If you believe social media (a big if) lockdown has been the perfect opportunity to learn a new language, write a novel, get fit and bake the perfect sourdough loaf. All of this while working from home, caring for family and preserving one's mental health. To those of us who are perfectionists everyday involves this [...]
The sun is shining, the streets are empty and like the majority of the population I am indoors. The difference is this is not because of Covid-19 - I have to acknowledge that my isolation is nothing to do with the virus and everything to do with longstanding health issues. When I first heard about [...]
Unfortunately recovery is not a question of waking up one morning to see a golden dawn knowing that you have won. There are no rainbows, no unicorns and there are days when you really don't want to continue to fight. You may relapse – that is part of recovery – sometimes you have to [...]
I am not good enough – whatever I do, whatever I achieve I am not good enough. This is the constant soundtrack to my life – the voice that I can never silence. As a child I thought that academic success was the answer – that if I passed enough exams, if I was top [...]
It has become a commonplace – every time a celebrity dies before their time I assume that the cause is suicide as the result of depression. Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, Lucy Birley, Ellie Soutter – a roll call of people who seemed to have it all – money, success, rewarding work, friends and family, but [...]
And so it is Christmas and what have you done? Thank you John Lennon for that lyric which can tip me over the edge at the festive season. Christmas is a time of families and food - neither of which are comfortable topics for me. I have no family and my memories of festivities en [...]
Almost six months into recovery – it is time to ask myself what is the point? Because to be honest recovery – even though I am still in the very early stages and it is so much better than the alternative – is not enough. There has to be a point to living a healthier [...]
MALNUTRITION Why an eating disorder is for life and not just for Christmas. Eating disorders have very poor outcomes and even if you recover there may be long-term health consequences of which you were unaware. The statistics are unreliable and tend to focus on those who have had in-patient treatment - not the many, many [...]
Regrets – unlike Frank Sinatra – I have more than a few – or perhaps I only have one – my life and how I have wasted it. It was once said that the Spartans would leave their babies on a mountainside to sort the weak from those who would thrive – it now seems [...]
This week I had to explain bulimia nervosa to a colleague. Yes here was a women who had never really heard of eating disorders – she knew about anorexia – 'people get very thin, yes?' But bulimia was a mystery. What had started as a joke about Princess Diana – became for me a real [...]
My Authentic Life 