August 1999 my Dad, my rock, passed away I was destroyed. I couldn’t cope and very quickly turned to food and alcohol, binging on both to numb the pain of losing the one man I could forever trust. That hole couldn’t be filled, I felt terrible at retreating from the family. A year or so later I moved down to Liverpool to be with my new partner, I can see now that I was running away from my family and the grief I was feeling, I just couldn’t cope being around them at that time. I had never lost such an important person in my life and I didn’t know how to get around it, to be honest, I am not sure if I ever did, I cope with his loss but still feel like a hole is there.
Up to the age of 41, my experience with food has been a torrid relationship. As a teen I was bullied at school and named ‘Thunder Thighs’ by girls who I grew up with and thought were my friends. Nothing could have been further from the truth as I was often taunted, shouted at, spat at as well as being psychologically bullied.
and the immune system. Back then it was trips to the library as this was before the internet and there wasn’t that much known about Lupus and autoimmune diseases in 1990.
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My life stabilised at this point I got my head into the books and went onto A-levels and college years to study Business and Information Technology. I started going to the gym and I guess you could say I got a little obsessed, I was doing 3-4 hours per day and watched my food. like a hawk, I wanted to be in optimum health so there was no chance of me developing my mum’s condition which could be passed down from mother to daughter.
I was brought out of this ‘slumber’ by a sudden shock, at 15 ½ my mum was diagnosed with Lupus, an autoimmune disease, and here started my life-long studying of gut health
August 1999 – I’ll never forget it My Dad had taken early retirement after 25 years of working at British Gas a few years prior, he had a part-time job so he wasn’t getting too much under my Mum’s feet! Early August of 1999 he went to the doctors complaining of stomach pain, from here he was requested to go to A&E, within hours our whole world had changed, My Dad was told he had cancer and that is was spreading, we were all floored, but were hopeful in the fact he was told he had a number years to live and the cancer could be managed. 21st
t 14, when the bullying was in full flow, I took drastic action where for a year I only ate bread and drank water, it worked! I lost weight that I didn’t need to lose as I plummeted to 7 stone. I am 5ft 7 now and wasn’t much shorter than so I was painfully thin and anorexic. Over 30 years ago this wasn’t picked up on my GP so I had to deal with it myself. But I fitted with the in-crowd, I was thin, had long hair, not bad looking and was easy to manipulate as I was constantly tired.
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