Molly’s Struggles and Triumphs

Molly Bartrip (1/6/1996 – Romford, England) has loved soccer since the first day he could run after the ball. They discovered he was playing on a U10 boys team in Tottenham Hotspur and from there he made the leap, at the age of eleven, to Charlton Athletic to continue to develop their talent. But at age 14, he “destroyed himself.” I’m in the academy Arsenalready for a burst in sports, and due to a tendon injury, he was not selected for the U-15 team of England. He fell into great disappointment. The first time he represented his country and he lost his chance.

Her frustration led to a severe eating disorder. In six months, bartrip He did everything to not eat or eat as little as possible: he hid his food when his parents couldn’t see it, he threw it out the window or he vomited it. Although football was the cause of frustration, it was also its cure.

Controlled by ‘Ana’

“I don’t know why I did that. It’s ‘Ana,'” he said. And he continued: “‘Ana’ told me everything I needed to do. ‘Now you have to run a little more’, ‘look at the calories here’. She has control of my life and he handles me like a puppet. “I can’t fight him and sometimes I think I’m going to give up.” ‘Ana’ is a burden on my life bartrip and his family. Molly He gave a name to the voice he heard in his mind. As anorexia and ‘Ana’ persist, the decrease of Molly It’s fast. At his lowest point, he would self-harm: he would lock himself in his room, crawl under his bed and hurt himself. Her self-loathing grew and her weight dropped. “I don’t know how to explain what happened at that moment. Little by little, I’m eating less and less,” he says. His mother only found out when his best friend caught him throwing away food.

“My mother and I went straight to the doctor. I lost a lot of weight in three weeks and the doctor said that I obviously have anorexia nervosa,” he says. bartrip. “Sometimes when I’m weighed, I’ll wear extra clothes to make it look like I weigh more than I really do, or I’ll put something in my pocket,” she explains. Weeks passed and bartrip He got sick so his parents took him to the hospital. Your body mass index (BMI) was dangerously short and his liver began to fail. If your BMI If it was 1% less, doctors would be forced to feed him through a tube “It’s really scary,” he said.

The picture of Arsenal

But the necessary ‘click’ came in his mind Facebook. He Arsenal has published a picture of an Academy starting eleven and Molly He noticed that “everyone there seemed so big. At that moment I looked at myself and thought, ‘I might never play football again because I can’t play with those girls.’ At that moment I realized that I really wanted to play, to fulfill my dream.

The recovery

And he started by expelling ‘Ana’. He no longer dreads lunch or dinner time and is so angry, he tells his parents that he wants curry. His father rushed to the store and they prepared his favorite dish. Molly. Gradually, ‘Ana’ quieted down and Molly He regained his self-esteem. He knew in that moment that he would get better, that he had the mental strength to overcome the pain that had controlled his life for so long.

Such was the damage he did to his body, that bartrip He didn’t gain weight for years, despite eating normally again. It took many months before he ate pork. At that moment, at age 19, he knew his recovery was complete.

In 2014 he made his professional debut in Reading (59 games) and played with the youth teams of England in some cases. When he received a call that included ‘Lions‘, he admits he screamed like there was no tomorrow.

suicide attempt

However, his life since then has not been without ups and downs. When he was 21 and a professional player, his mental health began to deteriorate again. He struggled to get out of bed. He felt tired, sad. He was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety, and lost control. He hurt himself again. I didn’t see the point of living. At one point, he decided to end it all and drove into the middle of the highway M25. Someone stopped him. A voice in his head told him not to do it. And not ‘Ana’.

“It took me a long time to accept again that I really wanted to live,” he said. bartrip. “It was about my self-esteem. I was thinking, ‘Is this going to affect anyone if I’m not here?’ In retrospect, it affects a lot of people. But until you realize it, you’re stuck in that hole.” bartrip He moved in with his parents and siblings, without their support, he says, he wouldn’t be where he is today. He received therapy and once again, he won his particular battle.

From 2021 he wore the ‘Spurs’ shirt (63 games) and wore the captain’s armband while Beth England recovery from hip surgery. The fight is now on the field to give back to football all that it has given.