I recently wrote a post focusing on body image and my childhood eating disorder, (which you can catch up on here) and often I find my mind wandering to those days, but recently I've been reading Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, which feautres a chapter on her struggles with disordered eating and I found myself sobbing, remembering my own struggles and how often they pop into my head. 

I developed anorexia when I was 11/12 years old, barely into secondary school and found myself at my lowest ebb, starving myself and self-harming to deal with the thoughts I was dealing with. I would count my calories that I'd consumed throughout the day and figure out how much time I'd need to spend on the exercise bike we had at home to work them off and finally be thin enough to be beautiful. But you see that would never happen, because I would never be thin enough, be pretty enough, be worthy enough in my eyes. 

" I started going to mental health services when my mum saw my self-harm scars one morning before school and they diagnosed me with anorexia nervosa,  a serious mental illness and eating disorder where someone who is a healthy weight or underweight  thinks they are much fatter than they are and stops eating or reduces food intake to lose weight. Anorexia can affect anyone of any age or gender, and often have a very distorted view of their appearance, seeing themselves as much bigger than they really are and have a deep fear of gaining weight. You don't necessarily have to be skin and bones and the usual picture of someone with anorexia to be struggling, this can be an internal battle with food in your mind that gets your diagnosis. "