A girl’s battle with anorexia told with honesty

Tina McGuff’s life was perfect – or so she thought. Living in Dundee with her devoted parents and three younger sisters, she was a happy, healthy and confident thirteen-year-old.

When Tina’s mother attacked her father in a premeditated act of revenge, Tina’s life changed forever.

As her family fell apart at the seams, the weight of responsibility to care for her siblings fell on her. Food was one thing she could control. As anorexia-induced starvation took its toll, she continued down a path of destruction, dropping to a life-threatening four stone until a visit from her father proved a turning point in her life.

Shocking and fascinating in equal measure, this moving account of an unimaginably difficult young life provides a valuable insight into anorexia and mental illness, while offering hope to those affected.

Tina’s life-or-death struggle with anorexia is told with devastating honesty in this extraordinary account of a girl at war with herself. Through her years in and out of psychiatric wards, Tina takes us to some of the darkest places of the mind.

But in the end her courage, conviction and sheer determination win out. It took Tina seconds to snap and a lifetime to recover – but today, as a passionate campaigner for mental health, she is living proof that there is always a reason to hope that one day, things will get better.

Seconds To Snap, by Tina McGuff, published by John Blake Publishing, £7.99.

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