Staff meeting triggered realisation for young Aussie

Melissa had always struggled with her weight, but she had no idea her problems might be caused by a misunderstood disease she had been suffering for most of her life.

Melissa Hawkins can trace her turbulent relationship with food all the way back to when she was six years old, when she started to notice people treated her differently.

However, while she didn’t know it then, it wouldn’t be until she was 23 and going through training as a social worker that she would learn what was actually going on — she was suffering from atypical anorexia.

The condition has all the markers of anorexia but the person who has been diagnosed is living in a larger body, leading to a lack of diagnoses.

“As a child, I was really confused. I didn’t know why so many people were so horrible to me. I think it took me a really long time to figure out it was because of my body size,” she told news.com.au.

Melissa recalls trying to shrink herself into the background from an early age as she didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself. She was severely bullied in school both physically and psychologically by fellow pupils but comments also came from teachers, parents, friends and strangers.

Melissa Hawkins has atypical anorexia. Picture: Supplied

“It very much felt like the whole world was against me and the only logical reason was because of the way I looked and the fact I was in a larger body,” she said.

Before Melissa had even reached her teens, she attempted to shrink her body using programs such as Weight Watchers. She still remembers being in meetings surrounded by older women in their 30s and 40s and being “so uncomfortable”.

“I felt like I tried everything possible to try and lose the weight. So I got into this real obsession with wanting to be in a thin body,” she said.

“But to me it wasn’t just being in a thin body — losing weight to me meant that I was respected. That I would be safe in the world. It meant I would have more opportunities.”

But, no matter what Melissa did, the weight wouldn’t shift. She visited countless GPs and they were constantly focused on her weight.

‘This could be me’: Moment that changed everything

Melissa became fixated on her weight, but because weight loss was always encouraged for her, she had no awareness that her obsession wasn’t normal.

In her early 20s, her habits around food and exercise became even worse and she had no idea what she was going through was classified as an eating disorder. But, at 23, while training to be social worker there was a section focused on eating disorders.

“I remember sitting in that training and then listing off the symptoms and hearing diagnostic criteria for eating disorders,” she said.

“I was mentally checking them off my head and I was like, ‘Wow, this is me’.”

Once she found herself identifying with those criteria, she came to the realisation she might have a problem and booked herself in to see a psychologist.

This move led to a diagnosis of atypical anorexia.

Melissa is a social worker, and it was in a training session she realised she may have an eating disorder. Picture: Supplied.

“I remember when (the psychologist) gave me the diagnosis of atypical anorexia. That’s not what I assumed. I went in thinking it was bingeing because of just the general stigma of being in a large body,” she said.

“And then to associate anorexia with me — it just didn’t make sense to be in the same sentence.”

While diagnosis is often an important step to recovery with many health problems, for Melissa, that’s when things started to spiral.

She found her new reality incredibly confronting, and was shocked to discover how difficult it would be to find treatment. Melissa needed to find psychologists, dietitians and general practitioners who were trained in “health at every size”.

She found that her condition was misunderstood even by professionals she believed were trained to help her, and describes seeking access to a local mental health service as “one of the worst experiences” she’s ever had.

Melissa said she was turned away and told her diagnosis was dismissed as incorrect and that her issue “wasn’t as serious” as someone with other forms of anorexia.

Eventually, she sought help from a private specialised eating disorder services, a four-hour trip from her home. Even then, she said staff were initially hesitant about treating her as they were more used to dealing with “typically presenting” eating disorders.

She first noticed her weight when she was just six. Picture: Supplied

She stuck with the treatment but things got a lot worse for Melissa before they got better. She lost her job, had to give up her work at a mental health service, and moved back in with her family as she had to spend so much on travel for treatment.

She considered taking her own life. But, in that darkness, she made a choice that she wanted her life back.

Melissa knew she had to commit to therapy and do the work to get better. She is now employed once again and, after her dreadful experiences of weight stigma while trying to get treatment for an eating disorder, she has become an advocate for sufferers of atypical eating disorders, urging services not to be dismissive.

“I know I am only one voice but I want to speak for those who don’t have their voice yet and to really unpack the under-representation of large bodies in Australia,” she said.

Eating disorders can impact anyone

Melissa is one of a number of young Australians who have shared their story with news.com.au to show that an eating disorder can impact anyone, no matter their demographic. In fact, there are eight types of eating disorders formally recognised by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. These include anorexia, bulimia, and other specified feeding or eating disorders, including atypical anorexia and other disorders that are less widely recognised.

About 1.1 million Australians are currently experiencing an eating disorder, with about 27 per cent of sufferers being under the age of 19.

According to The Wave Clinic, binge eating disorder is the most common type of eating disorder, followed by bulimia and then anorexia — the complete opposite as to what so many Australians would assume.

According to the Butterfly Foundation, Australia’s leading organisation for people affected by eating disorders and negative body image, the number of Australians living with eating disorders is on the rise.

“Butterfly’s latest research shows that 1.1 million Australians are currently living with an eating disorder, an alarming 21 per cent increase in prevalence since 2012, and almost 10.5 per cent of the population will experience an eating disorder at some point in their lifetime,” the charity’s head of clinical and support services Natalie Spicer said.

“Eating disorders are serious, complex and potentially life-threatening mental illnesses; they are not a lifestyle choice, or a diet gone ‘too far’ and they require professional support as we know early intervention can reduce duration and severity of an eating disorder.

“While they are often stereotyped as only impacting young women, it is important to understand that eating disorders do not discriminate and can occur in people of any age, weight, size, shape, gender identity, sexuality, cultural background or socio-economic group.

“We need to break down this stigma and increase awareness of the signs and symptoms of eating disorders to make sure that everyone can get the support they need and deserve.”

Originally published as Staff meeting triggered realisation for young Aussie