A former anorexia battler has shared a message of hope after beating the cruel disease. At the height of her eating disorder, Emily Hale would walk 70,000 steps a day, become forgetful and feel faint after having a shower.
But after bravely reaching out for help and receiving the specialist care she needed, Emily managed to overcome the illness. Now aged 23, she helps others at the hospital where she once received treatment herself.
“It's hard looking back at myself year ago," she said. "Last August I was in and out of A&E all the time. Something different was wrong with my blood every week. Now I am working and I don’t have to worry when I'm next in hospital."
Alongside her new job, Emily is also an 'Expert by Experience', working with female services users at Cygnet Hospital in Godden Green, Sevenoaks.
“It's important to give patients hope for the future, and help them realise that things can and do get better," she said. "When you are first admitted into a service, you feel like your world has turned upside down. But however stuck you feel, it’s important to realise that it's only a moment in time – it is not forever. Things have turned around for me, and it can for everyone else.
"I want to show that to them and prove that life doesn’t have to be a cycle of mental health getting better and then worse again. There’s so much more to live for.”
Emily, from Maidstone in Kent, was first diagnosed with an eating disorder when she was 18. She was planning to go on a gap year to Thailand with her friends and was getting injections for the trip.
“As I was leaving, I turned around to this support worker and said ‘I think I need some help,'" she said. "Things had been getting worse and worse and, in that one moment, I just decided to ask. It was a relief, as things had been bad for a long time. People at work noticed I wasn’t really great, they had stopped asking me to do tasks because I would get forgetful.
“My hair was thinner and my skin was dry all the time. After having a shower I would have to sit down on my bedroom floor because the heat would make me feel really faint."
Two days after an appointment with her doctor, Emily was admitted to inpatient care. After nine weeks she was discharged and started studying psychology at Canterbury University. However in her third year she began to relapse.
"I didn't go to any lectures," she said. "My mind wasn't all there. I would walk 70,000 steps a day. It was a bit of weight control and what my brain was telling me I had to do.
“It's really isolating, and it takes up every minute of every day – thinking about how you are going to eat less or when you are going to exercise more. It takes away from friendships, family, and spending time with others because you are preoccupied."
Last September, Emily returned to inpatient care at Cygnet Hospital Ealing and completed a four-month treatment programme. While still an inpatient, she applied for a job with the same hospital company.
She said: “I saw a job advertised for an cccupational therapy assistant (OTA) at the Cygnet Hospital Maidstone and I instinctively felt that it would be a good fit for me. Coming out of hospital and actually having a job to go to was so important.
"If I came home to nothing, things would have ended worse. I was still an inpatient when I had the interview and was over the moon when I heard the news I'd been successful.”
The 23-year-old is now an OTA on Bearsted Ward, a 15-bed male psychiatric intensive care unit at the hospital. Emily helps service users regain a sense of control and order in their lives, so they can move to a less restrictive care setting and ultimately return home.
“It's definitely challenging but I am absolutely loving it," she said. "It is great when you witness firsthand the positive changes happening and the difference you can make."
"The guys come in so unwell and within a couple of months they can have a normal conversation again. Seeing them get better and able to interact with peers and staff is really rewarding.”
