Pain in the backside

I've always been proud to be a Nottingham Forest fan. I've lost count of the number of people who have told me they have a soft spot for Forest and how they wished to see them back in the Premier League. This is a club synonymous with good football and respect for referees, for a brilliant academy, a superb atmosphere and a fanbase which travels far and wide in huge numbers. But sadly, the last two years have tarnished the club's reputation. It began by spending large sums on players (many of whom have not even stepped on the pitch for the club) which resulted in a breach of spending rules. Rather than accept the fact we survived in the Premier League through an unfair advantage, we pretended that we had no choice and moaned at what I believe was a lenient punishment. The manager who took us back to the Premier League, not to mention delivered memorable cup runs, had his job security played out constantly in public before eventually being sacked and replaced a few hours l...

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...