Therapeutic: Rachael Stevens in front of one of her pieces, “Love Melts Fear”, which sold for $3000 at the Canberra Grammar Gallery this month. Photo by Jamila Toderas.
It was the stark blue colour of her feet which led the family of anorexia sufferer Rachael Stevens to take her to hospital, a physical alarm bell after a decade of denial of her eating disorder.
“I was very dizzy, I never told anyone that; and I was having trouble breathing, I never said that,” Ms Stevens said.
“I probably couldn’t have kept going if I hadn’t been hospitalised.
“[It] was the time I made decisions about did I want to live, did I want to die – all the tough stuff.”
Now – eight years later – the aspiring Canberra author and artist has put colour on canvas to express her thoughts about the battle which began after her parents divorced when she was six.
The 12 paintings chart her battle, under titles such as Devoured by Guilt and Scavenging for Hope. They combine various shades of blue with a mix of brighter colours in abstract images which the 23-year-old said received a positive reaction in her first public exhibition last week.
“I guess the most prominent reaction I’ve had is people say ‘wow, the message of hope is so strong’,” she said.
“I tried to make it have a positive undertone to it, a lot of conversations about mental health get negative.”
Stevens said her eating disorder worsened in high school and was never about weight.
“I hated change, my parents are divorced so it was definitely a control thing,” she said.
The Weston Creek resident said a conscious effort to help others in the hospital’s psychiatric unit – “anorexia is such a narcissistic thing” – and embracing Christianity helped her change her life and eventually beat the disorder, although she struggled with depression until her 2012 marriage.
Ms Stevens said she wanted her artwork and the simultaneous release of her book The Skeleton Diaries, which covers a three-month period in 2007 including the hospital stay, to encourage others not to lose hope in difficult times.
“I know what it means to go to war with my own thoughts of self-hatred and anxiety,” one of the diary entries read.
“I also know that the war can be won.”
The National Eating Disorders Collaboration has said eating-related mental illnesses affect one in 20 Australians.
About 15 per cent of women will have an eating disorder during their lifetime.
The national Eating Disorders Hope Line can be reached on 1800 33 4673, and Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.