Sixteen-year-old Grace Kenyon has spent almost three years battling anorexia nervosa.
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Grappling with the eating disorder’s exhausting physical and mental implications had an indelible impact on her life, and she is determined to ignite a conversation about societal ideals and mental illness.
Grace was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in 2013, when she had just turned 14 years old.
She said the combination of an avid ballet regime, a high-achieving, perfectionist persona and learning about diets and weight in school contributed to the illness.
"I was kind of the perfect personality for it, I think,” Grace said.
“It's an illness that not a lot of people really understand, but it's much, much more mental than physical.”
Within three months of developing dangerous eating habits, Grace was hospitalised.
"It progressed extremely quickly...had I kept treating myself the way I was at the same rate, I would have been dead by Christmas that year," Grace said.
She has been hospitalised seven times due to anorexia, and stays lasted four weeks on average.
The intelligent, articulate and ambitious Relbia teenager aspires to study psychology and journalism after she finishes her schooling next year.
But it hasn’t always been easy to enjoy and maintain academic success, after malnutrition and exhaustion adversely affected her concentration.
The biggest misconception is that it's about weight and that when you're a healthy weight, you're a healthy mindset.
- Grace Kenyon
"It's just that level of exhaustion which makes it difficult to understand stuff and comprehend stuff, which makes studying really difficult,” Grace said.
Anorexia nervosa’s ramifications reverberated through what felt like every aspect of Grace’s life.
Simple social occasions, like going for an ice-cream or having a pizza night with friends, were rendered seemingly impossible.
“[Those situations are] just such a big deal, not as big as it once was but it still is something that I'm really held back by, which is such a shame," Grace said.
She found the way acquaintances, strangers and doctors reacted to her appearance and eating disorder frustrating and depersonifying.
"It's the lack of understanding of the illness...I've been treated predominantly by doctors and nurses who are focused on my physical health and that's where it stops," Grace said.
She said seeing a private psychologist had been instrumental to aiding her ongoing recovery.
"It's not enough for people healing from these illnesses to be thrown into hospital,” she said.
Grace said people unwittingly fuelled her dangerous regime by reinforcing her weight loss with compliments.
"I remember one very, very clear example,” she said.
“I just walked into ballet and a girl comes in and says 'you look amazing', and at that point I was kind of having very frequent dizzy spells.
"With these things, people are either positive about it or they don't say anything about it and either one is dangerous.”
Grace said she believed ending equating weight loss with success was integral to beginning to change unrealistic societal standards.
“These illnesses are so horrible because if someone says something positive about it you're like 'oh good, I've got to keep going then because I look good,',” Grace said.
“If they don't say anything then you think, 'oh, I've got to keep going until someone says something about it' and it's just this continual circle that never ends and nothing's ever good enough."
Grace wishes to dispel some of the misconceptions that shroud eating disorders, and reinforce eating disorders are mental illnesses.
She said that her mental health and physical health are not always reflective of one another, contrary to what many people assume.
“Sometimes, I can be doing really, really well physically and I can be achieving everything I need to medically but my head space can be just awful,” Grace said.
“Or it could be completely the other way round and I could feel great and physically my body isn't reflecting that at all.”
Grace said she believes the widespread pressure to conform to an idealised body type is encouraging eating disorders.
About 9 per cent of Australians will experience an eating disorder in their lifetime, according to mental health organisation Mindframe.
Grace said the idea a certain figure is desirable, or even acceptable, is dangerously promoted by advertising and social media.
"There has to be a better long term solution and better understanding and better knowledge around this, because it is killing people, it's horrible."
Eating disorders are often associated with alcohol and substance abuse, depression and anxiety.
Grace said since her anorexia diagnosis, she has also developed severe depression, anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder, illnesses which she continues to overcome.
After a long, difficult journey, Grace said she was hopeful for the future, and wished to use her experience to educate others.
"I believe that you can recover to a stage where those thoughts don't influence your behaviours anymore,” Grace said.
“I want to be someone who can look back and say ‘you know, I struggled through that but I'm here now and this is my life’.
“It's been a very, very long journey and it's still going...I know that I am getting a lot better.”
The Butterfly Foundation support line: 1800 33 4673
Lifeline: 13 11 14