PERHAPS BEST KNOWN for her role on Republic of Telly, Joanne McNally’s career has gone from strength to strength in recent years.
However, the comedian, writer and actor has battled her fair share of demons behind the scenes, telling Pat Kenny that it took her years to overcome a severe eating disorder.
Refusing help from concerned friends and family, Joanne relied on the illness to help position her place in the world.
In my mind, if I’m not the thinnest person in the room, I don’t know who I am. Losing that, was really hard. My eating disorder was my best mate. I relied on it all the time. It took years, it really did.
People were trying to intervene and were overly concerned. I felt they were jealous of my new body or sabotage my process.
For almost a decade, the Dublin-native lived with the disease, recalling that it became progressively harder to conceal it the more ill she became.
I was sick for about eight years and I was slowly getting worse and worse. I could hide it in the beginning and then it got to the point where I couldn’t hide it.
The 34-year-old recalls a moment in which she compared her life to that of her social circle, acutely aware that her sole focus was controlling her eating habits while her friends and family began setting down roots.
I remember one day I was sitting on my bed, because I had to move back to my mum’s house, I was 30. I hit bottom at 30. My friends were married with kids and this was my complete focus.
Joanne revealed that while the illness began to have a detrimental effect on both her career and familial relations, she admitted she struggled to see the severity of her condition.
I couldn’t even work because my day was just binge, purge, binge, purge. One time my mom didn’t want me in the house anymore because I wouldn’t go to counselling. I was sleeping in my office and I was still trying to tell myself, ‘I am in control’.
In the very candid interview on Newstalk, the comic gave an insight into her thought process at the bleakest times, telling Pat she was in the grips of a mental illness which ultimately skewed her perception of self-worth and self-care.
Being thin means I’m successful, it means I’m in control of things. Of course, I was completely gone. All my ribs were showing but because of my hips, I felt I had saddle bags. ‘You have to keep working because you have to reduce’. All of this, just mad thinking.
