A teenager has told how a chance discovery in her family’s medicine cabinet plunged her into a four-year spiral of addiction and self-destruction.
Steph Priday was 15 years old and stressed about her forthcoming GCSEs when she first spotted a box of laxatives in the kitchen cabinet at her home in Wellington, Somerset, and decided to try them in a bid to lose weight.
Despite weighing just 8 stone 7 lbs, she realised she could use the pills to purge the system after eating food and saw her weight plummet to just 6 stone.
Now 19 and in recovery Steph, a carer for adults with learning disabilities, has lifted the lid on how she abused the pills for three months after delving into the laxatives box.
She recalled:’I knew how to use laxatives to help me to lose weight, but it wasn’t really about being thin, it was about being in control.
Addiction: Steph realised she could use the pills to purge the system after eating food and saw her weight plummet to just 6 stone (left). She now weighs a healthy 9 stone 9 lbs (right)
‘I worried about school and put a lot of pressure on myself to do well. I didn’t want to let anyone down, but I felt like everything was really out of my control.
‘Taking laxatives to help control my weight, made me feel like I’d taken some power back again. It gave me something I could control.’
Steph added: ‘We had laxatives in our medicine box, but I knew no one ever really used them and there was enough there for a few months.
‘I’d seen adverts on TV about using them and, for me, they were an easily accessible way of losing weight.
‘I started out just taking them on the odd occasion but, within a few weeks, I was taking them about four times a week.
‘I always stuck to the recommended dose, but because I didn’t actually need to take them, they would strip out what was inside me, so I started losing weight.’
Alarmingly, it took only took a few months for Steph’s compulsive behaviour to step-up a gear and she ditched the laxatives, in favour of making herself sick after meals.
Healthier than ever: Now 19 and in recovery Steph, a carer for adults with learning disabilities, has lifted the lid on how she abused the pills after delving into the laxatives box
Poorly: Despite weighing just 8 stone 7 lbs, she realised she could use the pills to purge the system after eating food and saw her weight plummet to just 6 stone
She said: ‘I was eating normally, but convinced myself it was too much, so I would want to get rid of the food. In the end, I lost over two stone in just a few months.’
Initially, Steph kept her secret hidden, but her friends, concerned about her rapid weight loss, spoke to her mum Alison at her 16th birthday party.
She recalled: ‘They were at my house and one of them said something to my mum about how much weight I was losing.
‘I was really upset about it at the time, because I felt like it wasn’t a problem at all and I didn’t like the fact they had said something.
‘Looking back on it now, though, I know it was the right thing to do.
‘I think my mum was concerned, but didn’t want to stress me out too much, so she kept an eye on me, but as I lost more weight, she was worried and talked to me about it.’
Steph at the height of her illness. She recalled: ‘I was eating normally, but convinced myself it was too much, so I would want to get rid of the food. In the end, I lost over 2 stone in just a few months’
Thanks to her family, Steph – who is speaking out to help fellow sufferers, during Eating Disorders Awareness Week – had also started counting calories and cutting out food.
She explained: ‘I started out wanting to be able to control something, but then I learnt to obsess over calories and what I ate to lose weight and, before long, it had control of me.’
After her mum took her to see her GP, Steph was referred to the NHS’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and she started attending counselling sessions with her mother.
She said: ‘I was referred to CAMHS, but, at first, I actually started to get worse.
‘I was in denial about my addiction and started to think more and more about how many calories I was having – obsessively tracking what I was eating.
‘I was always reading the back of packets and checking how many calories I was eating each day. I would aim to eat about 800 a day – well below the 2,000 calories recommended for a woman.
Steph (pictured at her thinnest) said: ‘As with all addictions, I now realise, that I had to accept that I had a problem and want to get better before any treatment or intervention would work’
‘At this point, towards the end of 2016, I was at college, studying sports, english and music, so I wouldn’t eat anything at all during the day and would then have just enough back at home to stop my parents suspecting anything.
‘My family were trying to keep an eye on me, but I was doing everything to keep my eating disorder from them.
‘But I think my counsellor realised it was getting worse and started to develop meal plans for me. I was also taken out of college.’
Still in denial, despite her shrinking frame, Steph was diagnosed with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa.
She said:’I was really annoyed by my diagnosis and insisted I was ok. It was really difficult for me to accept, despite the fact that, at 5ft 3, at my lowest weight, I was just over six stone.
‘As with all addictions, I now realise, that I had to accept that I had a problem and want to get better before any treatment or intervention would work.
Steph – who had never worried about her weight before she began abusing laxatives, claiming to have been quite happy with her body – began working out for at least three hours a day
‘At first, I really struggled to follow any meal plans, but my family and my medical team worked through them with me and I started eating again and putting on weight.’
Steph joined a gym in January 2016, to try and build-up some muscle.
But, before she knew it, her addictive behaviour had found a new outlet – as she began to exercise obsessively.
She confessed: ‘Joining the gym and seeing people on social media talking about working out made me start to obsess over how I looked again. I was constantly thinking about exercise.’
Steph – who had never worried about her weight before she began abusing laxatives, claiming to have been quite happy with her body – began working out for at least three hours a day.
Thanks to her family, Steph – who is speaking out to help fellow sufferers, during Eating Disorders Awareness Week – had also started counting calories and cutting out food
‘I’d go to the gym for at least three hours a day, whenever I could,’ she admitted. ‘When I wasn’t at the gym, I’d be trying to fit exercise into my day – walking everywhere and taking the stairs when I could. Even on holiday, I couldn’t rest until I did my hours of exercise.
‘I had left college when I was diagnosed with anorexia to focus on my recovery, but now I was using my time to do as much exercise as possible.’
It took about month before Steph realised her constant exercising was just a new manifestation of her eating disorders.
She said: ‘I wasn’t allowed to weigh myself back then, because I was meant to be in recovery, so I had no idea how much I weighed, but I felt like I just had to do more and more.
‘My family noticed how intense my exercise regime was becoming and I had to leave the gym to try to break the cycle.
‘We repeated the process we had been through when I was suffering from anorexia, but, this time, I accepted I had a problem and was able to reevaluate my relationship with my body.’
Speaking about her healthy new look, Steph said: ‘I have a great support network and now I focus on how I feel rather than how I look. I am back at the gym, but now it’s about building strength and muscle. My mindset it about being healthy rather than being slim’
Now, with the support of her family and friends, Steph is in recovery and weighs a healthy 9 stone 9 lbs.
She added: ‘Once you’ve had an eating disorder, it always stays in the background, but I’m in recovery now and a healthy weight.
‘Until the end of last year, I was also vegan, but I realised that was harming my recovery, as I was doing that to restrict what I ate and it wasn’t for ethical reasons.
‘Looking back now, it feels like I was a different person, when I was in active addiction. I can’t believe how small I was and how bad I got.
‘I have a great support network and now I focus on how I feel rather than how I look. I am back at the gym, but now it’s about building strength and muscle. My mindset it about being healthy rather than being slim.’
For more information about the signs and symptoms of eating disorders, click here
You can also talk in confidence to an adviser from eating disorders charity Beat by calling their adult helpline on 0808 801 0677 or youth helpline on 0808 801 0711