When she was hospitalised last year after collapsing from weakness, Maddie Gillespie weighed just 36 kilograms.
A year later, the healthy Hillside woman, 19, is helping others with an eating disorder.
In October, she will take part in an Altona Meadows ‘Zumbathon’ – an activity she loves – to raise awareness and money for the Butterfly Foundation, which helps people affected by eating disorders.
Ms Gillespie says her descent into anorexia started after bullying from her peers.
“It started with a few friends of mine at the time bullying me to the point where I thought I had to be someone I wasn’t,” she says.
“So I started going to the gym and trying to eat healthy. “For a while it was working for me … but then it just took over.
“I started over-exercising. I’d exercise three hours a day and I was restricting eating to the point where I’d only eat one thing a day.
“You think that getting skinny will bring you peace of mind … it brings you to the point where you isolate yourself because you don’t want people to see how skinny you’ve gotten.’’
Ms Gillespie says she wouldn’t go out to lunch or dinner with people because she was too scared to eat.
“Say I was at home and my family was having a meal, I would hide it or say I wasn’t hungry, or scrape it in the bin before they noticed.
“I was lying and deceiving, which is something I’d never usually do.”
Ms Gillespie realised something was amiss and sought help from GPs and psychiatrists.
“I ended up being put in hospital because I fell over and hit my head due to a lack of energy,’’ she says.
‘‘That was when I finally realised that something was really wrong.I had all these tests done in hospital which revealed a lot of things about my liver shutting down due to what I was doing.”
Ms Gillespie spent two weeks in hospital and several months at the Melbourne Clinic.
While she has gained weight, she says she still battles between her “eating disorder self” and “normal voice”. But it’s a battle she’s winning.
The ‘Zumbathon’ will be held at Queen of Peace Parish Primary School at 7pm on October 11. Tickets are $15 ($20 at the door). For more details, phone 0420 995 887.
