I'm Anna I am a mum of three. I do YouTube and also Instagram. I'm Cat, I am
a yoga teacher, blogger and YouTuber. And we are here today to talk about eating
disorders. When did your eating disorder start? When
I was 17 I snapped my ACL and had a knee reconstruction and was told I could
never dance again which was like my lifelong dream so that kind of really
hit me the [I couldn't] be seen out unless I was like looking a certain way and feeling a
certain way and it was like a punishment. It's that lack of control, isn't it?
You're trying to take it back. Exactly, totally. You know it was this I was very bitter as well like just all
spiralled just a lot of negative thoughts really kind of kicked in with bulimia
to begin with and then it was kind of a mixture of bulimia and anorexia. You know
like no one looked at me and said oh you're, you look anorexic so therefore
you're ill it was like because I looked probably normal I was very still
muscular from like doing gymnastics oh I almost thought that I was like wasn't
allowed yeah to say that I was unwell. You weren't sick enough.
Exactly exactly that and that's kind of how it how it spiralled then because it
was all an internal punishment. I didn't tell anyone about it for five years.
My eating disorder didn't start fully until I was probably about 16, 17, 18? But
it kind of it's gradual I just think it was one bad habit after another yeah and
one unhealthy coping mechanism after another. I remember being so far into my
eating disorder it was probably worst times ever and a friend of mine who we'd
kind of fallen out and then half got back together yeah and I just had a
thing it was probably just in my mind but that she hated me no matter what she
hated me it was never gonna go back to what it was and I remember she saw me
after I had gained a little bit of weight which I wasn't okay with anyway
yeah at the time and she was like oh you look so much healthier to me that was
her saying I look fat. And it wasn't - she was probably just being nice
it was just all in my head and I just felt like oh my god
I need to lose like 20lbs. It's ridiculous. It's really scary like if I was of the
mindset I was when I was younger now I get amazing women following me on
Instagram when I do my yoga flows and they're like oh it's so great to see a
curvy woman you know being proud of her body on Instagram and now I'm like okay
cool yeah I've got big thighs like it's okay but back then that would have been
like ultimate insult and would have like sent me back. It's horrible like how is somebody
telling you that you look healthy. To me when somebody says that to me
now thank you. Yeah I've slept! So when for you was the time when you really
realized it was like an issue and that you needed to do something about it?
There were so many things that happened where that should have been the trigger
for me but you just ignore them and I think it wasn't until right before I got
pregnant that I realized yeah I probably should stop this and I was 20 I was
early twenties I was 23, 24. Having children was something that I had to
recover for them which is technically wrong you shouldn't think
that you should have to recover for anybody else
I suppose it's slightly different when you are their home.
Before pregnancy I hated myself so much I hated my body and when I found out I
was carrying this baby for the first time I actually loved a part of me it
wasn't me it was her and actually that kind of triggered me to realize that I
had to get healthy for myself too but I feel like she in a way saved my life
because I honestly don't know if I would have felt ever felt that if I hadn't had
her. As much as you say like you did it for someone else like it was for you
because like you say you had to create the healthiest place yeah for her to
grow but also that you had to be strong yeah for for her and like for when she
arrived. That's so beautiful. When I look back now I'm so happy that I
made the investment to recover because life was so horrible back then compared to
now even though the eating disorder will tell you that actually everything was
better back then because you were skinnier and yeah you were prettier and
this and that but, I wasn't. I look back and I I all I see in those photos are how
unhappy I was yeah and how nothing was ever good enough. So how was your daily
life when you were really in the depths of your eating disorder? Just all consumed.
Every reflection that there was it was like checking I was just constantly
thinking like oh gosh someone's looking at me so I was on edge and wasn't able
to thrive and like sometimes I wouldn't go out with friends. In the later stages
I shopped a lot but I shopped in a very unhealthy way because I didn't want to
go home for dinner so I had a job in London and rather than go home for
dinner I would just go to the shops and then by the time I'd get home I'd be too
tired and I'd go straight to bed and that was my coping mechanism. I remember
really really clearly my parents had gone away for a weekend and I was in a
really really downward spiralled cycle where I was also cutting myself as well
so I was in my room and I just, I just broke, it's the only way I can describe
it I just every part of me just broke. And i rang my aunty who I wasn't even
necessarily like overly close to you but I just picked up the phone and I rang
her I don't know why I said I think she sort of said like we're gonna get
through it's what it was it's all a blur I don't really remember. Five years I
went and I didn't speak to anybody about it and it was just torture and like
looking back now how sad I was like really like I can feel feel it now and
it feels like so so dark and so closed and if I could have been just a little
bit braver like a tiny little bit braver and just said to someone you know what
I'm just having a really really bad time. I kind of closed myself off from most
people, obviously I was still close to my family but they didn't really know that
anything was going on for years and years and years
my mum hadn't a clue she was such a body-positive mom yeah and so for her I
think it was so difficult for her to understand.
I remember she bought a book after she found out and it was like 'living
with anorexia and bulimia' it was so sweet yeah she really didn't have a clue, but also I
thought it was so bizarre that she didn't know anything about it whereas my
life was exactly that. I think like my dad it's very black and white
yeah so for him he was like, 'well just stop' and I was like it's not really that
simple, dad, I'm sorry, and he was like just don't do
it and now I'm older I can see that that was just his way
It's hard to know really what's right what's wrong to say but I think just being supportive
in general and just having that kind of listening ear
Sometimes there isn't the right thing to say you because can't be in someone's head...
Being in that position we know that we will misconstrue anything
anyone says whether it's positive or negative we'll take it to mean what we
think it means or what the eating disorder thinks it means so I think just
sometimes silence and knowing that they're there. It's actually more
about the person going through it knowing that there are places out there
that they can go to and what I think that would be amazing to see more is
actually like what we're doing right now like for the mainstream kind of media to
like be opening up conversations. Also opening them up to the fact that
there is so much information out there now definitely more than
there was when I was a teenager. Oh without a doubt. And I'm really happy for that I
think probably, hopefully easier now, than it ever was to recover from an
eating disorder, which is really good. So thanks for watching Hey it's OK, make
sure you subscribe here for more videos like this. And don't forget to check out
the links below for more information on eating disorders.