I met Íde in Boyds pub in Ballycastle. She had seen online that I was bringing this project to the area and looking for people to share their story. She didn’t sign up at the time as she thought maybe I’d find more interesting people. We sat and chat over a few pints and I think she warmed up to me and in turn, really understood that I wanted to chat to all types of people. By the time I got back to my apartment, she had messaged me and told me a snippet of the story she’d like people to know.

From her food inspired instagram account, @ideiseating, Íde shares recipes and life stories. She wants to show the world all of the delicious food she’s been creating and eating, as a way of changing her relationship with food, and as part of her recovery from anorexia.

The pandemic and lockdown was a hard time for a lot of people and Íde struggled too. With constant media stories about “how to get fit” and influencers broadcasting their workouts from home, she felt like she needed to emerge from the lockdown as a different person.

She began to overexercise and drastically reduce her calorie intake. She was young, still a teenager, a time when she should have been socialising, studying, seeing the world, she was trapped and in a very anxious limbo.

“I think it was just me wanting to be in control of something at a time when everything else was out of my control. I could control what I ate. I could control how I exercised. I just grasped on to this craze of weight loss exercise, dieting. Not that I ever, ever had to lose weight. I was literally eighteen. Perfectly healthy.”

She’s a fiercely brave woman, who now works in the local café & bakery, Ursa Minor. You’d think that putting yourself in a food orientated environment would be triggering for someone with an eating disorder, but it has given Íde both confidence and joy. She has transformed, from being a young woman riddled with anxiety, to this beautiful, chatty person that sits with me here today. She has come through this ordeal and is not mournful or regretful, instead she has a greater understanding of how her mind and her body co-exist.