I have never done anything like this before, so excuse me if it comes out and is pure shit. For the first time in a while I am happy for the majority of the day, and that is harder to live with sometimes. I now nearly nineteen.

When I was 8 my grandfather pasted away. He was the only consistent male figure I ever remember being in my life. My dad is a complete waste of space that I don’t even want to go into. My parents divorced a couple of months after my grandad’s death. This is when my first issue with food begun.

I would over eat, and obviously as a result I put weight on. I know that I did this not through my own memories but through videos and pictures, of my childhood self-screaming and having a tantrum and then immediately eating everything in sight afterwards.

At the age of thirteen in (2012) I was severely self-conscious, I avoided the mirror as-well as scales and had no care about my own health. It was at this point I became aware that I had anorexia. However, I refused to tell my mum, I was very aware that I had always been my mums best friend and her rock. She had just gone through a break up and I didn’t want to burden her, I didn’t want to disappoint her and make her feel as if she had to worry about me as-well. So, I waited for her to leave for work before throwing my breakfast away, I threw my lunch away at school and I would fake eat dinner and either throw that away or eat it and throw it up immediately afterwards.

This continued for 11 months unnoticed.

I participated in a lot of sports, so my weight loss looked extreme but could be justified. I lost 5 stone 7 months. The hunger felt like power, it was addictive. I felt almost empowered that I was creating this change in myself and saw no way of stopping.

This was until my mum caught on and everything changed, I had to go on a drip for a while, I had teachers have a lunch duty when I returned to school to watch me eat and then not let me go to the bathroom for an hour afterwards. I had dietary plans for recovery and endless counselling sessions.

All of which were total bullshit just to add in which were humiliating, degrading and just made the pain worse. So, I lied, I lied to my mum and told her it had only been happening for a month, I lied to the counsellors telling them the same thing, because they weren’t actually worried about my recovery. It was a NHS programme, not a private one, and they were more worried about their wages then my health. I continued lying and just hid it more.

I had a friend that smoked so I started smoking to reduce the appetite. After a while I was so exhausted, I was tired of lying and covering up myself, although I no longer felt like myself, I had drained myself by becoming this picture-perfect being on the outside when on the inside I was falling apart.

On 17th July 2015 I was done lying and determined to change the person I was becoming to the person I wanted to be and the role model I wanted to be to my little sister, rather than this figure who wasn’t trusted to be left at home by herself or to look after herself properly. And I am proud to say that since November 28th, 2015, I have consistently eaten 3 meals a day everyday as my minimum. Weight gain was terrifying, and to be honest it still is.

I still have days when I look in the mirror and want to die from embarrassment about the fat in certain places. I still have them voices in my head telling me to go back to that way, to fill the craving I have, but I resist.

Food is something I can’t escape the thought of, I’m always thinking of what to eat to ensure that I’m eating enough, of what I just ate and regretting it or of what I wish I could eat but won’t allow myself to.

I’m envious of people who don’t know the struggle of having an eating disorder and the scars that it leaves in your mind. That’s why I’m sat here writing this, because I’m struggling to continue, no one knows how hard it was or the extent that my eating disorder reached and I’m just writing this hoping that someone will read it and know.

But I am resilient, and I will carry on. And one day I will be happy in myself and not question it. I will be happy in myself.