A Recovery Mission Helping Save Others

Meet Eleanor Loseby. After many years at the hands of anorexia, she decided she wanted to create a tool to help others. The result is a fabulous workbook which you can pick up yourself as part of your effort to restore.

Here's what Ellie has to say about how the book came about:

"My name is Eleanor Loseby, I am a freelance artist and published children’s book illustrator from the UK. After a 10 ten year battle with Anorexia Nervosa, I have designed an illustrated workbook to help others through this difficult time.

From the age of 4, I was bullied for being in a bigger body than my classmates. This combined with growing up with a society full of diet culture caused me to become self conscious and desperate. At the age of 9 I was skipping meals, trying to fit in and stop the bullying at any cost.

 I continued to be bullied all the way through school and despite my desperate attempts to lose weight it never happened. In fact what did happen was the opposite. When this photo was taken I was skipping as many meals as possible, spending hours trying to make myself sick and self harming daily. By skipping meals I had forced my metabolism to slow down so much that, whenever I did “give in” and eat,  my body held onto the extra weight to prepare for my next self-induced famine.

I was depressed, had at least 3 major panic attacks a day and was under constant supervision incase I tried to commit suicide.

In 2014 I started the year with the same resolution as I had done for years: “I must lose weight.”

 That year I ate as little as possible, exercised for hours on end and cut myself off from friends and family that tried to prevent the disaster I was running towards at full speed. Eventually after losing half my body weight in 6 months I was fast-tracked to an eating disorder treatment centre where I spent 5 years as an outpatient. The treatment was directed towards helping my parents help me gain weight for physical health, while this kept me alive, my mental health still suffered.

I was terrified - but more than that, I was confused, I was a ball of emotions and I didn’t know which way to turn.

I know at this point getting my thoughts out would have helped massively

Skip forward a few years and I reach my ultimate low point. I collapsed, on my own, from malnutrition and later ended up in A&E with a suspected heart attack.

That day was the first time I feared death more than weight gain that would save me.

At 18 years old I got a tattoo of a feather; it had been a symbol of hope since I got seriously ill in 2014. Feathers are often recognised as a symbol of recovery and in this moment, I needed that symbol more than anything. I decided that I had to change and committed myself to living a life without my eating disorder.

I sought out the help of a hypnotherapist and an eating disorder specialist who were instrumental in teaching me how to start to heal. Writing down my thoughts really helped and after writing in my journal daily for a few months I felt like I understood myself more than I ever had before, leading me to wonder why my therapy before had not focused on the cause of the illness itself more.

It was because of this I created .Dawn, a fully illustrated workbook, journal and online support system for people in eating disorder recovery.  By combining workbook exercises, expert therapeutic advice and the support of a safe online community I hope to address the gap in some current treatment plans while allowing a space for people to work through difficult emotions.

In essence, this is the workbook I wish had existed in the depths of my illness."

Find Ellie's book at: https://www.dawnrecovery.co.uk/

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