When I wasn’t feeling good about myself it was a real big issue. I was very; I could be very argumentative, very aggressive. Then there are days sort of that come where I just, it’s not anger it’s, I just feel very well without saying depression, cos I’ve not got a history of depression, just very depressed and very introverted and in general I’m a very outgoing, easy going guy, and there just became days where you know even my Mum would question why I was so quiet or why I was locked away in my room. And they were just at times when I guess I was very unhappy with myself.

But at the same time when I lost the weight or felt very good about myself I was at a complete high. And I was you know buzzing about it, and I felt great and I loved it and all of that. And so the mood just kind of, it just went with that. But there were days when, and there still are days I guess where I’m not happy with myself and I just like to lock myself away, and I don’t want much company. That’s when I feel bad about myself. But if I’m feeling good, it’s oh well, I’m in a perfectly good mood and fine.

So the moods, you know, that’s the same thing. I never went further because I didn’t wanna feel like that. But there definitely are mood swings and it’s just linked to how good I feel about myself. Which is then in turn linked to my weight.

So that’s just a very, as you can probably tell it just affects your whole life, because obviously if you’re, you know not going out or not wanting to go out because you’re not in that sort of mood, whereas the weeks you feel good, you’ll go out and you’ll be part of your friends, your group of friends and stuff. So it just has a real big impact on everything else.

I think the more weight you put on the more emotion you gain back, which then bubbles over. Cos I mean when you’ve been underweight for as long as I have there’s so much, so many issues that that all then bubbles back up which then makes it worse I guess, to a degree.

That’s really interesting that, what do you mean that the more weight you put on, the more issues come to the surface?

I think because when, when you’re underweight you’re kind of, you’re numb so any emotions that you could have, like if someone annoyed me I wouldn’t feel anger, I would just feel nothing. I wouldn’t be able to cry or anything like that. And as soon as you start putting back on weight you, you start to feel angry and you start to cry. And to a large degree I didn’t actually know how to deal with these emotions, so that kind of then, I don’t know, it makes things worse to a certain extent because you don’t know what’s going on, if you see what I mean.

I think it’s also important to sort of just highlight the fact that you know, even when people, you know, myself and other people talk have spoken to you who’ve had eating disorders, friends of mine. Since coming to university I’ve met several people, that even when the anorexia’s gone there are other things you have to look out for like depression, self-harm, all this kind of thing.

So other ways to deal with the same problem and that’s something that’s a slight problem for me, not too bad. But, you know, I did have periods of low, very low mood and I know other people who’ve had, who’ve used self-harm to kind of help manage. And I think it’s, yeah, just important just to be, you know, even if you think, Good. Eating’s gone Just keep an eye cos it’s all, you know the same similar sort of underlying things that’ll cause you to do all these different things. So yeah, be aware. Yeah, and for other people to be aware, relatives that just, you know, just because you’re eating well again it doesn’t mean that everything’s okay.

So they talked about depression and diagnosed, diagnosed you with clinical depression. Did that come as a surprise or

Yeah like the first time he mentioned that, the doctor that diagnosed me was such an expert in his field and so he’s kind of you know across the country he’s renowned and know about eating orders and depression.

So talking to him about it, and like the first time he said it to me, he said it as, Oh well, no I got referred to him and my doctor that I had at the time was like, Oh maybe it would be a good idea, like talking to you your mood seems a bit low at, like I don’t want to say anything but maybe it would be a good idea if we refer you to this certain doctor who deals with depression. And he could try and see if you are depressed, or if we’d say that you’re clinically depressed, or he’ll maybe diagnose you.

And I remember coming out that appointment and just thinking, Oh she, she’s being ridiculous, I’m not depressed like, me having depression, I’m far too like, even though I struggle with this eating disorder and do have kind of a lot of unhappy things in my life, I still try and be optimistic about things and try, you know try and be friendly to people and things like that. I just thought no, depressed, depressed people, I’d just be like sat in a room all day and like, and that, that, it’s just not me. it’s just not my personality to be, to be depressed. So like I just thought, No like but that’s ridiculous

And then I went to talk to him, and he kind of explained some of the symptoms of depression. And the more he talked about it, the more it fitted with my life and the more I kind of thought, Oh yeah maybe. Oh, that’s and then like, so we had one appointment and it was like a couple of weeks until the next one. And over that couple of weeks I kind of thought about things and like some of the things where it is like you just struggle to get up in the morning, and just sad, inexplicably sad a lot of the time.

Some of those things are like really related to me, and I’d kind of thought maybe that’s just because I’m struggling with life at uni, or, that’s because that’s just the way I am. That’s just the way I feel like, like life had become really difficult for me to get, like make myself get up and I’d kind of lost interest in a lot of friendships and people, like I’d just kind of, if I was, I’ve always been quite like sociable and enjoyed people’s company, but it got to the stage where quite a lot of the time if I was in people’s company I’d just want to leave and come and sit in my room, even if it was like, even if that wasn’t particularly enjoyable, I’d just want to kind of block the world out, and not have to leave and kind of did become really isolated and sad and then when he said depression it kind of all started clicking into place and I thought oh that would explain a lot of things.

And he said there is often a big link between depression and eating disorders. I’d never heard that before or knew it but he said if we, if you want to do this research trial to help your eating disorder, it’s not going to work unless we tackle the depression first.

I felt just really isolated from everyone, like everyone just wanted me to get help and I didn’t and I just felt like no-one understood me at all. And yeah, I got depressed and stuff like that and at fourteen, that was really hard but they didn’t even pick that up until I was about sixteen so yeah.

And do you think you were already depressed maybe at that time but they just didn’t notice?

Hmm

Were you given any help with that later on?

Yeah, I was put on medication for that when I was around sixteen. and you know, I definitely think there’s a link between the eating disorder and the depression yeah and I think they thought that, you know, I would feel better in myself, like when my eating disorder was kind of gone, but, you know, I wasn’t and yeah and then it was just one doctor who like picked it up and was just like, You need to be on this medication and I think that makes all the difference when like one doctor who’s really good understands, yeah.

What do you think the link for you is between depression and eating disorder?

I have no idea. I don’t know, I justI don’t know. I don’t know whether like the depression would have been caused by the eating disorder or the eating disorder would be caused by the depression, it’s kind of hard to think that way.