Real life: ‘My eating problem has returned due to corona’

Lauren struggled with an eating disorder for years. For the past two years, things have finally been better and she is at a healthy weight, but the coronavirus has caused her to have a relapse.

“My lowest point was definitely when I was hospitalized. My organs were about to give up because I simply wasn't eating anymore. That was the moment of realization for me that something really had to change. If not, I would die. I found it so intense to realize that, and I wasn't even 20 yet. I was certainly unhappy, but dead… I didn't want that.

So after my hospitalization, I fought hard to overcome my eating disorder. But unfortunately, I've long realized that I will never completely ‘get over it’. I will probably never have a healthy relationship with food, and I find that difficult. However, I was very happy that I could find food enjoyable again and sometimes even enjoy it. It has been a very long process, but I felt like I was really making progress.

But then the coronavirus and the accompanying lockdown came. It’s already in me that I can't handle changes well, and I always hold on tightly to regularity and fixed routines. I think that also stems from my eating disorder: to become healthy again, I had to eat, and I did that at fixed times. I could still maintain those fixed times, but everything else in my life had completely changed.

During the time I was very ill, I wasn't working. That was completely impossible because I had no energy at all. For a year now, I have an office job where I work four days a week. It's not extremely difficult, just administrative work, but it gives me a fixed rhythm, an income, and I really enjoy it.

When we were forced to work from home, actually already in March, things went wrong. I became completely unregulated. Of course, I still adhered to office hours, but I panicked completely from these changes. Before the coronavirus, I was doing my best to keep myself busy: seeing friends, having drinks outside, exercising… But because we went into an intelligent lockdown, I lost all motivation to do things. It was too busy in my head.

That stress, that panic and fear of everything that was going on, caused my eating disorder to have the chance to come back. I started eating less and weighing myself more often. I didn't have a scale before, but I bought one again. It sounds strange, but it also gives me a kind of support; my eating disorder is not good for me, but it is familiar. It belongs to me, and at the moment when everything around me seemed to change without my wanting it, I went back to the familiar.

Of course, I really want to get rid of it, but I notice that I can't. My parents see that things are not going well, and I know it would break their hearts if I were to slide down that far again. That's why I made an appointment with the doctor last week. I find it very scary, but I can't let it get that far again.”

In this unusual time, we asked people for their honest story. To avoid hurting others, Lauren's name has been changed.