Lucy’s Story

Hi! My name is Lucy, I’m 21 and I’m a fourth year pharmacy student at the University of Nottingham. 

At age 13 I first started experiencing symptoms of depression, but it was not until 15 that I was officially diagnosed. During this period of time I had a lot of family issues and was struggling to fit in in school. 

I was never an incredibly sporty of people, I always preferred music, but I still enjoyed sport in general. On year 9 sports day I was put forward to run one of the track races. I did relatively well and was proud of myself, but from that day onwards I was teased constantly by the kids in my class for my ‘weird run’ and became a target for bullying.

As I was already an anxious child, so this triggered a downward spiral of refusing to do any exercise due to fear of being teased, disordered eating as I believed I needed to decrease my calorie intake to make up for the last of exercise, and my depression worsened to point where I was hospitalised for a short period of time. 

Luckily I received a lot of support from my school, family, friends and CAMHS, and my depression improved substantially, however I was left with anxiety that I still experience and struggle with to this day. 

My poor relationship with food and exercise carried on throughout the whole of school and sixth form, and It wasn’t until half way through my first year at uni, when I was encouraged by seeing my friends exercising around me, that I thought I would try joining the gym as my anxiety was high and I was feeling miserable with the pretty much unavoidable freshers weight gain.

I would like to say that starting exercise again instantly cured my mental health, but realistically it’s been a long journey that involved me over coming a lot of fears around people judging or laughing at me, and just general anxiety over the unknown when it came to teaching myself how to use every thing at the gym - I was completely clueless! However when I got past this, It soon became clear that regular exercise and making small but healthy changes to my diet was incredibly beneficial in controlling my anxiety. I noticed that my panic attacks became less frequent and I felt more in control of my mental health.

Now, 3 years later, I still have peaks and troughs with my anxiety, but exercise is a huge and important part of my life. I’ve made friends through it, become happier and healthier, and watched myself grow into a much more confident and strong female. 

And as an added bonus - this September I will running my first ever 10k in support of Macmillan, so I think we can safely say my fear of running is no more!

My advice would be; try and implement a little exercise into your everyday routine. Whether it be a short walk around the block or a gym class, whatever you’re comfortable with! Everyone has to start somewhere and the benefits to it are endless.