A female footballer who was hospitalised with anorexia says watching her former teammates win the Euros with the Lionesses helped her beat the illness. <br /><br />Maddie Blackburn, 23, was in hospital for her eating disorder when she watched Georgia Stanway and Ella Toone, who she previously played with, beat Germany.<br /><br />She said it was 'surreal' watching them on TV while she was in hospital, which kickstarted her into recovery, forcing her to gain weight.<br /><br />Now, Maddie is in recovery from the illness and is even back training with a local women's football team and hopes to study football coaching at university. <br /><br />She said: "I played football since I was very little so it was quite surreal watching them play on TV in front of thousands of people while I was just sat in hospital. <br /><br />"I just thought 'what am I actually doing with my life?'<br /><br />"It was an eye-opener because I had been in hospital for around seven months at that point. <br /><br />"I thought that I either need to help myself or I wouldn't even up recovering. <br /><br />"I think with anorexia, you can have all the help and support in the world but it's you that needs to choose to eat. <br /><br />"I think I needed something to motivate me but it was always going to be football because I played for years and years.<br /><br />"Then I think the Euros changed everything really." <br /><br />After she started losing a lot of weight, Maddie's mum took her to the doctors and she was eventually admitted to Cheadle Royal Hospital’s eating disorder unit in 2021.<br /><br />The footballer was in there for six months in 2021, but sadly she relapsed and went back into hospital in 2022.<br /><br />Now she's started training with a local women's football team - which is something she never thought she would do because of how hard it is to recover from anorexia.<br /><br />Maddie said: "I've just started training with a local team.<br /><br />"I want to start playing back to the level I was a few years ago but I think it's going to take quite a while because I've not got my strength back yet.<br /><br />"I think I'm quite shocked I'm playing again because I didn't expect to be in this position. <br /><br />"I thought I would be in and out of hospital constantly, even though I didn't want that but Anorexia is one of the hardest illnesses to recover from. <br /><br />"I kind of just accepted that was going to be me for the rest of my life, but I can say now that it's not."<br /><br />Maddie has reflected on her time at the eating disorder unit and described it as 'the weirdest experience' <br /><br />She added it was 'awful' only being able to see her family through a window during Covid and that she felt 'it wasn't a very helpful environment' to be in.<br /><br />Maddie, of Whalley, Lancs,. said: "It's the weirdest experience I'll ever go through - unless you've been there yourself, then you don't know how to describe it.<br /><br />"You're surrounded by other poorly people so you are being triggered 24 hours a day, seven days a week.<br /><br />"It's loud and full of alarms and there's people who are in completely different stages of their recovery - you could get someone who is due to be discharged soon.<br /><br />"But then you can get someone who has just come in so they are really poorly. <br /><br />"For me, it just wasn't a very helpful environment to be in.<br /><br />"There wasn't really any visits during Covid, if they were any visits then it was just threw a window and it was awful."<br /><br />England star Alessia Russo opened up earlier this year about battles with 'wanting to be skinny' and the impact it had on her performance playing football. <br /><br />Maddie says she related to the 24-year-old's comments and thinks it's 'important' that she opened up publicly about her experience.<br /><br />She said: "Alessia Russo opened up not that long ago about how she struggled with body image and food issues in lockdown.<br /><br />"I think she said when she started playing football after lockdown, she got injured straight away and that made her realise she had to eat more. <br /><br />"It's the same for me really. <br /><br />"It's important that people like her open up - it inspired me to open up so it could inspire hundreds of people to talk about it."
