My parents were thrilled, and at 17 I applied to do a degree in hotel management. I was a normal weight for my height, but in my head I remained as enormous - and as ugly - as ever.Īcademically, I continued to do well, and by the age of 16 I'd gained three A-levels, all A grades. I hated going out in the street alone, and stayed at home as much as I possibly could. It was as if I had been programmed by my school mates to believe I was worthless.īy the age of 15, my self-esteem was so low that I used to change my clothes up to ten times each morning before leaving the house - simply because I was so unhappy with my appearance.Įven then, I would not be satisfied and would flinch at the sight of my own reflection.
Even meeting David, the boy who was later to become my first lover, did not help.īecause - like my family - he always said so, but inside I could not feel as if anyone loved me. Talking to someone about my feelings acted as a temporary release but still did not solve the problem of my increasing self-hatred. Recognising immediately how serious my problem was, the doctor not only prescribed Prozac but also referred me to a child psychologist. My mother became increasingly concerned and insisted that I go to our GP. After school, I would sit alone in my bedroom and cry for hours. What I wanted was a more drastic solution - preferably to be someone else entirely different.īy the time I was 13, I hated myself so much and was so miserable that I had become clinically depressed. Occasionally I would say to my mother that I was unhappy about my weight, but she would just tell me to cut out sweets and crisps and eat sensibly. Looking back, I did my best to appear cheerful and outgoing at home, and never confessed how secretly miserable I was. I don't blame my parents it wasn't their fault. But even she did not recognise how unhappy I was. My mother, in particular, was my best friend, the only friend I had at the time. I was very, very lonely, and stayed away from school as often as I could.Īll I did at school was work - at which, fortunately, I excelled, probably because both my parents helped me at home. My tormentors tended to be popular themselves, and kept it that way by making me their entertainment. Also, back then I didn't believe the other children were doing anything wrong: I thought I was being treated this way because I deserved it - for being so unattractive. I couldn't tell my parents or the teachers what was happening because I was too embarrassed. Even now, I have to block out the memories of exactly what was said to me because it still hurts me so much. No one who hasn't been through it can know what it's like to be called names such as 'Miss Piggy' or 'Fatty' in the playground at the age of five. It was not so much the pain as their total contempt which upset me. As I turned round, one girl lifted the other up and swung her towards me so that she could kick me in the back. I remember walking home from school one day when I noticed two little girls from my class were following me. All I knew was that being bigger made me different - and worse, an outsider. By the time I was eight, teasing had turned into bullying and made every day an ordeal. Looking back now at photos of myself as child, I can see that I was only slightly heavier than average - certainly not enough to worry about.īut I did. Yet almost from the first day, I was picked out by the other children as being plump. I had a younger brother and two loving and supportive parents, both teachers, so I never expected for a moment that the other children might not like me. But that all changed when I started at primary school. Until the age of five, I was a very happy child.
Today, healthy and happy, she is a model and mother to a delightful five-year-old girl. Here, we spoke to 22-year-old Leanne MacNay, from Glasgow, who, as a bullied teenager, suffered from anorexia and eventually tried to kill herself. So what does it take to beat this terrible disease? A round one in five people with an eating disorder die within 20 years through suicide or long-term health damage.