‘As a teen, if I’d been given option to die, I’d probably have taken it...’
CARA Neary was 14 years old when her ‘healthy lifestyle’ regime spiralled into an allencompassing obsession with restrictive eating and exercise. So fast was her descent that she barely noticed the punishing voices in her head permeate her every waking moment – until, eventually, they were too loud to ignore.
By 16, she was a diminutive shadow of her former self both physically and mentally. Her family intervened and took her to a doctor who gave her the heart-plummeting diagnosis: she had anorexia nervosa, a complex mental illness that usually comes with an overwhelming fear of gaining weight and a distorted perception of self.
Just one year later, aged 17, she thought she was ready to die. She said: ‘I just felt like there was no way out and as weird as it sounds, I just wanted quiet. My brain was so encompassed with all of these different thoughts of having to work hard to satisfy this voice telling me to under-eat or over-exercise and I knew it would never be satisfied.
‘I was exhausted of hearing it and fighting it and also fighting with people on the outside who were telling me there was a problem and that I needed to get better. I thought, “I’m tired. I just want peace and quiet”.’
Now a 22-year-old professional with a love for baking in her spare time, Cara’s life is far removed from the one characterised by the turmoil and despair she once suffered.
She says she now has a great relationship with food and still enjoys a run, but not in the compulsive way she once did. ‘I didn’t ever imagine a life where I wouldn’t be constantly exercising or worrying about food and feeling constantly miserable,’ she said. ‘I really thought that it was going to be forever. But I’m really healthy, I am really happy.’
And that is why, for Cara, Holyrood’s Assisted Dying Bill is ‘dangerous’.
She said: ‘Genuinely, I think if I had been given the option at 16, I probably would have taken it, which is terrifying, but if you gave me the option today, I’d obviously say absolutely not.’
She continued: ‘Dying is not something you can come back from, you can’t undo this, so I think it’s really dangerous. I feel like it needs a lot more discussion. It is a very grey area.’