When I get asked the question ” tell us about yourself?” I always find difficulty knowing where to start. I now feel blessed to have taken many roots and paths throughout my 33 years. I picture my life as a tree, not at all reflecting on the ‘tree of life’ from the Lion King here. But the roots of the tree are the experiences, people, skills, qualities and the foundations of who we are. The bigger the tree the more stronger roots it needs to flourish and grow. We need water and food to allow ourselves to live. I see my life as this tree and I want to share with people how they can turn their life around. As it wasn’t until very recently over the past few weeks I realised I have so much more to offer. And had a massive wake up call to make me realise I needed to find myself and beat this Anorexia.

After suffering from Anorexia in my early teens, for which wasn’t treated well. It unfortunately made a come back in my 30’s and it wasn’t until recently I had a wake up call to tackle this head on. And as I mentioned about the tree metaphor I could not grow or prosper without water and food. I was to my lowest point of the illness as unfortunately this time it was sidelined with depression and anxiety. It was over 2 weeks ago I went to see a friend for coffee and barely eating at this point felt sick, weak and depressed. I walked miles that day because of the intensity of this illness controlling everything and taking away my life I had to force myself under its power to exercise everyday either running or walking. I cried when I was talking to her about past memories and spending an hour with her was tiring. I went home and sat with my thoughts. I knew if I didn’t do something soon I will be six feet under somewhere soon and not here today to tell my story. This was the moment of realisation and I am so lucky to really see how beautiful this world we live in today. I will post more about this as the weeks go on.

I am currently a Personal Trainer and Yoga Teacher for PureGym where I live. So the journey I am taking is extra challenging as I have to make sure I’m physically fit and strong to carry out my duties. Its going to be a long and eventful journey. But I am really excited what I will experience and how it will allow me to grow as a person, like this tree. I now have some long term health complications from the illness, as I have nerve damage to my leg and foot. I am just waiting for a prognosis on this, however with the realisation that life is precious. I am now seeing any challenge as a way to either explore more avenues along with gaining strength and showing people there is a light. Unfortunately in some cases you need to experience a very low point to realise and recover. But on the other side you start seeing the colours instead of black and white.

I have had a mixture of jobs for which involved meeting many people and experiencing new experiences, seeing new places and lots of travelling. I graduated at Lincoln University with a Tourism and Management Degree in 2008. For which I struggled to find a job, as we was living in the credit crunch era. So I decided to go for something that is a massive step and applied to work at Walt Disney World Florida and travel. I felt anxiety then as it was 6 months away from home across the Atlantic. I am so happy I have made the plunge because I met so many beautiful people that have really impacted my life along with the support I still have from them today. We had our little Disney family with a whole mixture of nationalities. I will have some posts about this experience as this blog unfolds. It has made me grateful for meeting so many different people who have entered in and out of many chapters of my life. University and Walt Disney World are definitely the first few chapters of my life that have made me who I am today writing this blog.

When your going through mental health you forget about the memories, as the illness is like a monster who hides these memories, for which it takes a lot of talking and reconnecting to allow to find these again to then return to there right place within your brain. I feel now I have reconnected again with these past experiences and realised how much I have done in a space of thirty years. I am grateful now that I have had this illness as its allowed me to realise who I am and delve deep into myself to find these missing pieces of the jigsaw. With a lot of counselling, talking with friends who have an ear to spare and getting it all out there on social media is my release and finally day by day I feel I am killing this monster. And now the missing pieces are being found again, for which Amy is back! So many people have commented on how different I am now and that I bring so much energy, life and fun. I have realised now for many years I wasn’t this Amy that people see or talk to today. I was in denial that my anorexia had come back to haunt me, alongside having depression and anxiety.

People who I have worked with me during my 8 years of travel, working as a holiday rep, ski rep used to associate me with a happy go lucky kinda girl who liked to drink, enjoy food and just wanted to socialise. You begin to realise you haven’t had that kind of fun for a while and you want to get back to feeling the way you did back then. Even though this is a sign of depression. Bringing back these memories with your senses either a photo, taste, touch or smell. Will allow your brain to reconnect and allow you to get part of yourself back. I realised this was a good thing for me. Though I am not saying it will work for everyone. But really trying to find any old memory was a start point to get me on the road of recovery.

I briefly did a stint working for a cruise company before I got some sad news, for which had to come home. I had to stay at home for a while as my dad was not well and unfortunately after a year I went through the most painful part of my life, for which was to morn the loss of my Dad. I am so grateful for making the decision to go home, as the time with my dad was precious and i had the opportunity to make some more lovely memories with him. He is also the driving force for me to get better and recover from this nasty illness. As he proper put his foot down to get me treated in my teens because I was very close to deaths door. So I owe him many thanks and gratitude for this. For which now I want to carry his legacy and beat this once and for all!

It was during this time I found a great love for fitness and training for events especially Marathons, Ironman and Spartan. This also gave me a passion to be a Personal Trainer and Yoga teacher. I will talk more about my love for fitness as the blog develops. As I said at the beginning its a bit of a long journey I have taken.

I am so grateful and blessed to have amazing support. Going on social media has allowed me to reconnect back to me with old friends. Also feel humbled that I have helped so many people without knowing already. I hope this is to continue to inspire and spread the awareness, but mainly help people going through any mental health illnesses.

I would like to express enormous gratification for people I have met throughout my journey and given me support through this most challenging journey I will ever embark on. Also thank you for bringing up awesome memories to really get Amy back and not allowing Anorexia to define me. I hope you enjoy my posts. As much as I enjoy writing, as now I have a new love for writing and will be lost without my journal. Its been my savour through all this, so would like to give them a special mention too.