Bulimia is a serious mental illness that is underestimated in society. Only those who have faced evil face to face can understand the full scale of the problem. Among them are not only ordinary people, but also those whom the whole country knows about. For example, four-time world champion in rhythmic gymnastics Alexandra Soldatova.
They even said about the girl that because of depression she tried to commit suicide. The reason for the rumors was her visit to the doctor, but, as it turned out later, it was a false alarm – the athlete just injured her finger. However, the state of mind of the champion was still not in order: she loved life, but she could not cope with bulimia. But she did not want to admit this to herself, much less to the others, until a certain moment.
It all started because of failures in competitions – a common thing when champions are painfully experiencing losses.
“At first, I just started losing weight against this background, I stopped eating. Once I didn’t eat, twice … And I liked it – to be thin. I had swimwear on. Then it turned into bulimia. Hunger has come. I couldn’t accept the fact that I could gain even a gram, I had to stay thin.”– said Alexandra in an interview with the Figurka YouTube channel.
The girl does not hide the fact that then she lived two parallel lives: one is a sport in which she plunged headlong and forgot about the rest; the other was outside of training, where she was on her own all the time because of her special relationship with food. Alexandra herself did not want to let anyone into her difficult world.
Then, because of bulimia, not only the soul, but also the body was already sounding the alarm – according to the athlete, her body began to fall apart.
“I had a fracture of the tibia, most likely due to a lack of micronutrients, because I simply did not eat. I missed the European Championship then, and that was such a point. It’s bad with sports, bad with health … I then said to myself: “That’s it, I can’t do it anymore, I need help”Alexandra recalled.