Four years ago, this young woman now 29 years old suffered from anorexia. Fortunately, she now eats well and does not fast or get vomited, but every day is a constant battle against the urges that could bring her back to where she was. The Journal de Montréal tells her story:
Today, Marie-Ève Corriveau’s goal is to share her story, so it can maybe save lives. She wants young people to be aware of eating disorders, to show that despite everything, she has become a full-grown woman, the mother of a 22-month-old baby, at the dawn of marrying the man of her life and about to return to school.
When we see her, at first sight, there is no sign showing us her long struggle against anorexia, with which she has lived with for 20 years. Her slender, athletic figure shows nothing but a fit and healthy woman and not a woman constantly being watched by the demons of her past who constantly struggle with her former dangerous behaviors.
In order to properly manage her diet and not fall back into the hell of anorexia, she predicts in advance all that she eats. By going to bed in the evening, she knows exactly what she will ingested the next day.
A decade ago, her eating disorder was so developed that she lost her hair and her eyebrows and teeth were riddled with holes because of all the acidity emitted by her many vomiting.
Now she has the strength and courage, “This mental illness has killed a big part of my life. It’s like I’ve been dead for 15 years. I’ve been through everything, depression, anxiety disorders, suicide attempts “, she explains.
It Began at an Early Age
Marie-Eve was only 10 years old when she began her first episodes of anorexia and began to vomit voluntarily. At the dawn of puberty, she could not bear to see her body change. In addition to her eating disorder, she was bullied and isolated in school. At the age of 12, she began an outpatient therapy at Sainte-Justine Hospital.
“Who wants to be friends with a girl who is depressed and vomits all the time?” I was not happy enough for them, “she says. The teenager, who was 5’1 “, went as low as 70 pounds.
Eating in Public Area
Even during family meals or parties, she never ate in public. She barely ate a few grapes a day or a soup when her father, who raised her, asked her to eat something.
Her therapy at Sainte-Justine Hospital lasted 6 years, then she was transferred to the Douglas Hospital. His father was so worried about his daughter that every week when he went to the meeting he asked his daughter to prepare her suitcase in case she did not come back from the hospital.
It was around the age of 18 that Marie-Eve began to understand that she had a serious problem. “When you’re 23 or 24 and you’re told you can never have a child because your body has suffered too much, it’s a bad slap on the face,” she says. But in spite of everything, in August 2015, she was able to give birth to a 7-pound baby boy, thanks to all the efforts she made.
However, even today, she must be very careful to control her diet and she still has sequelae of her past anorexia, such as stomach pains and her eyebrows that have not totally repulsed. She had to pay an astronomical sum to have her teeth reshaped, not to mention those she had to be snatched.
Bad News
Three weeks ago, the specialists found a mass in his throat, which is very worrying. For the moment, she does not know if it is a cancerous mass or if it can be caused by her past anorexic. It is, however, prepared to face the situation and to fight if necessary.
An otorhinolaryngologist she has recently seen says that it is not a cyst. Marie-Eve says, “The problem is that it hurts. I do not know where it comes from, but no matter what it is, I will need a surgery. ”
She had to Resuscitate her Father
When she was 15, her father suffered from a heart attack in front of her. She had to resuscitate him. At the moment when her father collapsed, she had the reflex to hit him on the chest.
“When I hit him, I told him that he was going to survive, that he could not abandon me, because I was going to die too. We have always said that I saved his life, but that saved my life as well. ”
Source: http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/07/16/elle-ne-pesait-que-70-livres
