Serena Abweh is a 19-year old powerlifting sensation. However, she is recently making waves for sharing her inspirational story of overcoming anorexia to get to where she is today.
When looking at Abweh, there are many things that are very noticeable. She seems to be a pretty young lady, with dense muscle growth. This has led her to find a fair amount of success from the start of her powerlifting career, seeing her win the Raw Nationals last October.
However, what you may not be able to guess just from looking at her, is that Serena Abweh used to be anorexic. She recently shared an inspirational message to her Instagram, detailing her growth and progress. Furthermore, she shared a pair of pictures, showing the difference between how she used to look, and how she currently is.
Take a look:
“In honor of it being the last day of National Eating Disorder Awareness week, I wanna share and partake in it because it’s something I hold near to my heart because it has almost stopped mine. Raising awareness around these topics is so important, it can literally save someone’s life.
Eating disorders are one of the biggest killers of any psychiatric illness. The mortality rate of Anorexia is 12x higher than the death rate of all causes of death for females between the ages of 15-24. Likeee why aren’t we talking more about this?😞
I know there are many misconceptions and stereotypes around people with this disorder. Such as “People with eating disorders starve themselves because they only want to be skinny”, “They are self centered and attention seekers”, “Only people who are underweight suffer from an ED”, and that “They are helpless”. Eating disorders are SO much more than just about losing weight and being skinny. There is a whole underlying issue and they use their eating disorder to cope with it.
Whether the issue be from trauma, family issues, low self esteem, etc… everyone story is so different.
People with EDs do not “do this” to seek attention, we most likely wish people didn’t notice our suffering. Eating disorders are very secretive. The reason why we shut people off is because we don’t want to hurt the other person or put more of a burden on their own life and have another thing to “deal” with.
People don’t need to be underweight to suffer from anorexia or an eating disorder. There are so many people at healthy weights and still struggle every single day. And it’s sad that people don’t realize how bad someone is suffering on the inside until it becomes physical.
Lastly, there is hope.
Although recovery can be an ongoing battle, we find ways to cope with the awful thoughts, acknowledge that they are there, but don’t act on the behavior. The thoughts slowly become quieter, allowing you to live your life the way YOU want. Not your ED.
I promise you, things do get better if you push and fight against this awful disorder that affect so many MEN and women of all ages.”
It is safe to say, that Serena Abweh is an inspirational new force in the powerlifting world. Not to mention, she has the skills to back it up. It must have taken a lot of courage to open up about these struggles.
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