Pain in the backside

"Due to the complexity of his needs... our service may not be able to provide the most appropriate or safe level of support." This was the response I received from the Hertfordshire Community Eating Disorders Services after being referred there by my GP for help with my anorexia. What these complexities are, it wasn't spelt out. Perhaps the clue was in this sentence: "We believe that accessing an eating disorder service closer to where he lives may be more suitable and better able to support his needs." That sounds fine, until you remember my local NHS trust was so negligent that we threatened legal action against them, because they failed to offer anything even approaching a reasonable level of support and I nearly died when they should have been helping me.  My BMI was closing in on single figures before an intervention took place, even as my family literally begged them to help (only to be repeatedly ignored). Eventually, when I was finally looked after by ...

In June this year I collapsed at home and was minutes away from dying. My body had shut down because of my anorexia - and it was only the timely intervention of my wife and the speedy work from paramedics which kept me alive. It is a miracle I'm still alive: Naomi was due to be out that day but cancelled her plans and was around when I collapsed. I was meant to be on my way to London in a car - if I had gotten in then I would have died in there. If the paramedics hadn't been on the scene in minutes then it would have been too late. They reckon I was 30 minutes away from not surviving. I have previously documented the reasons on this blog why things reached this stage - including numerous NHS failures, many of which have continued since - but that is not the reason for this post. I have told almost nobody how close I came to dying because I didn't want to share it, not even with my closest friends. But I've come to realise this isn't about me any more, it's abo...

After a recent spell of in-patient treatment for anorexia after my BMI had nearly gone into single figures, I returned home with no community support - a common problem for many with eating disorders. How I look today. An image of me a month ago would be too bad for people to see I had no diet plan, no professionals to speak to and no idea of what to do, with emails asking for help or advice ignored. Since then, my wife and I have had to go it alone in a bid to keep my weight from plummeting again, while dealing with the daily mental struggles that living with anorexia brings. For those who are unaware, anorexia is the biggest killer of all mental health conditions. It is also that rare thing - an illness which the sufferer doesn't often want to recover from.  I know that from personal experience. It is why my family and I have spent years asking for help but receiving none from the NHS, and even having referrals to specialist hospitals who can help me blocked. My weight is now ar...

Anorexia is not just a case of wanting to lose weight - it's also a social curse. I only discovered recently that the illness makes you retreat into a bubble and drives you to isolate yourself from the rest of the world.  That - and my awful IBS - have led to me becoming increasingly lonely. I can barely leave the house other than to go for a walk, and I hardly talk to anyone. Life is passing me by and I feel like there's no end in sight for this misery. I made a concerted effort to try and put on weight at the end of last year having seen how hard my family have tried to keep me alive. Adding in the extra calories made my stomach pain worse but I have kept going and am now above 7 stone. Even saying that feels scary as the slightest weight gain triggers huge anxiety. Despite this, I was forced into hospital the week before Christmas. The message was blunt: you're being admitted in two days or you're being sectioned.  Scared out of my mind, I got there and was told I co...

I now weigh seven stone. That's probably not even the size of one of Jack Grealish's calves. The Rock probably eats more than that for breakfast. My recent, Baldrick-esque genius plan was to cut down my food so I could cut down my exercise. But being an anorexic, I've merely cut down my food and not altered my exercise routine, meaning my weight is going down faster than ever.  It should be simple to add the extra calories back in, but I'm too scared of putting on weight to do so. Naomi is brilliant - I've told her what's happening but she just praises for me being so honest rather than lambasting me for putting my health at risk and jeopardising the life we want to have together. And let's be realistic, being this weight means my organs are under so much strain. My latest blood tests are saying as much, but still I cannot get out of this cycle.  I want to expand my diet, but my IBS and chronic pain are so bad right now that doing so would cause me even more...

It's over. Anorexia has won. If this was a boxing contest someone would have thrown in the towel by now. In football terms, it's like Manchester City taking on Macclesfield (or Manchester United). I can't take this torment any more. It's ruined my family life and left me absolutely bereft. How my poor wife deals with it I can't begin to imagine. She just smiles and tells me she loves me even though I feel like I've pretty much abandoned her and my daughter by spending so little time with them. I try to eat more, but all I do is end up exercising more and more, to the extent that I end up doing 2-3 hours on the cross trainer and a walk of at least an hour every day, and even then I still feel like I have energy to burn. This is despite collapsing in bed every day from stomach and nerve pain. This is what anorexia does to you. One day I beat it and I feel proud of myself, but it never lasts. As it gets colder my walks might have to stop because I can't cope in...

What will it take for football to become serious about abuse? Does it need someone to take their own life, or is a mental breakdown enough? Nobody wants sport to become sanitised - there's a reason football is so popular around the world and that's largely because of its immense atmosphere, its fanaticism and the sheer joy when a goal is scored or your team wins. It's amazing how transfixed we can become from something which is actually so insignificant. But surely in this day and age, when we know so much more about mental health, there has to be a point where we say "enough is enough". Harry Maguire I can't be the only person troubled seeing the abuse Harry Maguire has been getting. And yes, I know he is rich, talented and famous, but that doesn't make him a human punchbag for idiots who find it funny to abuse someone they've never met. Maguire's crime seems to be both not getting picked for his club side, but getting picked for his country, almo...

Last Friday I had a brilliant session with a psychologist around my anorexia. I felt as relaxed as I had for months and able to cut down on my excessive walking. She pointed out that I put pressure on myself to be productive all the time. Even though I am currently signed off sick I still put on an alarm every day, and my mind is on overdrive all the time; I feel like I am in a rush and I get stressed when I don't get something done or I go to bed late. Her suggestion: go and have some fun. And something clicked in my mind - here was a trained professional giving me permission to enjoy myself, to not waste my time trying to exercise for hours at a time and to spend it doing something where I can switch off for once. It felt like this huge load had been taken off me, that I didn't have to worry about trying to fit in a long walk after my morning cross trainer session. I was already thinking about what I could do with this extra time, whether it be playing games or even just read...

It seems only recently that I was going strong as a journalist, working up to 60 hours a week, starting at 5am most days and sometimes finishing after midnight. I felt fit and energetic despite my IBS and chronic pain and was able to mix watching football, covering elections, breaking big stories and writing interesting features for a living.  I'm now 32 and I work 0 hours a week - and even that feels exhausting. I weigh around 7 stone 6, was recently detained under the Mental Health Act and am now reliant on Universal Credit to live. The Lamy family I feel like a scrounger, which is probably because there is this big narrative that the welfare bill is so high because of the number of people claiming benefits when they are fit to work. It's amazing how much more talk there is around benefits than the billions of pounds lost to fraudulent Covid loans which will never be recovered. Whereas before I would confront politicians and criminals, and rarely feel stressed, now I'd be...