CHOOSE LIFE
Like so many others, Ashlee Thomas endured a painful struggle with her self image through social media, but family support has helped her on a long and inspirational road to recovery
Ashlee Thomas has been recovering from healthy anorexia for three years. Now the healthy 17-year-old is inspiring others with her message that “life’s too short, love what you have."
GOLD Coast teenager Ashlee Thomas was 13 years old when she was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, after years of struggling with bullying and self-esteem.
When she was finally diagnosed Ashlee weighed just 39kg.
“I was not well at all,” she said. “I was very, very sick, and the skinnier I was getting the more likes I was getting on Instagram.
“And more comments saying, ‘you look amazing’, and for me that was triggering my illness to think it was working, to keep doing it.”
After multiple suicide attempts and treatment at Tweed Mental Health Unit the now 17-year-old left school for 22 weeks to be at home. For much of that she had to be force-fed by her parents.
It was during this time her mother Kendall started Facebook page The Secret Burden as a way to keep friends and family updated on her daughter’s condition.
The page has become a way for the pair to bond and educate.
“Mum was at the stage where she couldn’t bear to talk to people on the phone about what was going on,” Ashlee said. “She would get too emotional and would just cry.
“She found it a way to let people know where Team Ash was at during the week. Since I’ve come out of hospital and am on the recovery stages, it turned into a project for both
mum and I. We’re doing more things – speaking at schools and sharing it with people all over Australia just to be aware that someone is starting a conversation.
“My goal has always been that I don’t want people to stop and feel sorry for me, I just want people to start that conversation.”
Ashlee, who has left school and is studying journalism, now gives speeches to high school students across southeast Queensland to share her story with other people her age.
This month she celebrated three years in recovery.
She said often students approached her after her speeches to ask for advice on their own body-image struggles.
“Once you’re vulnerable you can be open to accepting anything,” she said.
“I was in a vulnerable state and I let in a monster in anorexia, and these young people come up to me so depressed.
“They have this expectation that they have to be the best, they have to achieve and they have to live up to a standard, and that’s where I think we’ve lost the ability to just be a kid in society.”
Though she admitted she still had a long way to go in her recovery, since receiving treatment for anorexia Ashlee has told her story across Australia.
She’s also appeared in several TV programs and news articles in her quest to spread her message even further.
“I know I will never be able to prevent social media altogether but it’s about using it safely and getting our young kids to love themselves,” she said.
“We grow up as young girls just going ‘I hate this about myself’, but at the end of the day that’s all we have, and why waste your life ignoring that and wanting to hate that?
“Life’s too short, we should be loving what we have.”