Just Ask Me How I Feel

Don’t comment on my appearance, just ask me how I feel. This series reflects a range of people living with an eating disorder: men and women of all ages, and children, regularly dieting to extreme, over-eating, over exercising, purging and taking laxatives to control their weight. Many people of normal weight live with anorexia nervosa, bulimia, binge eating and other eating disorders but consider themselves OK because they compare themselves to the sensationally thin stereotypes portrayed in the media.  Despite a mortality rate for people living with anorexia that is six times higher than average population only around a quarter of people seek treatment, yet early treatment is critical. Many report hearing voices and feel subject to forces beyond their control and live with feelings of emptiness, fear, failure and self-hatred.  Others describe feeling uncomfortable with and displaced from their bodies or wanting to disappear. 

Exhibited: Just Ask Me How I Feel, Manly Library, Head On Photo Festival, May 2017 with assistance from Way Ahead Mental Health Association. These images form part of a collection commissioned by Way Ahead Mental Health Association to raise awareness about eating disorders.