I first stopped eating when I was 14 years old.
Buried beneath the stresses of looming GCSE examinations at a girls’ grammar school that didn’t believe in mental health, coupled with an unstable home life, I began a pattern that would come to take a hold on my life. This was a pattern of attempting to exert some control over my life by controlling what I did and didn’t eat – sometimes to dangerous extremes.
This wasn’t a conscious relationship, but it was a compelling one. Over the years I have suffered from various eating disorders including anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating; my weight fluctuating wildly along with my grip on myself and food.
