My name is Elia; I’m a singer-songwriter from Sydney. I am running a campaign called Unbreakable to raise awareness and funds for the treatment of Eating Disorders. Unbreakable is about the strength and resilience you have within yourself to get through an Eating Disorder.
Six years ago I was in hospital being treated for Anorexia Nervosa, 16 years old and very afraid. I was always afraid. It’s a funny thing, fear. When you’re so lost in the moment of fear, you think that you alone are the only one feeling it. You feel there is no one in the world that could possibly understand what is going on in your mind, if in that moment you could piece it together yourself, which is rare. But the truth is we are all so wrapped up in our own fear to realise other people’s anxieties, to realise we are not alone. With an illness like an Eating Disorder it is so imperative to know you are certainly not alone, no matter how realistic the isolation seems.
For the first few weeks of my treatment I was giving up on fighting. I almost threw in the towel until one day I found a piano in the Geriatrics ward while on a walk through the hospital. I sat down at the piano and began playing for the patients of the ward. The connection it gave me to these people I had only just met was so uplifting that I continued to come back to that piano and play for them. It was at that piano where I wrote the song Unbreakable.
After a month in hospital I was back in the real world facing every day life in recovery mode. Six years down the track I still have the days where I feel hopeless, empty and breakable. But I have worked hard to find the strength within myself to get through it and to keep reminding myself of all I have to look forward to, even if what I am looking forward to is just the next episode of my favourite TV show or my next day off. Count the little things. It’s amazing how much hope they can provide.
Music is my way to release the confusion and pain in my head created by Anorexia. Each and every one of you has something that can pull you through, whether it’s music or sport, family and friends, playing games or going for a walk – whatever works for you, latch on to it.
We don’t get given strength, just chances to be strong.
Elia
Watch the UNBREAKABLE music video and check out Elia’s fundraising and social media pages below
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Also check the related topics:
Eating DisordersSpeaking to someone about your problems can be the first steps to a solution.
