#TeamNorthMid blogs

“Even in the darkest times of despair, there is a way forward when you put your mind to it.”

Words by Phoebe Callison

My name is Phoebe, and I am the proud manager of the mortuary and bereavement service, and I have been working in this role at North Mid for nearly two years.

As someone who spends nearly every waking moment talking, laughing, gossiping, and chatting idly, I was quite surprised that when it came to putting pen to paper to write my ‘#ThisIsMe’ entry - for maybe the first time ever, I found myself profoundly silent. As an outwardly confident person, most people could be forgiven for thinking that it would be an easy task to speak about myself and how I got here; but as someone with low self-esteem, I still find it difficult to speak about myself, and deeming myself important enough that people might be interested in hearing my story. 

My professional background lay within the funeral industry, a job that I held for over eight years, and thoroughly enjoyed, and it was during this time that my ‘This Is Me’ or my ‘Who Am I’ came into question. Conversation around mental health is becoming much more common, but yet the crash and burn of my own came as a huge surprise. What started off as simple diet for the summer became my entire life and downfall.

In November 2017, after losing over 40% of my body weight, nearly having a heart attack, and crippled with anxiety and panic attacks, I was diagnosed with severe anorexia nervosa. It took me to deaths door, and I was barely a shell of my former self. I was admitted to an Essex outpatient unit, where I spent 6 months. The hospital was excellent, but despite all of the therapy and feeding, I left the hospital underweight and apparently deaf as well, as I managed to ignore all the therapy I had done and relapsed a few months later. This period of quasi-recovery lasted about a year, until I kicked myself up my skinny backside and gave recovery the attention it deserved. There was nothing glamourous about my eating disorder, and I would rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick everyday than have to try and ‘do’ the mental argument of recovery again. It took a few years navigating around the self-destructive and manipulative thought patterns that anorexia won’t let you forget, but with the support of my family and friends, it is now manageable.

One of the biggest positives to come from this journey is my relationship with exercise and my body. I joined the gym when I was well enough, predominantly to try and keep my overactive mind quiet, to try and stop myself ruminating on the physical difference within my body as it became more mine again and not the puppet of my mental illness. I found my niche within the gym in powerlifting and exercise moved from a calorie burning, self-destructive behaviour to something I truly enjoyed and loved. In the years that have followed, I have dedicated every minute and effort into pursuing my sport and getting better and stronger and in the last year I have pushed myself into competing and have found that my hard work has been rewarded. This May I achieved first place in my class, best female lifter and qualified for the British Championships in July. A performance I am really proud of, and has taken a lot of work, both physically and mentally to achieve.

For someone who finds talking about themselves quite hard, I have filled the page and told my story, and I just hope that this helps anyone that is struggling, and even in the darlkest times of despair, there is a way forward when you put your mind to it. 

We thank Phoebe for taking part in our #ThisIsMe blog series which focuses on the incredible diversity of our workforce across North Mid, beyond the usual protected characteristics of age, disability, ethnicity, religious beliefs, gender, sex, and sexual orientation.

Please help us encourage colleagues to do the same by sharing this post.

Feel free to share any feedback or comments. If you wish to share your own story or think you know colleagues who might want to share their experiences about diversity, please contact our communications team @northmid.comms@nhs.net.

For information and support on eating disorders, please visit Overview – Eating disorders - NHS (www.nhs.uk) .