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"I walked a marathon a day to end my life"

Desperate to escape her deep depression, Hannah Harvey walked for 26 miles a day – the same distance as a marathon – while surviving on just 700 calories.

Hannah became anorexic when she was 12 after being bullied at school for being bright, and by the time she was 16 her weight had dropped to a dangerous 4st. Her mum Lesley was told her daughter could die as her organs had started to shut down.

Thankfully, after battling the disease for seven years, the 19 year old is now on the verge of making a full recovery. “Living with anorexia is no life at all,” says Hannah, from Edinburgh. “I wasted so much of my childhood but I’m making up for it now.”

Hannah’s problems began when she started secondary school. “I struggled to make friends,” she says. “Then a gang of girls started picking on me, calling me ‘an ugly freak’ and ‘teacher’s pet.’ I became an outcast and convinced myself I was detestable.”

At the same time Hannah was devastated by news that her dad, Thomas, then 54, was suffering from leukaemia and her sister Alison, 24, was moving to the US for a job.

“I had no one to confide in,” says Hannah, who weighed a healthy 9st 7lbs at the time. “I blamed myself for everything, but I didn’t want to tell Mum how depressed I felt because I knew she was struggling with my dad’s illness. The only thing that helped was taking my dog Sassi on long walks.”

Within a few weeks, 5ft 6 Hannah was walking for an extreme seven hours a day. “I’d spend almost the entire weekend walking,” she says. “In the week I’d get up at 6am to walk before school. I’d spend my lunch hour walking and in the evenings I’d take my dog for another long walk.”

Hannah also started cutting down on what she ate. “I thought food was wasted on me,” she says. “I noticed I was losing weight and liked the idea of completely disappearing. For breakfast I’d eat a small bowl of bran flakes, a small salad sandwich for lunch and for dinner I’d make a vegetable stir-fry. I only ate because I needed energy to walk.”

Within a month Hannah’s weight had dropped to 8st. Her worried mum took her to her GP, who dismissed her concerns.

“I could tell she’d lost weight, but I didn’t know why,” says Lesley, 55. “I had no idea she was walking so far – I thought she was sitting on benches half the time, or meeting friends – and as far as I knew she was eating.”

Hannah never told her mum the extent of the bullying. Meanwhile, Lesley – who was also having to cope with her husband’s illness – tried to make her eat more by cooking lavish meals, but to no avail. And because Hannah often cooked for herself, it wasn’t clear just how ill she was.

It was only when her weight dropped to 6st two years later that Hannah’s doctor finally diagnosed her as anorexic. She was admitted to hospital for three months and put on 11⁄2st through therapy and a 3,000-calorie-a-day meal plan.

 “I cried constantly because I missed home and felt helpless,” says Hannah. But when she returned to school the bullying started again and she went back to her old habits.

Desperate to get Hannah to eat, Lesley bought her new clothes in a larger size, but they just hung in the wardrobe.

“Nothing she said could convince me to look after myself,” says Hannah. “I didn’t like the way I looked, but I couldn’t stop walking or controlling my food because it made me feel better. I wanted my life to end.”

Over the next couple of years Hannah was admitted to hospital a further seven times. She would gain a few pounds but lose weight again as soon as she returned home. When she was 16 she discovered another gang of girls called her “the anorexic bitch.”

“I was stunned,” says Hannah. “I hardly knew these girls. I blamed myself and began walking further than ever.”

Within a few months Hannah’s weight plummeted from 6st to 4st, and one day she was rushed to hospital suffering from chest pains and breathing problems.

Her mum was told to expect the worst as her daughter’s organs had started to shut down. “I didn’t realise how skinny she’d got because she hid her body in baggy jumpers,” says Lesley. “But as she lay in the hospital I could see there was just bone under the skin. I was devastated I might lose her.”

Hannah insists she had no idea how ill she was. “When they told me I shouldn’t be alive, I didn’t believe them,” she says. “I’d been feeling fine just hours before.”

Hannah was kept in hospital for almost a year. “For the first two weeks I had to be fed using a tube because my gullet had closed up and it was so painful. My food was measured carefully as even a thimbleful extra could have killed me, because it would have put too much strain on my organs.

“I wasn’t allowed to move or hug my mum, and I was taken to the toilet in a wheelchair. It was utterly humiliating.”

Five months into Hannah’s treatment, her father died. It was a traumatic setback, but Hannah eventually gained 2st and after 11 months was allowed home.

Sadly, not even a brush with death could stop Hannah losing weight. She dropped to 4st again after starting university in Aberdeen and was once again admitted to hospital. But when she saw the look of anguish on her mum’s face when she arrived to see her, Hannah was shocked.

“Mum looked broken,” she says. “For the first time I could see what I was doing to both of us. I vowed to beat my disorder.”

After extensive therapy Hannah finally managed to break her destructive cycle. “I was determined to get better – for Mum’s sake as well as my own,” she says.

Hannah hasn’t had a period since she was 12, but they’re likely to start once she reaches her goal weight of 8st. Her bones are brittle and she mustn’t place too much strain on her heart, but doctors are hopeful that she will make a full recovery.

She eats three big meals and four snacks a day. She still enjoys walking, but never covers more than a couple of miles in a day.

Hannah, who’s never had a boyfriend because of her illness, now weighs 7st and hopes to gain another stone by the autumn when she’ll start at university in Edinburgh.

“I’ve still got a long way to go, but I’m getting there,” she says. “My life has only just begun and it’s going to be a good one!”

By Caroline Young