How rugby star Hannah Tyrrell tackled low self esteem

As an elite-level athlete playing international rugby for Ireland, Hannah Tyrrell seems physically invincible.

But emotionally it hasn’t always been so. There was a time when chronically poor self-esteem was almost her undoing.

“At about the age of 12 or 13, I developed an eating disorder, a form of bulimia. Subsequent to that, I began to self-harm. I had very low self-confidence and a very negative body image. I didn’t feel I was good at anything, that I wasn’t a good person in general. I thought being skinny might make me happy, but the irony was, the skinnier I got, the more unhappy I was,” says Hannah.