You just have to remember to be there for them when they need you and gently nudge them in the right direction.

I have suffered with anorexia for about 2 1/2 years now, and the descent into the disorder was very fast and absolutely devastating.

These two posts, written two years apart, show how Mel managed to overcome a lot of the anxiety she felt around shopping for food.

I think I was about 14 years old when my eating disorder started, but I think I’ve always had disordered traits as a young child.

When I was at the lowest point of my life, about ten years ago, I said to myself ‘It can’t get any worse.’ It was that bad. However, I realised that this was a positive statement. If it can’t get any worse, that means it can only get better.

It’s been fourteen years. Ten of which have been filled with numerous psychological treatments at four different eating disorder services. Now it’s time. Time to finally say goodbye to you.

Going to my GP in March of last year was something that I knew I had to do. Don’t get me wrong, I was so scared and nervous about how I would tell someone I didn’t know that I was struggling with eating and coping with social occasions which involved food.

Completing my A levels was hard. I soon became obsessed with revision and control, not feeling like I had ever done enough or was enough.

When you’ve had an eating disorder for so long, you become numb to the feeling of not eating. The fear that food will harm you is entrenched into your mind, so you just don’t allow yourself to enjoy food.

Sometimes, I look back at my young, innocent, happy, fit, strong, healthy, beautiful self and I wonder why I ever wanted to be anything else. Now I wish above anything to have this back.

Bulimia isn’t a disease or bug you just get over by taking antibiotics. It is a mental illness that takes over.

This young lady has an eating disorder and it's about time I stop being ashamed and hiding away.

The first time my mum dragged me against my will to the GP to see why I was losing so much weight, to “knock some sense into me”, I was told that I “probably had an eating disorder”, but unfortunately I was “not thin enough to receive help”…

I realised that in the past I did want to get better and be recovered but I wasn’t ready to face the fear, to accept the changes and battle against my eating disorder.

There were two of me – there was Ana (the anorexia) and then there was the real me. I felt like I was being controlled by Ana, and the more food I ate the more my own personality came back.

I want to share my experience because I feel like while there is obviously a lot of support for the eating disorder sufferer and the parents, siblings are all too often the forgotten victims of eating disorders.

Anorexia persuaded me that my actions were completely normal. When others behaved differently, they were wrong and I was right.

I needed to find some way to disappear and become inconsequential, as if I did society maybe wouldn’t notice the disability. The eating disorder was the only way I could see to do this.

Eating disorder vs. recovery isn’t as simplistic as poorly or not. It’s a grey fuzzy line and an uphill battle. I understand that you don’t have any energy or drive at the moment but step by step you can rebuild your life.

The myths of eating disorders are stopping people getting help. These myths are making people more ill and in my case these myths destroyed my 17-year-old life.