The blonde woman's abs stand out like steel cables under her tanned skin. Other pictures show her happy with her husband and two sons. There's no question that Yavi's life looks perfect on her Instagram channel. What her 33,000 followers don't know for a long time: Yavi was addicted to approval. An urge that culminated in an eating disorder, sports addiction and depression.
The roots of Yavi's suffering lie in her childhood. Like every soul, hers cries out for attention. But she is denied this far too often. Yavi's needs hardly play a role alongside her eccentric mother and strict father.
Pain became my friend, through him I was the center of attention
Even as a five-year-old, she learns how to get the recognition she craves. Through good performance - but above all through pain. Because as soon as she suffers, she is stroked, comforted and experiences her family as a place of cohesion. In order to be noticed, Yavi stages accidents, feigns illness and manipulates those around her.
As a 14-year-old, she carves herself. She perceives the pain as happiness. She is loud and boorish. She provokes her parents, teachers and classmates. She smokes, has alcohol crashes and affairs. And feels infinitely empty. But her life is about to take an even more extreme turn.
I finally found the perverse duo of pain and attention in sport.
In addition to her studies, Yavi trains every morning on an empty stomach. She starves herself and adheres to strict diets. At night, she binges, for which she punishes herself with even more exercise. "It was an agonizing vicious circle." She receives applause from those around her for her muscles, while her health suffers. But Yavi ignores her aching knees and shins and the absence of her period. The cardiac arrhythmia, the headaches and bouts of weakness. "Real symptoms that I didn't invent, but celebrated and exploited in the same way as my faked childhood ailments." At some point, it wasn't just Yavi's body that was sending out alarm signals, but also her head. She has suicidal thoughts. As her thoughts become increasingly dark, she goes to therapy.
The conversations open up old wounds, but also help Yavi. She recognizes the connection between her addiction to attention and her childhood. However, she does not yet learn how to really break her behavioral patterns. Not even when she meets the love of her life, Paul. Paul is the first person Yavi really confides in. "It was love in its purest form yet." When they finally want to get married, Yavi develops a new addiction.
She wants to be the perfect bride at all costs. To achieve this, she once again pushes her body to the limit. In the end, however, the ceremony turns out very differently to how Yavi had imagined it, and this relieves the tension inside her. "I was no longer in the mood for self-flagellation through diet and exercise."
But Yavi only really woke up when, at the age of 28, she received the receipt for her eating disorder and sports addiction: Her body is going through the menopause prematurely, so to speak. The truth hits her hard. Thanks to hormone therapy, Yavi's wish to have her own child comes true after all: she becomes pregnant.
The baby in my belly gave me the strength to change my life
This miracle opens up the path to more self-love and gives her the strength to change. From then on, Yavi shares her new happy life on Instagram and soon also on her blog. What begins superficially becomes a way for Yavi to come to terms with her painful past. She begins to write more and more openly about her dysfunctional relationship with food and sport. Does she feel healed today? Yavi still enjoys the applause she receives for her postings. The main difference, however, is that she no longer feels dependent on the recognition in order to feel genuine happiness.
