‘I was so ill with anorexia, the doctors were surprised I was still alive’
AT THE age of 16, Lara Rebecca was told by doctors they were surprised she was still alive.
The teenage girl from Cardiff was so dangerously thin that some of her muscle started to waste away.
The terrifying warning came after a long struggle with an eating disorder and eventually being diagnosed with anorexia, a condition that almost took her life.
After a long recovery, Lara is now a successful podcast host, fitness blogger, and mental health and eating disorder campaigner, all while studying at Cardiff Metropolitan University.
Looking back on her journey, the 20-year-old recalls being flown home from a family holiday in France due to her condition, being off school for several months and struggling to recover.
She has posted a series of photographs on her Instagram account of her recovery
Speaking to us, Lara explained her anorexia “didn’t just pop out of nowhere”.
She said: “It was a tree and a stem from an abundance of other mental health issues that I was struggling with at the time.
“Originally it was just something as simple as perfectionism, which then developed quite chronically into anxiety and it got to the point where in the very, very early stages of my highschool education I was suffering from panic attacks on a very consistent basis.
“I was running out of classes because I was hyperventilating so much. I couldn’t sit examinations in halls and it was something I really struggled with. I think as that developed, my confidence just dropped significantly.
“The tendencies of depression and just feeling extremely isolated, but then also investing myself in isolation and hiding myself away and just being so over-consumed by a lot of selfdestructive talk and in a dialogue that, you know, started very innocently but then can really vamp up what would get that momentum going. Kind of like the domino effect.”
Eventually, it got to the point where
Lara’s anxiety and depression led her to “crave” another coping mechanism.
She said: “And I guess I found that through manipulating my weight and my body.”
It started off minimally, she explained, with small habits such as being secretive with food, trying to reduce calories, throwing away packed lunches and hiding food in cupboards.
“Then I discovered scales,” she said. “That’s when right things kind of went downhill. It was that numerical digit I could fixate on and that’s where I got my control and satisfaction from.”
With other things out of her control, her anxiety and depression, for example, Lara said the number looking back at her on the scales was something she felt she was in control of.
She said: “It was my coping mechanism, granted a very unhealthy one, but it was my safety.
“Looking back, I know that’s a really bizarre thing to say but that was a safety blanket and it was my comfort.”
Lara’s disordered eating started when she was around 11 or 12 years old, but her weight didn’t go down immediately.
She said it initially started out as exercise addiction, with less emphasis on her physical appearance and more about controlling food rather than losing weight.
She said: “You have this eating disorder at the start but very, very quickly you develop the identity and it almost engulfs you. It got very severe at the beginning of 2016.”
Lara’s school counsellor noticed the way she would talk about food and her body, and realised something was wrong.
She said: “The next thing I know I was in the GP’s office getting diagnosed with anorexia nervosa.”
That’s when things started become even worse.
Lara said: “It wasn’t my secret anymore. It elevated that anxiety so significantly and it was a really scary moment.”
She said: “That’s when the weight started to fall down very, very quickly.
Lara was taken out of school and was often visiting the hospital for check-ups. But during these checkups, Lara said she would often try and convince doctors she was taking their advice and instruction on board.
But really she still wanted them out of her life.
Lara said: “In August I was in France for a two-week holiday with my family and we arrived and by the third day I was flown home.
“I was extremely visibly anorexic and very, very, very frail and very underweight. I can recognise that now, but at the time I couldn’t see that.”
She added: “It’s a psychological illness. It’s not like I just wanted to lose a couple of pounds, you know, it’s an addiction. It’s chronic.”
Lara was flown home from France and taken to a hospital where doctors told her her heart “probably should have stopped by now”. to
At that point, her weight was around 34kg (74lb).
Lara demonstrated just how thin she was at this point.
She said: “If you put your thumb and index finger together, and move your index finger down to your first indentation, the circumference of my upper arm was smaller than that.”
Looking back on the “really scary day”, she recalls doctors saying “we’re surprised you’re still alive”.
Despite the terrifying warnings, Lara was still unable to process the situation.
She said: “That information went through one ear and out the other, I did not absorb that.”
Lara was then placed on a strict regime to improve her condition. Meal plan, no school, no moving, bedbound, eat this food, gain weight, hospital visits, nurses 24/7, consistent support and no opportunity to hide food.
With all the control taken away from her, Lara said the “mission was to put weight back on me”.
But at the start of the process, Lara explained that her mental health dipped.
“It was as if all my hard work went down the drain and all of my life input had been taken away. So originally terrifying”, Lara said.
“But then you start to see the light”. Eventually, the situation began to improve, and Lara recalls the first time she was allowed to go outside.
Out on a walk with her two newly adopted rescue greyhounds from Bridgend Dog’s Trust, Lara realised something for the first time in a while.
She said: “There’s a photo of me still looking unbelievably thin. But I was smiling. I was outside. I felt a sensation I hadn’t for so long and that was feeling free. I thought, ‘Is this what life feels like?.’”
Lara gradually began to drop her identity of someone with anorexia and described finding “who Lara really is”.
Now four and a half years on from her lowest point, Lara said she is confident in her relationship with food and her body, but admits sometimes a “disorder thought pops into my brain”.
She said: “But what I’ve been able to cultivate over the years is learning strategies.
“Over the 10 years of this journey, there’s no doubt I’ve been able to learn lessons and know how my mind works.”
She added: “And it’s about selfcompassion. It’s a slow, slow process but it’s a gratifying one.”
After being discharged in January 2017, in the following October she ran the Cardiff Half to raise money for charity.
Lara, who is studying sports and exercise science at Cardiff Metropolitan University, said she wanted to show people that the journey to freedom is possible and to share her progress. She decided to start a blog.
After building up a few followers and turning her journey into something constructive, she launched her YouTube channel later in 2018 and around a year ago she launched her podcast titled “The Keep Smiling Podcast”.
During her recovery Lara also fell in love with training and running, building a platform on Instagram where she shares her progress and advice.
The furloughed barista said: “Cultivating these platforms has allowed me to speak about my experiences in a way that’s positive”
Although just a few years ago Lara would run out of a classroom due to her anxiety, she’s now even taken on public speaking events after establishing a social media presence.
Through social media, Lara said she is often contacted by young people in similar situations.
She said her advice is: “Just speak up and make it vocal. Because once you acknowledge it, and that is the hardest bit, it’s the one that sets up the momentum into a positive recovery.”
She added: “And it’s about selfcompassion. It’s a slow, slow process but it’s a gratifying one.
“You can recognise the elements of growth and self-development which, when you look back on, you can be proud of yourself.
“So it’s speaking up, being compassionate and understanding it’s a journey.”
Listen to Lara’s podcast – The Keep Smiling Podcast – on Spotify.
Advice for getting help for anorexia or how to get help for someone else can be found at www.nhs.uk/ mental-health/conditions/anorexia