Eryn’s Journey: Farragut soccer player makes a choice to live, combats anorexia with blog

Eryn Hill hit the publish button on her first blog post and felt relief. She was nervous about admitting to the world that she was anorexic and sharing the details of her recovery, but mostly, Eryn was relieved to stop hiding.

“I tried to hide it before and everyone suspected, but then whenever I posted that blog, it sort of validated the rumors to make it real,” Eryn said. “I felt even more myself walking into school after the blog because I wasn’t hiding it anymore."

Going public made anorexia even more real, and publishing Eryn’s Journey became a turning point in her recovery. Eryn, a Farragut soccer player, will receive the Courage Award at the Knox News Sports Awards on Thursday.

'Pile of bones on a hospital bed'

In December 2016, two months before she started the blog, Eryn was admitted to the hospital at about 85 pounds on her 5-foot-7 frame. Her doctor had given her two weeks to gain weight, but she had only lost more.

The 16-year-old had lost about 50 pounds since the start of soccer season, about a four-month span. Now that the season was over, Eryn was down to about 500 calories a day. — rarely eating anything that didn’t come in a 100-calorie pack.

Being hospitalized, being told she was killing herself, that she could do permanent damage to her organs and risk not being able to have children, was her wake-up call.

“She didn't have any choice, and she was in this really vulnerable spot where she is this actual pile of bones on a hospital bed, concerned if her organs were working correctly,” Eryn’s sister Katy said. “I think when that part finally set in it was like, ‘I can't get around this one we have got to figure this out.'”

Eryn didn’t want to be that skinny. She hated looking at herself, wore baggy clothes and rarely took photos that showed anything other than her face. It was a matter of control, not body image.

Why Eryn began restricting her food

“Everything just basically crumbled apart in front of me,” Eryn said.

Each of her support systems had been disrupted: her parents got divorced and sold her childhood home, her sister was studying abroad, her youth pastor moved away, she broke up with her boyfriend, her club soccer team was reorganized.

Eryn had been focusing on eating better for soccer, so it seemed that was the one thing she could control.

“It went from a healthy controlling to a very non-healthy controlling,” she said. “I went from making these decisions to better my body in my workout to not fueling myself with the right amounts of food or types, and not really fueling at all after.”

The feeling of getting through a day, through a soccer game, while restricting herself was like a high at first. She became addicted to the feeling and kept restricting more and more to feel like she was the one in control of her body if nothing else.

It’s only now that she realizes she wasn’t in control of that either.

“Whenever I think about that time, I constantly feel like a different person,” Eryn said. “I was, because my mind was overtaken by the eating disorder voice ‘ED.’ It feels like that part of my life, I was in a cage, so when we talk about it now, it feels like I'm outside of the cage.”

Why she kept playing soccer

The eating disorder also took over soccer. Eryn had been known for her aggressive, physical play and now she was being knocked off the ball. It was hard for her family to watch.

By the end of the season, she was barely eating. She ate about 1,000 calories in a day; a high-level healthy high school athlete should eat close to 3,000.

“She would push herself to get through those games and I have no idea how she was able to do that,” said Eryn’s mom, Katrenia. “I would be standing on the sideline at the end of the game and virtually carry her. She just couldn't walk by herself.”

When Eryn's play worsened, Farragut coaches Dennis Lindsay and Jessica Stephens thought about benching her, but she still had an impact as a leader. As she lost more weight, Stephens brought concerns to Katy, Katrenia and Tim, but all said Eryn was OK at the time.

The final game of the 2016 season was a cold, blustery sectional game at Tennessee High. Watching Eryn struggle made for the worst day of her dad’s life. Finally, 10 minutes in, Stephens benched her.

“It’s really hard to describe the sadness you feel, the emptiness, the ‘where did I go wrong,’ ” Tim said.

Katrenia and Tim thought about taking her out of soccer before that. But all the changes to her support system had started this. They had to find a balance between soccer being bad for her physically and good for her mentally, so they let her play and insisted she get treatment after the season.

Makers Donuts and Chick-fil-A

Eryn and her family focused on the little victories. Often, they were food based — like the first time she asked Katy to pick up a donut from Makers — but food was more of an indicator for Eryn’s mental state.

“You could see the darkness, you could feel the darkness,” Katrenia said.

Meals were awful. Katy, who was attending Tennessee at the time, came home to Farragut for dinner as moral support. She or Katrenia had to prod Eryn, who had set requirements from her dietitian for every meal. They’d start gently, but it always turned into a fight.

“There was always an underlying reason for why she wasn't eating,” Katy said “Like something happened or I'm feeling this way and it was always very constructive in the sense that we're breaking down some walls, she's telling us things and this is good.”

They celebrated the little things, like a latte instead of a black coffee or that first trip to Chick-fil-A.

Why last soccer season at Farragut was different

Eryn had missed the club soccer season, but she wanted her senior season of high school soccer.

Eryn approached Drew Payne the day after the new Farragut’s coach’s introductory meeting last May. She wasn’t cleared to play in the field, but she could play goalkeeper.

Two weeks into the season, eight months after being hospitalized, Eryn was cleared to play in the field. She moved from goalie to center forward at halftime against Girls Preparatory School at the Smoky Mountain Cup and immediately made an impact.

Penalty kicks were always Eryn’s favorite. As she lined up for one in that game, Payne had an eerie feeling; he knew she was going to score. Bottom right corner with ease.

“She turned around and emotions just overwhelmed her,” Payne said.  “The entire team just surrounded her right there. They weren't even walking back to the half line at that point; they were just standing around like hugging her.”

Eryn originally had options to play soccer in college but now will attend UT without playing varsity, 

What blogging has meant for Eryn

The blog helped Eryn, who is still slightly underweight at 120 pounds, get to the point she could play soccer again so quickly. Writing it forced her to be honest with herself as much as with others, and it gave her a chance to pay it forward.

Months prior, Katy had led Eryn to the Instagram account @thestrengthenedsophie, a UT student and recovered anorexic. Eryn has never met Sophie, who also has a blog by the same name, but following her Instagram helped to know she wasn’t alone.

“She would talk about how (talking publicly) was helping her,” Eryn said. “I saw how she was able to reflect that onto other people, like myself. I got to experience it from the side of the person who was getting the help from the blog.”

When Eryn started her blog, she heard from other Farragut students also dealing with eating disorders. They became shoulders for each other to lean on. They’d reach out to each other when they were feeling triggered or just needed someone who gets it.

The support group Eryn had gone to was older women she couldn’t relate to, so she ended up building her own through the blog.

"I had never really thought of myself as a strong person," Eryn said. "But if I can take an eating disorder like that, something that my life was on the line, it's just really like everything else that comes my way, I can get through it. It can’t stop me. I was literally dying and now I’m the best version of myself living."

Knox News Sports Awards presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans

What: The second-annual event will recognize and honor the top athletic accomplishments in Knoxville area high school sports.

When: May 31, 6 p.m.

Where: Tennessee Theatre

Tickets: Cost is $25 after fees. To purchase tickets, please visit sportsawards.knoxnews.com.