When I was doing my teacher training, things got pretty stressful for me. It was like the stress crept up on me- I honestly didn’t know how much pressure I was under until it was too late, to be honest. Two things happened: I started isolating myself from my flatmates, and I stopped eating, on purpose.

The isolation part affected my relationships, but the most visible change was in the way I looked. I started by dieting because I felt self-conscious teaching classes as I was, and then it became quite obsessive, as my eating was easy to control when I felt very much out of control trying to manage coursework, teaching and working almost full time in a shop. I became very secretive. I still bought food shopping, and then threw it away, bit by bit. I read ever label over, I counted and counted again. When my flatmates realised what was happening and hid the scales, I started using the ones in the ‘home’ section of the shop I worked in.

Eventually, at my flatmates’ request, I went to the doctor. He told me that I probably wasn’t ill, because my BMI was still normal. So I just continued what I was doing. My immune system was shot and I caught everything going, especially working in schools. My hair started to fall out. I ended up back at the doctor and saw a different one this time. She suggested that my issues were most likely not around food, but around control, and she suggested that I was depressed. She asked me to fill in a form and rated my answers. Some of the questions were quite frank, but I answered them honestly as my life was being so affected by what I was doing. Sometimes, when I got in from work, I had to go to bed at 6.30pm as I was so exhausted from working on no food all day. And then I’d sleep in. I really wanted to be a teacher and I knew I’d never get there if I kept on as I was.

Anyway, after I’d filled in the form, I discussed my feelings with the doctor and explained that, really, there were no feelings: I felt nothing. When my friends avoided me, I didn’t care. When I realised I was really close to graduating, I couldn’t even feel happy, never mind excited. I was prescribed anti-depressants, and was told to keep a food and drink diary, which actually just fed my obsession with recording numbers and what I’d eaten. I still have the diary- during my recovery, when I genuinely thought I was making progress, some days I would have one Ryvita with a scraping of Marmite. To be honest, that was still better than nothing.

What really helped was having people around me who didn’t judge. Most of my friends realised that I was ill rather than a bad friend, and they stuck by me. The anti-depressants I didn’t like, but I stuck with them. I talked, and was honest. This was difficult with new people, but at pressure points during the year (like folio hand-in!) for the first wee while, I’d feel myself controlling my food again and discussed what was happening with my line manager at school. This helped, as I knew someone would be looking out for me a bit.

It was a long process, and when I got pregnant the first time, my best friend asked “are you sure you’re ready for what’s about to happen to your body?” The answer was no, but I wasn’t just accountable for myself anymore, and that made a difference to me mentally.

I do still struggle sometimes, but I have strategies- I know who I can talk to about it, and I have an excellent support network at school who help me to manage my workload. This isn’t something I’ve really spoken to anyone about at this school, but I do think it’s something we should speak about. I really hope sharing it helps someone.