Pain in the backside

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...

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...