Eventually, with it already daylight, I drifted off to sleep for about half an hour, waking to find a nurse standing over me with a glass of milk. The night nurse explained that as soon as the day shift arrived, someone would be along to discuss what I was eating for breakfast. The day nurses would also give me a bath.

Dr Margaret had left strict orders that I wasn’t permitted to walk anywhere. The doctors were afraid I’d faint or fall over. There was also the risk of a heart attack.

Rachel appeared at about 8.00 am, giving me a hug.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take everything really slowly here. We won’t force any food on you. You just eat whatever you can and relax,” she said. “Now, shall I go and get you some breakfast?” she smiled. “What do you feel you could manage? A piece of toast? A small amount of cereal?”

My mind, like all anorexics, went into panic mode merely over the prospect of eating.

Calculating the calories, I decided on the cereal anyhow. I wasn’t sure how much butter they would put on the toast or how many slices they would give me. The cereal seemed a safer bet. Surely they couldn’t fit that much in a bowl I thought to myself.

Waiting for the breakfast to arrive was so strange, having spent the last five years constantly on a diet. I didn’t know how food tasted any more. Amidst all the terror of being in this institution, there was also a weird feeling of safety, like a young child feels when he is fed in a high chair. Now, in hospital, I was being forced to eat. This was a relief because, like all anorexics, I had always felt hungry. For years, day and night, I desperately wanted to eat. It was only the voice that stopped me eating, even though my whole adult life I was starving. The voice had for years been a central point of my life and the only way to get the voice to love me was not to eat. Now, with the nurses threatening me with a drip feed, the voice was overruled and had no choice but to allow me the food being given by the hospital.

At last I could eat.

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