. “I was living a nightmare.”
The sisters now hope to do more to help those living with eating disorders.