Speaking out: Hayley Purdon is an ambassador for Suicide Prevention Australia. Photo: Wolter Peeters
Hayley Purdon always wanted to be a pilot. Her goal was to get her commercial pilot’s licence and fly for a living.
Then at high school she started having bouts of depression. Later when she got to university she found it hard to adjust. She’d had eating problems and they got worse. She suffered from bulimia, a serious mental illness.
‘‘I felt completely ashamed of what I was doing,’’ she says. ‘‘Bulimia is not a nice thing to be doing to yourself.
‘‘I kept it all hidden from everyone around me because I was so embarrassed with what I was doing and that I wasn’t coping. Society makes us believe that we have to achieve everything effortlessly and that achievement comes easily and I was struggling. I didn’t want other people to see that.’’