And it’s their job as health professionals to try and help people and it doesn’t matter if they think there’s not an issue. If the person thinks there is an issue, at least, you know at least don’t laugh at them and be like, No, there’s nothing wrong with you Because there’s nothing worse for someone’s confidence than to laugh at them, and tell them that there’s nothing wrong. So actually listen to them because the chances are the patient knows best.

Yes, you were saying that people themselves will know themselves best, and I guess when people pick up the courage to go and talk to somebody they then should be taken seriously. Because they’ve taken such a big step in doing that.

You wouldn’t do that lightly if you didn’t think there was something wrong. You wouldn’t do it because it would be embarrassing if you, if you did that and there was nothing wrong. If you knew there wasn’t anything wrong you’d just be wasting the doctors’ time and you wouldn’t, the chances are you wouldn’t do that.

What did the GP say to you about EDNOS?

She didn’t really say anything to me about it.

Just that this is the diagnosis?

Well she just said that I had an eating disorder and she said it wasn’t Anorexia and she said it wasn’t Bulimia, she just, she was like, Yes it’s just an Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. So I was like, Okay then She didn’t tell me the details about it, any information which is surprising because when most people think about eating disorders they think about Anorexia or Bulimia and all these minor eating disorders, eating disorders people don’t really know about them. If you ask someone about it the chances are they probably wouldn’t know because it’s not one of the stereotypes. So I’m actually rather surprised that she didn’t give me any information for it.

You had researched this beforehand and you had information already. Did you go afterwards and look up more?

Yeah I did because I was just, I just wanted to refresh the information in my mind and see if there was any new information. But I couldn’t really find any new information. I found that it was rather difficult to find the information I was looking for because it would always be about Anorexia or Bulimia or something else.

If you said eating disorder to someone, in my experience people think about people starving from anorexia or a bulimic, bit like sticking their fingers down their throat and vomiting. They don’t really think about the in-between. To look at me it’s not obvious that I have an eating disorder. And even if you knew me it’s not obvious, because and I don’t starve myself and I don’t binge. I don’t vomit deliberately. I don’t exercise excessively. I don’t engage in any of the stereotypical behaviours associated with eating disorders, the behaviours that people think that if you have an eating disorder you engage in. And it’s because I think people don’t know that much about eating disorders. If you, if you don’t do this, if you’re not a certain weight or if you don’t make yourself vomit or you don’t starve yourself then, Oh no, you can’t possibly have an eating disorder

I definitely didn’t feel like that when I was 11 or 12, when I first started secondary school, but in the next two years, sometime around about then I began to feel that way. Because I think it might have been year 9 or year 10, I can’t remember exactly but I didn’t really eat that much. I mean I thought I ate alright, but obviously according to my friends I didn’t because they used to threaten to force feed me and they used to say that I wasn’t eating enough. So there was this sort of joke between us I used to call them the Food Police, and I said I’m gonna make you a badge one of these days and it was a sort of a joke, but I could tell that they were worried about me.

I don’t think a forward attack works because that can scare the child. But let your concerns be known and stuff, and maybe provide your child with information so that they can realise what they’re doing. And if the child pushes you away don’t be afraid, just give them space but be persistent. don’t be in their face frightening them, and making them push you away but don’t be all shy. Keep at it and because eventually or hopefully you’ll be able to get the child’s confidence when they see that you’re not gonna push them away and that you care about them.

If you said eating disorder to someone, in my experience people think about people starving from Anorexia or a bulimic, bit like sticking their fingers down their throat and vomiting. They don’t really think about the in-between to look at me it’s not obvious that I have an eating disorder. And even if you knew me it’s not obvious, because and I don’t starve myself and I don’t binge. I don’t vomit deliberately. I don’t exercise excessively. I don’t engage in any of the stereotypical behaviours associated with eating disorders, the behaviours that people think that if you have an eating disorder you engage in. And it’s because I think people don’t know that much about eating disorders. If you, if you don’t do this, if you’re not a certain weight or if you don’t make yourself vomit or you don’t starve yourself then, Oh no, you can’t possibly have an eating disorder

it’s in the same way people tend to think that females only have eating disorders, you don’t really think about guys having eating disorders. And it’s just basically misconceptions and lack of information, which means that unless you’re the extreme, then the chances are people aren’t gonna look at you and automatically realise, and even if they do know you the chances are they’re not gonna realise.

I went there [GP’s] and we chatted and she asked me all these questions about how I feel about my body, and this stuff, and I could have lied and said, Yeah I feel great But there was little point so I answered her as truthfully as I could. And that’s when she said there was a high probability that I had an eating disorder. And I asked her, High Probability or do I actually have an eating disorder So she got out the list of questions, I answered yes to all of them, and she said, Yeah you have an eating disorder

And I was thinking to myself, Well I knew that because I’d taken all the online tests out of curiosity. I accidentally stumbled across one on the website that I’m a member of. And I’d taken quite a few different ones, cos I got bored and I felt like doing it and I always scored at a very high risk of an eating disorder, or high risk. So it was kind of obvious but it was just nice to have the GP and a professional tell me, so it wasn’t in my imagination.

Yeah because you said it was a relief?

Yeah. it’s because there was always that chance, even though I scored high on all these tests, there was still that chance, no matter how tiny, that it’s my imagination, I’m just being silly, you know, what’s the test to prove it, I should get diagnosed by a professional. And it was such a relief and also I felt a tiny bit smug knowing that I’d managed to diagnose myself. I was like Yeah, I knew it I knew it, I just felt smug knowing that I was right and that I wasn’t crazy.