Did you have another way of communicating your thoughts or, did you write, did you do art at that point, did you, is there another outlet if you didn’t want to necessarily talk to people?

Yeah. I’ve always kept books and sketch books and things like that but again there’s always [laughs], there’s always a fear of, Oh no other people will see I don’t know what this, it’s a huge fear of other people knowing aboutanything unclear so yeah I kept sketch books, and art remember throwing away a lot of books at some, at some point because you know, all that’s behind me kind of, throwing things away but it’s only a book [laughs]. Yeah I would draw, draw pictures and keep, you know, keep some that’s, keep kind of, I remember keeping kind of mark book, almost, it’s almost like marking how, you know, how you’ve been if you’ve not eaten anything, keeping it all on paper. Actually they probably would be really interesting papers to look at but I think I threw a lot of them away but that’s probably fine.

So now I’m 25 but probablyI would say I’ve been kind of having difficulty with eating for most of my life since I was quite young, maybe nine or ten.

I’ve got three sisters so one of four girls and we did lots of girly things, ballet lessons and that kind of thing, I think I was always aware that I was the podgy one and, and so probably at eight or nine would start thought, I know I’ll be, I’ll be thi. And then was also, always, always quite aware of having to do something for, for other people and, and, neglect yourself. And, and so I’d spend a lot of time raising money for charity and not eating anything [laughs].

It all seems quite silly now but my dad’s a GP so he, after a while when I lost a lot of weight quickly at that, that kind of age they took me to hospital and blah blah blah. And I think that was quite a trauma because the whole difficulty of eating so much comes from the people around you and how you relate with your family, how they relate with you, so having them, it felt like them dragging me to the doctors and it, getting me weighed and like anything could be really forceful sometimes. So I think that, that was quite, they were obviously concerned for medical reasons and I had to go to hospital and that kind of thing. But that to me felt like a real invasion [laughs] and I think also you feel like you’re doing something wrong when your parents kind of try to change your behaviour in that way.

I was quite shyand probably scared about growing up so of course that was the main thing that doctors and parents were worried about not developing into puberty and I think that, that’s why in a way it was quite forced medical, you know, going into hospital and that kind of thing. But, and then I remember a bit later when obviously I , a few years later, my periods hadn’t started but when they did, I just remember feeling a huge sense of shame and like they’d won [laughs]. Obviously that’s so bizarre.

Andbut I remember feeling quite angry that in a way everyone else had had such a lot of, had all their interests in my body and, and not, not wanting that which I think is understandable but to what extent, it’s difficult how to balance that when you’ve got a ten-year-old [laughs] girl and she’s not; but then I know later I’ve dieted to such an extent that my periods had stopped again and just, that’s still a question, you know, for months and… Why do I play with that in my body, why do I play with that kind of aspect of being a woman and what, it’s difficult to know kind of quite how it all links up [laughs].