Before anorexia, we (me, my husband and son Ben) were just a normal family living on the outskirts of a big UK city. Ben was academically bright, well behaved and a superb sportsman, excelling on the rugby field and in athletics - a school teacher's dream.
Ben had a fantastic physique: tall, slim and muscular. He was also great looking, guaranteed to have the girls turning their heads in admiration.
But Ben hadn't always been like that.
As a toddler and through primary school Ben carried a lot of 'puppy fat'. Back then, he wasn't sporty and was very quiet and shy. He was also the target for bullying from which he suffered on a number of occasions.
Moving from primary school to secondary school was the making of Ben.
He won a place at a well-respected independent day / boarding school as a day pupil. What impressed us, as parents, about this school was its established reputation as being a 'caring' school where the Headmaster and all the staff knew every pupil by name. It was also a very sporty school and right away Ben developed a talent for rugby, playing for his year's 'A' team every Saturday morning.
Ben also loved cross country, squash, swimming, yoga and athletics. Outside school he played rugby, loved hiking in the countryside and did cycling; in summer 2008 he did the Coast 2 Coast cycle ride with his Dad. All this sport transformed him from a slightly overweight child into a handsome athletic young man.
Even though he was still essentially shy and lacked confidence, simply being at this wonderful school and developing a large circle of lovely friends, increased Ben's confidence a hundred-fold. Just before the anorexia hit, I was considering writing to the Head to tell him how much the school had transformed Ben, confidence-wise.
Ben's final sporting achievement before the anorexia kicked in was the School Sports Day 2009 where he easily won the 1500 meters for his house. All the girls were cheering at the top of their voices and Ben was Star of the Show. I was sooooo proud!!!
Then, during the summer holidays, Ben started exercising more and more - and you can read more about this early stage in the anorexia in
my first blog entry.
