Raw, touching words. Amelia Gray Hamlin, daughter of Real Housewives star Lisa Rinna and actor Harry Hamlin, wrote a brave message to her 276,000 followers on Sunday, April 1, opening up for the first time about her battle with anorexia.
“Last year at this time there was no doubt that I was not okay. Not only physically but also mentally,” the 16-year-old model captioned an Instagram post showing herself in a bikini this year and last year. “Instead of people ever commenting on my mental stability, people commented on my weight. Usually, when people are struggling with an eating disorder it stems from your mind, and your body is a reflection of it.”
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She continued, “I could go on and on about that time of my life, but the most important part about it was waking up one morning and deciding to stop sabotaging myself. My health, my physical health, my mental health and everything about myself. Once I got the help that I needed, shortly after the second photo was taken, I began to try to love myself for me.”
Hamlin now wants to help inspire other young people to embrace their bodies. “I went through this journey not for attention, not for people to [pity] me, but to help,” she explained. “I am on this earth to help people, and I know that.”
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The teenager knows she still has a way to go, including coping with the “extreme challenge” of her Hashimoto’s disease — a condition that causes the immune system to attack the thyroid — diagnosis. “The first photo, taken today is not a photo of the perfect girl. That is a photo of me, trying to figure out my body, and [owning] my curves that I naturally have, and not forcing myself to starve them away,” she wrote. “I have a lot of health complications after starving myself for so long so it’s going to be a journey that I go through for a large part of my life. I still have an extremely healthy lifestyle and I work out so hard all week to maintain my body.”
Hamlin concluded her post by reiterating that she wants to aid others as she continues her own recovery “one day at a time.”
