Your Stories

There I was, sitting in front of the GP, age going on 33, a decade of anorexia behind me. Was I going to tell the whole story? 'I’ve had a chest infection for six weeks and I’m scared I’m losing my hearing. Pause. Deep breath. “The real reason I’m so ill is anorexia. I’ve got anorexia.'

Zero is the number I am driven to reach by the 'friend' in my mind. I am to eat zero of this and that, and I am to take up zero space.

I want to start this post by taking you back two years. It’s the summer of 2015 and I’m about to start my first year of sixth form. I can’t say I was particularly excited by the prospect, as like many decisions I have made in my life it wasn’t actually something I really wanted to do.

University – a time full of new experiences, new friends, new skills and also new challenges. My first year at university ended up being the most challenging and unpredictable year of my life.

For a bit of background about me - I have struggled with my eating disorder since I was 16 (I am now 24 and in recovery). I never knew that it had taken hold of me that young until I started to talk about my experience and tracked it back.

For many years, I kept my struggles with eating disorders as private as I could. Only a couple of close friends knew about my struggles with anorexia and bulimia throughout my late teens and early twenties.

I have heard this sentence so many times over the years: 'You’re not skinny enough to have an eating disorder.' But excuse me, who are you to say my mental state is determined by the number on the scale? Who are you to question whether or not I'm struggling?

I got diagnosed with OCD when I was very young. My OCD varied on different topics, but later in life my OCD fixated on food, and within time I developed an eating disorder.

If there’s such a thing as a typical anorexic patient, then I’m not that person. I’m a man with an illness broadly estimated to be 80-90% female.

All of a sudden, those good intentions have turned into an obsession. You look at the numbers, fixate on them. The number of calories eaten, the number of calories burned, and the amount of time exercised, the number on the scale, the number on the food scale, the number on your clothes.

Christmas has always been a very busy and exciting time for me. Singing with my church choir, playing at events with the school orchestra – there was an endless number of things that I looked forward to. Many involved food and going out for meals, which I also loved to do.

Approaching the end of my psychotherapy sessions I am so grateful for finally receiving the correct help. I remember being completely convinced that I was going to be laughed out of therapy and told ‘you’re fine, you’re not ill enough yet, what are you doing here?’