“It is shocking to think it has been over halfmylife since I first started to struggle with eating issues although I have always had a turbulent relationship with food. Even as a child the slightest thing would put me off it and I struggled with a number of weird associations. I remember seeing the assassination of President Benigno Aquino on the television and after that I was unable to eat fish-in-the-bag!

The first real desperate period I can recall was back in 1989, when I had just entered my teens. I noticed that I suddenly became more quiet and reflective and food became less and less desireable to me. I had been bullied at school since virtually day one and I began to feel more and more worthless and inferior and dreaded having to attend. Since going to secondary school I had become quite isolated and insular as peers had moved on and being quite effeminate I just wasn’t cool to be around. Starving myself made it easier to deal with although I was unsure as to why. In fact I didn’t even think about it, it was just an automatic and subconscious reaction. Up until then I had eaten quite a lot – even pinching my dad’s dinner which was put up for him for his return from work. I generally liked eating and was always quite healthy.

As I got older I got even less interested in food. At university I managed well without eating, but then when I was presented with something which appealed, I would be unable to stop myself from binging on it (I once single-handedly cleared a plate of fairy cakes at a tea party – much to the annoyance of the hostess!).

It was post-university that I began to dramatically limit my food intake. I soon realised that when my mood dipped I would move away from food and this has been the pattern ever since. I entered a job I didn’t like in the late 1990s and I would starve myself of food to help get my way through it. Somehow that feeling of intense lethargy and of being in a daze would carry me along. I was numb to the world and I quite liked that. Also I quite enjoyed punishing and paining myself.

During the summer of 2000 I began to burn out and finally went to see the family doctor who put me down for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) sessions which, after an initial assessment in the late summer, began the following year. They weren’t particularly helpful though did arm me with some survival techniques which have managed to slip and wane over the passing years.