Every Girls Dream.

When I was 16, I did some work experience at a local bridal house. It was my dream job, I had (and still have) a life that revolved around fashion, clothes and design. I got to try on pretty dresses, help with fittings, and dress the window. For many people, a simple thing like window dressing is a chore and not something to be enjoyed. But I spent hours, making sure everything was perfect, picking a colour scheme, dresses and accessories to match and placed them just so in the window. Every time I walked past that shop I felt a sense of pride and admiration for my work, the fact that I did that, and yeah it looked pretty good.

To be offered a part time job alongside my school work at the end of it was the cherry on top of the amazing week I had working there. The thing I loved most about my job was that I got to help women choose their wedding dress. For many women, I have learnt that the dress is one of the most important aspects of their entire wedding, and the fact that  I got to help out with that made me feel like the job I was doing was worthwhile, and they always walked out happy.

With my recent eating habits, I had lost a lot of weight, and I was a tiny size zero. I knew I was getting thinner, but I didn't care. I had been asked to model in a lot of fashion shows, and catwalks, so I thought the fact that I was thin was helping me get opportunities to model. I loved getting my hair and make up done, and being shown attention from them. My boss gave me a pair of heels and told me she needed me to put them on and walk down the catwalk in front of me. There was a few issues that I had with this. One: I had never worn heels... and walked in them, and two, it was in front of hundreds of people. Normally, I don't have a problem with big crowds of people, but when they are all staring at you parading down a catwalk in a wedding dress, then I have a bit of an issue with that. The whole time, I was thinking that I was going to trip, or fall, or make an arse out of myself somehow, I normally did. I'm sure my Dad nearly had a heart attack that day when he saw me walk down the catwalk with a white wedding dress on at 16.

For my dinner and dance, I got to choose a dress from the shop to have and wear. I chose an amazing powder blue chiffon dress, with multi coloured diamonte's over the top. It was beautiful. Only downside was that when I put it on, it just hung off me. It was a size 14, and I nearly cried when I tried it on and just saw my collarbone sticking out. I really had gotten that skinny. And it just looked awful on me. The seamstress did an amazing job, but she had to take it in to a tiny size 4, and it was still a little too big. But as usual I pretended like everything was fine and dandy and I carried on pretending I was the happiest girl alive.

It was that day when I looked in the mirror at the shop and saw the dress hanging off of my skeleton of a body that I realised something in my life had to change. Starting with mealtimes.