Teenager who lived on mints and half a biscuit a day after ‘friends’ called her fat tried to take her own life three times after her weight plummeted to 6st
- Madason Faulker, 16, from East Belfast, restricted diet and dropped to six stone
- The teenager would throw her meals in the bin and was left very malnourished
- It wasn’t until she collapsed at school with liver failure that she finally got help
A teenager has told how she stopped eating and lived on just mints and half a biscuit every day for a year before collapsing with liver failure.
Madason Faulker, 16, from East Belfast, went on a ‘self destructive path’ and dropped to just six stone after severely restricting her diet, leaving her extremely malnourished and feeling suicidal.
The teenager, who said she didn’t even know what an eating disorder was, said it was all prompted by so-called friends calling her fat.
The student told Belfast Live: ‘There were a few comments made by other people like “you’re fat – you need to go and lose weight”. I believed that because I thought they were my friends.”
Madason Faulkner, 16, from East Belfast, restricted her diet for a year as her weight dramatically dropped to just six stone, leaving her extremely malnourished and feeling suicidal
Her mother Kimberly Neill said she noticed her daughter’s packed lunches were coming back from school uneaten and she would hide in her room at dinner time but throw her meals in the bin.
Madason revealed she started to feel faint at school, causing her worried mum to take her to the doctors, who didn’t pinpoint an eating disorder and instead sent her for a brain scan.
But it wasn’t until she collapsed at school after her liver and kidneys began to fail that she finally got help.
The teenager was put on a strict two-hourly feeding programme at home on bed rest to help her regain a healthy weight.
The teenager said she believed comments made by friends telling her she was ‘fat’ and ‘needed to lose weight’ and she soon began to starve herself
Mother Kimberly Neill (right) said she noticed her daughter’s packed lunches were coming back from school uneaten and she would hide in her room at dinner time but throw her meals in the bin
But her mother said the home treatment didn’t work and Madason felt helpless, spiraling onto a ‘self destruct path’ leading her to attempt to take her own life three times.
Madason was finally admitted as an in-patient at Beechcroft, an anorexia clinic in Belfast, after she went two weeks without food and medics discovered her weight was dangerously low.
The teenager is now at college after steadily regaining weight and says she is now aware of the dangers of eating disorders.
Madason has since raised money to give back to the clinic which helped her get better and is now speaking out about her plight.
She is now at college studying social care and says her tragic ordeal has inspired her to become a mental health nurse.
To contact the Samaritans, call 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org
Madason has since raised money to give back to the clinic which helped her get better and is now speaking out about her plight