Tottenham Hotspur captain Molly Bartrip said experiencing a lack of energy in matches was a “reality check” in dealing with her anorexia.
Bartrip, 28, spoke on FIFPro’s Footballers Unfiltered podcast about her experiences with mental health issues after she was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa at the age of 14, while also suffering from “severe anxiety and depression” while playing at Reading from 2014 to 2021.
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“I’ve experienced games where I had no energy,” Bartrip said. “Every pre-match, I have pasta. Regardless if it’s a 12 o’clock kick-off, I have pasta at nine o’clock. Because I feel best when I’ve had that.
“Before, I would have a slice of toast the evening before a game. Then I would go to the game and feel like I’m getting battered everywhere. It wasn’t until I had that reality check that I was like, ‘I’m not performing. I’m going to get dropped. I’m not at my best’.”
Bartrip, who represented England at under-19 level, said her fears over not being selected for her national team, and for Arsenal as a teenager, saw her attempt to gain “control” by not eating.
“For some reason, my mind just had a switch,” she said. “I didn’t feel good enough. I had no control over England selection, Arsenal selection, but I had control of what I was putting in my body. (So) I’m just not going to eat.
“To other people, it was maybe me just concentrating on getting fitter, looking better, but it got to the point where I got caught throwing food away at school. I didn’t want to accept I was ill.”
As a teenager, Bartrip said an instance of having to be “tube fed” at hospital “woke (her) up a bit”.
“It made me realise I need to sort myself out,” Bartrip said. “I’m not even going to have a life let alone play football ever again.”
Bartrip recalled her love for bacon sandwiches as a child, but said there was a “mind block” stopping her from eating them for “five years.” The Spurs defender said she “knew (she) hadn’t covered from anorexia properly” until she ate bacon without “guilt.”
“I was at Reading, the girls ordered a Dominos (pizza) after the game. I was eating normally-ish at 19, but that was the one thing I couldn’t eat. This Texas BBQ pizza had bacon on it and I was like, ‘I can’t eat it’.
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“Then I thought, ‘I can do this’. As soon as I ate it I was on the phone to my mum, ‘I’ve done it’. I don’t even feel bad for it. I loved it. It was the biggest weight off my shoulders ever, I can’t even explain the feeling.”
Bartrip said she also received a diagnosis for “severe depression and anxiety” at Reading, adding: “I fight with my brain all the time, it’s draining because I’ve done it since I was 14. I have come to terms with this is who I am now. I don’t want to have to fight every day, it’s tiring. I still have panic attacks.”
But the defender said she is “proud” of Spurs for the club’s emphasis on supporting the mental health of the women’s team by employing a psychologist and a nutritionist.
“We didn’t have psychologists, the men’s side did but the women’s side didn’t. Which is something we’re seeing a lot more in the women’s game, we’re getting women’s psychologists too.
“That has to be compulsory if I’m honest. There’s so much emphasis on injuries in football, why not for the mental side of the game. If you can give that one, two extra three per cent, that can win you a game.”
(Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)
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