"I got it into my head, from all of the history books that a lot of Prime Ministers and influential people had been to Oxford or Cambridge. So I thought great, I'll go to Oxford, then I’ll change the world."
Since she was young, 22 year-old Sophie Clark has been a visionary. Following her BA History degree, she is now studying a Masters in Modern History. During her three and half years at the University of Sheffield she has protested against university fees, for the living wage and has campaigned for the Labour Society, Women's Committee. Last year she was president and is now secretary of Mental Health Matters Society.
In 2012, Sophie was diagnosed with anorexia. An eating disorder which, according to BETA, affects more than 725,000 people in the UK. For Sophie, the pressure to strive for academic perfection in the run up to university became her very existence. She spent months excessively and obsessively working for her Oxford application. The rejection crushed her and the identity she had built around it.
I had this idea that the whole life that I had planned just disappeared. I didn't know what to do. I was like, who am I? If I'm not that, what is my defining feature? I became a very focused person on my academic life and slowly, around my eating.
What began as unconscious restricting developed into purpose fasting. After crash dieting for prom, Sophie failed to return to her already extremely restricted diet. For her, not eating was not a rational choice, it was the only way. At the time Sophie was a lover of fashion magazines and she began to compare herself to the models airbrushed onto the glossy pages. She is keen to point out however, that it is not only young girls who experience eating disorders. It is a mental illness that can affect anyone of any age, race and gender.
"It was almost like you are weak if you eat this food. Which is ironic because not eating was making me very weak."
In her struggle for control, other aspects of Sophie's life began to spiral. For Sophie, her anorexia was an issue only she could and ever would understand. She began to grow apart from her best friends, girls she had grown up with and use to share everything with. It was also a time when her relationship with her parents hit rock bottom. What previously dominated Sophie’s mind and daily activities was replaced with eating.
"If I go round to a friend's house, will they offer me a snack? Will I have to say yes? Will I have to eat dinner with my parents tonight or can I take my meal up to my room? There were all of these things that most people wouldn't even think about but were dominating my day."
Sophie's realisation enabled her to book herself a doctor’s appointment and she was diagnosed with anorexia. It was a moment that shocked Sophie into taking her first steps into recovery.
Starting university was a blank canvas for Sophie. She was matched with a specialised eating disorder nurse, had weekly weigh ins, kept a food diary and was given daily exercises. She described the support she received as "incredible."
Although this was the beginning stage of her transformation, it was also a confusing and conflicting time. For the first time in months she was beginning to reclaim her eating habits and let go of control.
Sophie waited until she was in recovery to tell her parents about her diagnosis. After months of distance and defensiveness, her mum and dad still find it hard to talk about the period that rocked the family dynamics. Sophie is keen to emphasise that an eating disorder is not just an illness that happens to an individual. An eating disorder happens to a family.
"One of the main motivations for recovering was my mum and how sad and drained it was making her. There is nothing more horrible than looking at your mum and seeing her just looking so empty."
Following her experience, Sophie is now fighting for mental health to appear on the national curriculum and believes that coursework, which emphasises progress and reflection should permanently replace stressful exams. She is also a devoted campaigner against government cuts on mental health support.
"Mental health provisions can determine whether people can get education or not, if they are able to look after their families or not. The fact that these services are being cut without proper discussion really upsets and angers me."
"Teaching people that they are more than appearance and that they are someone a whole is something we really need to work on as a society. We need to see ourselves not just how we look and not how our body is, but thinking about all of our other great qualities like friendship or how good a sister we are."
Sophie's advice to people suffering from anorexia
