My latest challenge, which starts on the 9th April until 11th April, is to run 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours (a total of 48 miles - an ultra marathon!) This will involve starting running at 8pm, then 12am, 4am, 8am, 12pm, 4 pm, 8pm and repeating for the next 24 hours!

I am raising money and awareness for JEDS (Jersey Eating Disorders Support). Having had an eating disorder for much of my teens and early twenties I could never understand how I ‘acquired’ this. Having been brought up in the most loving, caring family I could ever have wished for, it just didn’t make sense.  I had ‘bullying’ issues at school, lacked friends but had one best friend to whom I was inseparable from. She then left to attend a different school. This devastated me and because I had extremely low self-esteem, could have been an underlying cause, I guess I’ll never know. The fact is, it can happen to the loveliest, most caring super sensitive people who take everything to heart.

When I was later diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of just 32, I thought I was being ‘punished’ for putting my body through what I had all those years before. Having to undergo a double mastectomy, ovary removal, losing all my hair and eyebrows then putting on two stone due to the 20 odd daily steroids I needed, really made me look at my body at the very worst it could look and made me ashamed of how I had hated it in my younger days. The guilt I felt was overwhelming.

The realisation soon dawned on me that I needed to do something positive, not only to boost my own self esteem and do something to really benefit the groups around me who helped me the most during these turbulent years, but to prove to myself that my body is still capable of doing amazing things even though I put it through so much.

Please help me to achieve this and to raise awareness of a mental health illness that can affect anyone at any given time. Eating disorders are on a massive rise, particularly with the effects of COVID whereby people are feeling less and less in control of their lives and have the need to take back ‘control’ of one thing - their food intake.

Please reach out to myself or JEDS if you would like more information or help with an eating disorder. JEDS offers counselling, peer and group support.  Contact Karen Dingle by email at eatdisordergroupjersey@hotmail.com

Thank you for taking the time to read this,

Tracey Jeanne

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