TikTok star who documented her struggle with anorexia has died after posting video saying ‘I’m scared’
A TIKTOK star who documented her struggle with anorexia has died just days after posting a video saying “I’m scared”.
Amy Eliis, 43, shared her experience and regular updates of the crippling disease with 140,000 followers on the video sharing app.
But on Monday, May 22, un update on her TikTok account read: “Amy has taken her butterfly wings and flown to her next life. Amy taught us so much.
“Thank you for all your help and support, it meant the world to her as she did what she could to get the specialist help that she was asking for.”
Amy’s passing came just a day after she posted a video from her bed telling her followers she was “scared” and unable to stand up.
In the heart-breaking video, she says: “I’m scared, I don’t know what’s happening.
“What have I got?”
Amy, a former charity worker and artist from Broughton, in Flintshire, Wales, had struggled with food issues since childhood.
She joined TikTok and launched SavingAmyCymru to raise £200,000 for specialist treatment not available on the NHS because she feared she would die without help.
It came after years of what she said was a lack of support, including being enrolled on community mental health programmes that did not target eating disorders.
At one point she was sectioned and left alone in an “undignified” state for hours in an institution that did not know how to deal with her conditions.
Speaking in July 2022, Amy said of her TikTok account: “I want to get better [at the specialist clinic] and then carry on helping other people.
“I want SavingAmyCymru to turn into a charity.
“I know I can reach so many more people than eating disorder charities to help people because I’m already doing it through my TikTok, but helping other people has got to start with me.
“I’ve got to raise this money and get better. I cannot help others from the grave.”
Amy managed to raise £12,000 to get specialist treatment before her death.
Signs and symptoms of anorexia
- if you’re under 18, your weight and height being lower than expected for your age
- if you’re an adult, having an unusually low body mass index
- missing meals, eating very little or avoiding eating any foods you see as fattening
- believing you are fat when you are a healthy weight or underweight
- taking medication to reduce your hunger (appetite suppressants)
- your periods stopping (in women who have not reached menopause) or not starting (in younger women and girls)
- physical problems, such as feeling dizzy, dry skin and hair loss