Angela Scanlon on narrating anorexia documentary: 'For me, it felt like a really important thing to do'

admin admin | 10-12 16:15

"It follows the stories of three families who are all struggling with anorexia - for years, many of them," said Scanlon.

"I struggled with anorexia and bulimia for 15 years," she continued.

"So, for me, [it] felt like a really important thing to do because I think it hasn't been spoken about very openly in very many forums, and certainly when I was in the thick of it I don't remember switching on a telly and ever feeling like there was a story that I could kind of relate to or an experience depicted that was similar to what I was going through."

"You didn't talk about that for a long time, and then you wrote about it in your book," said Kielty. "Why was that?"

Angela Scanlon discussed her experience and the new RTÉ One documentary that she narrates during her appearance on Friday's Late Late Show

"Well, I think I didn't speak about it because I was nervous, truthfully," Scanlon replied.

"I didn't know whether talking about it would, you know, bring it back or would bring unwanted attention or scrutiny. And maybe if I'm honest I didn't feel strong enough to talk about it because I think, you know, you want a certain level of distance between it so that you can speak about it without being highly emotional or triggered and that feels maybe a bit more helpful or a bit safer, I suppose.

"So yeah, it took time for me to feel like I could write it down in a way that was comfortable, truthfully, yeah."

"It's a very complex issue," said Kielty. "If someone's watching this documentary next week, what would you like them to take from it?"

"First of all, I would love them to watch it because it does all of the hard work," said Scanlon.

"It highlights so many issues. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all psychological illnesses, which I kind of find myself having to Google after I say that statistic. It's mindblowing. There are three beds in the entire country to help people, adult sufferers of anorexia and, you know, crazy underfunding for child services with numbers skyrocketing. And so that's all extremely bleak, I suppose, on the one hand.

"But I got over it and there is so much hope, I think. When I was in the middle of it, people said, 'Oh, you just have to deal with it. It's something you'll live with forever' - and I found that so infuriating at the time and it kind of became a turning point for me.

"I guess I would love anyone sitting at home in the depths of it, in a lonely, horrible place, to know that it's messy and it's complicated and it takes a long time but that actually you can come out the other end."

If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.

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