This week the 24 year-old singer-songwriter Karima Francis releases her latest single, ‘Wherever I Go’. Taken from her second album, entitled ‘The Remedy’, it has already received critical acclaim – but it very nearly didn’t happen. In fact, Karima herself is lucky to be here.
In 2009, Karima released her first album, with a single on national radio. Years of hard work were finally paying off and she seemed like a poster girl for beauty and success. But beneath the surface, things were very different. Karima was struggling with anorexia, and stopped eating for days on end. Instead of promoting her album, she was hospitalised and ending up fighting, not for chart success, but her very life.
Speaking about this period, Karima says this:
‘Everything was going well and (the first album) looked like it was going to be a success, but there was this underlying problem within me that was buried until it started becoming visible. It’s such a strange illness. You start listening to this voice in your head and it becomes second nature – it doesn’t warn you that it’s going to ruin your life’.
(Sunday Times, 6 May).
Karima comes across as someone who is beautiful, wise and talented. But she could so easily have become just another statistic. What starts small, becomes an addiction that will take your very life.
Don’t listen to that voice. Fight it and ask others to help.