10 years ago, I upped and left on an adventure across the world. It started in the south of France where I’d called home during my placement year at uni. A place I’d fallen in love with and truly found myself as a young woman. But it was also there that my downward spiral of health began. Constantly covered in itchy red rashes along my arms, I was always exhausted and felt like rubbish. My stomach was sore, my eyes were puffy and I felt like I was losing myself. My boss at the time was essentially my acting French mother, so with her growing concern, she took me to various doctors and dermatologists to solve the problem. They put it down to an allergy to strawberries so I swiftly cut them out of my diet to no avail.

It continued for the remaining four months I stayed in France and in this time, there was no real improvement in any way. I was getting quite down by now and pretty much drank my way through the pain.

My plans changed and I found myself leaving France for Florida, where things got worse, very quickly. I woke up one morning in agony all through my body. My chest was pounding and my eyes wouldn’t open properly. I struggled out of bed and my breathing was completely off. I looked in the mirror and was full of panic, dread and fear when I realised that my eyes were the size of tennis balls and my vision was completely blurred. I called for help and ended up getting an emergency shot of an epipen to treat the anaphylactic shock my body had experienced. The doctor asked a series of questions and put this one down to a peanut allergy.

Again, I cut another food group out and didn’t notice much change. It was only after I found myself throwing up after eating a bagel in New York that I realised I really needed help. I had a proper allergy test and this time was told it was gluten and dairy I needed to cut out. I couldn’t believe it but I had no choice but to adhere to these new rules. I was in a bad way.

Two months after cutting these two major food groups out, I was finally beginning to feel a bit more like myself. By this time, though, I was 11kgs lighter in weight and looked like a different person. I hadn’t intended to lose weight and nor did I ever really think I needed to, but it was all the bloating and water weight that had fallen off me that these food groups were causing.

Fast forward a few years, I was working for a top American neurosurgeon who I’d often discussed food and allergies with, after all, I was his private chef so food was my favourite topic. He said he knew somebody that could help me, so he flew me to Los Angeles and got me an appointment with a top gastroenterologist who had a year long waitlist. I underwent a few more tests and there I found I had a very high level of methane in my body that was the cause of the bloating I still experienced. He put me on a course of antibiotics for 10 days (that set me back $1600, I may add) and once again, I felt like a new woman.

Today, I’m sitting in the doctor’s surgery waiting for a double appointment to discuss a series of blood test results after what feels like an ongoing battle with my body. I went down with a severe kidney infection in March and was the most unwell I’ve ever been in my life. I was in hospital on a drip for hours, then back and forth from the hospital for a few weeks as I recovered from the darkness on my couch. It was blood tests, CT scans and antibiotics. Only this time, the combination of the infection and the antibiotics I was on caused me to drop a significant amount of weight. I could barely eat and whenever I did, I felt sick.

As I began to feel well enough and return to work, my appetite slowly built back up but I was constantly told by my regular customers that I looked skinny. People asked my secret and wondered how I’d lost so much weight so quickly. I knew I didn’t need to lose weight and honestly, I had no idea that it looked so obvious to the people that knew me – or barely even knew me. I started to worry and the more people commented on it, the more anxious and self conscious I became.

That was about four months ago and here I am. Sitting with shooting pains across my abdomen, shaking and still 6kgs lighter than I was in March, the same weight I was when I first lost weight I didn’t need to lose back in 2014. The infection has cleared but the aftermath has left me in a bad place. Every morning I get up and get dressed, I feel it. None of my clothes fit me, I am uncomfortable and for the first time in my life, I have a self consciousness I never knew I could feel. I am reminded every single morning that my body failed me and I am feeling the repercussions. I try to fight back the tears but in my exhaustion and delirium, it’s a challenge. Every single morning. I search for something baggier that might hide what I’m feeling so people don’t ask, but it never seems to work.

I have had several tests since I was first in hospital in March and while my kidneys have recovered from the infection, other issues have been brought to light. I am shaking with fear, feeling sick to the stomach because I’ve barely eaten in days and riddled with anxiety about it all. I am exhausted from not sleeping properly and overwhelmed by what is happening.

I have a weakness I am not used to. I’ve been going to a gym for the past 18 months and prior to all of this starting, I was the strongest and fittest I’ve ever been in my life. Today, I’m feeling as weak and useless as a limp tree branch in a gust of hurricane force wind. I’m scared to go to the gym in fear of losing more weight. I am lacking energy, everything seems to hurt and the pain feels excruciating that I can’t hide that I am not at full health. It shows on every part of my body and people are noticing it. I’m fed up of talking about it and fed up of feeling like this.

But most of all, I am fed up of being told I’m skinny. I’ve lost weight. I didn’t want to, I don’t want to. Sometimes I acknowledge the comments with a shrug of the shoulders and sometimes I bluntly respond telling whoever has commented that I was sick. Nobody tells you how to handle things like this and nobody seems to think they’re doing anything wrong by making what they deem to be innocent comments, and maybe they’re not doing anything wrong, but sometimes it hurts. Unintentionally, but it’s like a dagger in the [already painful] stomach every time.

So please, think twice before commenting on anybody’s body. Because frankly, you have no idea what’s going on inside and sometimes a passing comment is a bold reminder that something is going on that we don’t need reminding of.

LL, xo