As a teenager, Fiona Morris' decision to diet marked the beginning of her developing anorexia. What followed were years of loneliness, a lack of drive and missed opportunities. She joined Cormac Ó hEadhra on RTÉ Radio 1's Today programme to talk about the consequences.
Fiona describes her sixteen-year-old self as just an average teenager making a choice which many girls and young women make at that age.
"I would have been fifteen, nearly sixteen," she said.
"Honestly, I was a very average, for want of a better word, teenager. Average size, average looking. I wanted to lose weight, to go on a diet. It went horribly wrong."
Little did Fiona know that that simple act, going on a diet, was to be the start of her descent into a debilitating eating disorder that would bring her close to death many times over the next ten years.
"The worst part of my eating disorder was when I realised that I had pretty much ruined pretty much eight years of my life."
"When I realised I had lost out on relationships, college degrees, the life that I had wanted, that I had presumed I was going to have, growing up as a kid."
"That realisation killed my soul. I was still alive, but it killed my soul. I had a relationship with one thing and one thing only. That was anorexia."
Fiona joined Cormac in-studio with her father, John Morris, who, as you would expect, went through a journey that would be any parent’s nightmare. He first realised something was wrong when the family was preparing for a holiday in summer, 2004, by which time Fiona had become very thin.
“The first indication to me was when her older sister refused to come on that holiday,” John said.
Fiona’s sister felt there was a level of deceit going on with Fiona, and decided it was time she called her parents attention to the problem.
Fiona’s journey towards recovery began over a decade later, in 2015, when she finally decided “it’s now or never”.
She realised, having gone through various programmes and counsellors, that really it was up to herself to make the decision to fight and try to defeat this eating disorder.
Zayn Malik recently opened up about his battle with an eating disorder. To find out how Fiona managed that journey, listen to the full interview here.
For more information visit Bodywhys.ie, phone their helpline on 1890 200 444 or email alex@bodywhys.ie.
