Armagh Ladies footballer for former Northern Ireland international Aoife Lennon has spoken of her battle with an eating disorder and her struggles to deal with grief in a moving interview.
The talented dual star lost her father John to suicide when she was just 13 years of age.
A gifted player at both soccer and Gaelic football, Lennon devoted herself to her sporting career, but her grief would later resurface as she became obsessed with training and healthy eating.
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Aged 23, Lennon had played for Northern Ireland and for Armagh Ladies while she also captained Newry City in their Champions League tie against Benfica, but she needed time away and booked a trip to New Zealand.
It was on that trip that she realised she’d developed an eating disorder. Being weighed for a bungee jump, Lennon was told she was just 53KG.
"I asked, 'could you weigh me again, because that's not right'.
“Because I hadn't been training, I was waking up every day looking in the mirror and going 'I've put on weight, I'm so out of shape,'" Lennon told BBC’s The GAA Social Podcast.
"But I knew I didn't have the energy to go training. I had to accept that yoga and walking was the place for my body, but even walking down the road was tough.
"I had brain fog all the time. If you had told me something I would have forgotten it an hour later."
The shock of being told her weight led Lennon to consult a doctor in New Zealand who diagnosed her with anorexia and told her to go home for treatment. The news came as a huge relief for the Armagh native.
"You know what, it was the greatest relief because I realised that everything I was doing had come to a head," stated Lennon.
"If that was my reason for going to New Zealand, I was thankful because finally there was a reason to stop this, that I had to deal with the anorexia and stop doing all this to myself because this to me now is like self-harm because of what I was doing to my body."
Lennon says she now has a better understanding of the issues around suicide, mental health and eating disorders.
Dealing with her grief helped her take control of her battle with anorexia. She knows it is an ongoing fight, but hopes that going public with her story will help others in need.
"From 13 I have thought that I'm not good enough,” she added.
"That has been my belief as a young girl because my dad died. I thought 'is it something to do with me? That I'm not good enough'."
"I've realised that I'm separate from that. That was my dad's pain and that was nothing to do with me.
"We're all good enough. We've all been brought into this world good enough, but society tells us we're not good enough.
"We're brought up in this world where we're told we need all these things to be happy.
"I am not allowing it to take over my life. I am in control and I'm giving my power back to me. I gave my power to the eating disorder for far too long and that made me sick.
"But I can't do that anymore and can't see someone else go through that. That's my message for people. I want to help them. If I can do it, you can do it.
"We need to raise awareness. This is not going on in just females, it's also going on in males."
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