By not eating you know I, it was to me it was self harm when I started off, by not eating it was self harm and it was, and then by throwing up it was self harm, it was, that was what I was doing but then I got so sucked into the fact, that oh wow I’m losing weight, it just got, suddenly I wanted to lose weight and it was, it was just it just kind of took over so although it was self harm it was, it just became it’s own thing as well. And it became my new kind of coping strategy for everything. And so definitely I think for the last year of sixth form it was, because both of them were going pretty strong it was very intense then. I lost a lot of weight, not too much, but I lost a lot, I mean, I was very big, I did lose a lot of weight and I do still struggle with eating, but not too much.

I mean I do still struggle, but that is my main issue that I talk to counsellors about because it’s kind of, you know, my self harming coping mechanism was taken away from me, my eating disorder although my Mum found out about it it’s much easier to hide.

With regards to my eating, it’s all become back as an issue because my eating has been a problem in the last six months, which I thought was signs of my eating disorder coming back, but it’s not and they have diagnosed me with this Food phobi. When I’m anxious and depressed I stop eating. Because and that I’m scared of feeling the happy factor that food gives and I can’t deal with the overwhelming feeling of being happy. So I’m food phobic avoid it. And I’m now undergoing CBT at [place name], which costs £117 per session, for the next week for the next six months.

I mean the issue now and going through psychotherapy with CBT, is that they’ve now, we’ve now come up now, that we’ve now found a link with my eating that my eating disorder was not treated when I was 14 that we thought it was. Because the issue of my eating, it was all about, when, when I was having CBT the first time, it was all about we’ve got to get your weight to a safe level, but not why I’m not eating in the first place, not why I’ve got the issue with the food in the first place. So we’ve now gone further now I’ve got food phobia, so there’s that link, and when I was little I had issues with food when I was a baby, which I’ve only just found out about from my parents. So, that was never picked up on as a child, so, it’s as, we’re now going backwards all the way through, the links are being made.

Yeah it started roughly when I was about, say about 8, 9, I was in primary school and I was just generally getting teased. I wasn’t a big child but I wasn’t like quite slender and I was like, wasn’t skinny but I wasn’t fat either, I was just like in between, the average weight. And I just got bullied for it, and that’s it really. I used to like skip meals and see if I could just, and every day I went without eating it was like a bonus for me, it was like, it was like a pat on the back to myself, like, Well done, keep it up. Keep going So that I just used to keep going, keep going and see how long I could last. That was it.

I did quite well in primary school, like socially and stuff, like, not Miss Popular, but just got on really well with stuff and then when I started at comprehensive school, after about six months I was bullied, what’s the word, internably? [Intermittently]. Lots. And then, and they the main thing was that they said that I looked like a pig. And I’d have comments like, How can I concentrate on the lesson when I’ve got an extra from Planet of the Apes sat next to me In art class they’d draw pigs and put my name on the top and stuff like that. So my rationale was that if I was thinner my nose would be thinner and they wouldn’t be able to take the piss. That was my rationale in losing weight in the first place, like , I used to walk around town or school or anywhere like that, I was terrified of being seen anywhere, so I always used to pretend I was scratching my eyebrows or something, to hide my nose, cos I really, I genuinely was made to believe that I had this hideous deformity, like I would hit myself in the face with a hairbrush and stuff in the hope that I would break my nose and have it re-shapen, or something really ridiculous. I genuinely was led to believe that I was that ugly that even walking down the street people were staring at me and stuff. And it’s like utter crap like, but at the time I was, it was so incessant, that’s the word, incessant, I was, I totally believed it, hook line, hook line and sinker.

I remember when I went for my GCSE’s; I didn’t even go back to the school to pick up my results. I just waited for them to come through the post, that’s how much I hated it, I just, I was terrified of being seen.

I’d say probably the media was the main thing that sort of, like all the factors probably led up to maybe me more vulnerable to depression, but the one that sort of triggered it and set it off was the media.

Due to probably like I was sort of like lacking confidence with friends, lacking confidence around my family, like I thought my family thought like I was failing, and it’s like well these celebrities, everybody thinks they’re successful, everybody likes them, they’ve got so many friends, and it’s like, well, well I should be like that. Why am I not like that? And that sort of triggered off the whole depression thing and, then obviously the trying to control it with not eating.

No one was aware of my eating. As I’m very well known now, I’m a good liar. And I at the time it was when the fashion came in of all baggy clothes, baggy trousers, so I kind of deliberately got into that fashion to hide it. And it wasn’t, I mean I left, left school, I managed to get out of there through my GCSE’s. I mean I was predicted the normal Cs and whatever, I left there with one C, and the rest Ds and Es and everything, I, all I wanted was a C in English, so I could get through on my Media. That was all I wanted. And unfortunately that wasn’t enough to get me into college because I spent more time seeing the psychiatrist, bunking off school, not wanting to go to school, bunking off in lessons to avoid the bullying. So it just affected my whole school life.

Physically, it’s hard to know because I was so used to feeling like shite all the time, that I could look back and go, Oh I felt fine. But mentally I had completely screwed myself up with everything, honestly, like I did have problems like kidney infections and like really bad throats, not like today, this is a bit like, I’ve actually got a cold today. But like horrendous throats, like marks all around my face from being sick, just like no gag reflex, absolutely disgusted at the thought of any food staying down. I thought I was grossly overweight, which was ridiculous, I wasn’t at all, I wasn’t even close to being overweight, but I looked at myself and I genuinely believed that I looked pregnant and stuff like that. And it wasn’t, it was from where I’d binged and purged, and your stomach swells because of it. And then I’d stand in front of the mirror and go, Oh my God. And it was like; I still didn’t cotton on the link you know?

And , so physically, I mean in hindsight, I don’t remember anything being really bad apart from when I abused laxatives and stuff, I once lost control of my bowels on a train, and had to sit in them for two hours while I came home, ‘cos I had nothing else to change into. so that wasn’t pretty. But, I got off quite light with side effects. But as it went on and on it was the psychological effects, paranoid, hypersensitive, terrified of speaking to anyone in case they thought I was stupid or making an idiot of myself you know like, it’d been five or six years and yet I was still that kid in the classroom who was trying to hide her nose and I just couldn’t operate on a social level at all. ‘Cos I didn’t know who I was, all I was bulimia and drinking, that’s all I was.

And just like so it’s the psychological stuff, I just remember being suicidal loads, and I remember when I first started self harming I was just like in the same way that the bulimia was like, We’ll do this as a one-off. And then within a year that was my new thing, get drunk, self harm, go bed, get drunk, self harm, but look at me, I’ve beaten bulimia. You know like, yeah again it just started with a, Oh I haven’t tried that. So that’s how it escalated.

I had this ongoing thing of every time there was a holiday like a, a summer holiday, Easter holiday, something like that I’d be like, Two weeks, how much weight can I lose in two weeks Cos I was desperate for somebody to notice what was wrong. And I just thought oh if I could just get really skinny the teachers will notice and they’ll ask if I’m alright, and you know it’ll be a way of speaking without having to speak, do you know what I mean.

But, never worked. Like I never lost that much weight cos I was binging so much anyway. Like, and cos I was very sporty they just assumed that I was, cos I was doing lots of sports so, but, yeah that was my theory, every, every holiday was like, Well six weeks, I’m going to be like really tiny when I go back, so they’ll know something’s wrong Cos I just couldn’t articulate it at all. Cos most of the time I didn’t know what was wrong, like why am I feeling like this, why am I, why has all this gone wrong you know, like I had no idea how to even start a conversation. And now in hindsight I realise that all you have to do is just open your mouth, say one word, and the rest like will come.

I suppose you could call it attention seeking, but not in the negative way that it’s portrayed. I was desperate for somebody to notice just how much in the shit I was. That’s, that was my goal. Not so like I would be like, Oh my God, look at you, oh yeah Not that kind of attention seeking, I was desperate for an adult figure in my life to almost, take me under their wing, rescue me in some way. And I thought if I could just get thin enough someone will notice and they’ll be all caring and stuff towards me.

But it’s like I was constantly doing this, and it’s like, turns out years later all I had to do was turn round and ask for help and I would’ve got it. But I was too ashamed, too shy; you know everything, just assumed that it was a dirty secret, you know like I was quite jealous of people who were anorexic because it seemed to me much cleaner and more becoming you know? Whereas Bulimia was this disgusting violent act, do you know? Like, so it was like I couldn’t, I just felt absolutely, yeah, I dreamt of being anorexic, but I was so badly with bulimia, it’s not like you can choose what illness you get.

It got to the stage where obviously my friend end, ended up intervening, telling my parents, and my parents like just asked me out right, and I just said, Oh I’m not going to lie to you, yeah I am on, not eating. And they were like, Why? And I was like, Well, and I like explained about the thoughts and like, Well why, what’s the reason for these thoughts? And like, I can’t tell you. And they thought, they understood because obviously they’d gone through depression, so that was good for me, apart from again when my Dad, my Dad was sort of obviously frustrated that I felt like that, and wanted to know a reason and then like sort of, had to keep on reminding himself, look there’s not always a reason, but he’d like always ask, Oh come on, tell me the reason, tell me the reason. And obviously, I were, I was on the, I’d just like sort of slipped into the category for anorexia, so for me it didn’t get to the really bad stage where I was really underweight, I mean I did look very, very emaciated, because obviously I’m quite tall, and but then it was a case of being watched while I was eating, and friends at school had to make me eat my lunch, and it was like, For God’s sake, why won’t people leave me alone?

I came home once when I was about 16, I moved in with my Dad and there was a post-it note on the toilet seat saying, You’ve blocked the fucking drains again And he’d gone off to live with his girlfriend cos he couldn’t be bothered to get a plumber. My Mum once heard me being sick in the shower, and she was like, Why do you keep doing that when you go in the bathroom And I’m like, I swallowed some shampoo And she was like, No you didn’t, you make yourself sick And I was just like really embarrassed, like a hot flush. That’s the only thing they ever said to me about it.

And they knew. They knew, they really knew. But didn’t do anything.

What did you think about that at the time? Do you remember?

Um, being glad that they didn’t know. But when you look in hindsight and you think actually they did, that doesn’t, well, that doesn’t make me angry it just makes me like, Why Like, why, who wouldn’t worry about that in their own daughter, do you know what I mean? Like, to them they just thought it was this silly, I don’t know how they saw it actually, it’s never been raised, as an issue. Like, I’m not close to them anyway so but then it’s never been. Nothing’s ever been said about it, other than those two comments.

And we found out about this Insight, and that really helped ‘cos, like whereas at the Child Mental Health Team it was more, it was more aimed at younger people, and ‘cos I was at sort of, at the age limit everything they was do, they were doing was like, I was like, well this is ridiculous because I’m not that age, and why are you doing this? And why keep on changing my tablets? And I just kept on getting frustrated and getting, finding the counselling session pointless ‘cos more and more times I would go in and not getting anything out of it, and I was just like, Right, let’s just try on my own, and obviously that didn’t work, and then this Insight Team like, really focussed on cognitive behavioural therapy at a more adult level. And they, like they said, you get as much out of it as you want to. You’ve gotta put the work in, and probably because I’d got so frustrated and like down heartened by the Child Mental Health team, I didn’t put the effort in ‘cos I thought well this is pointless. Whereas I had a clean slate, wanted to put the effort in, and it really worked, and like even now it’s hard sometimes, but by putting the work in, and, you, as long as, like once you’re established and they know how to do it, it’s a lot easier to do it. But you need the initial, like help, to be able to do it, whereas some people don’t.

And just sort of went on like that for two years bullying in primary school, and I was referred to, when my Mum had found out about my diary and I was also referred to CAMHS. I was under two horrible women, called Anorexic Nurses and they, they basically weighed me every time I went, which was once a week. So I used to like hide things in my socks and things, just little pennies and things that I thought would add weight on. Which didn’t, my weight continued to fall.

I was put into a unit in [town name] and then I stayed there for eight months while they got my weight on target and things. came out after eight months and I just went rapidly downhill again. I was diagnosed with depression and things and when I was in [hospital name], when I was in the unit in [town name] and then, cos thing just got worse after I came home, I was put in another unit, called [hospital name] in [place name], and I wasn’t too good so I just used to like people to, tend to like kicked off, cos like [laughs] I used to like just get really angry with people and things, so then after that they put me, they referred me to a social worker, cos my Mum was at like, my Mum really just couldn’t cope, so my Mum then turned me over to social services, so I was then put in care, sent to a secure unit, and for welfare. So I was put in a secure unit for 3 months, then I went to a children’s home and basically it was a therapeutic unit and we used to do stuff together and things, great time really, and then I’ve just gone down the support side of things really. I’m on my own now currently, living on my own, with support. And that’s it basically.