The time bomb that is poised to explode

DON’T shoot the messenger, but we may have another pandemic on our hands already. This one, however, is far more insidious, tenacious and can’t be managed by a vaccination programme.The UK is facing a children’s mental health crisis with one in six young people now experiencing anxiety, depression and loneliness, according to NHS data. Meanwhile, record numbers are being admitted to hospital with eating disorders.

Experts blame the rise on school closures, cancelled exams, isolation from friends and an increased use of social media.

Appalled by the statistics, this week Children’s Minister Vicky Ford was compelled to speak publicly for the first time about her own struggle with anorexia in the hope that it will start a meaningful conversation and encourage sufferers to seek help.

An extraordinarily brave move given the amount of despicable abuse MPs – female ones, in particular – are subjected to.

She explained that it started at age 15 with a post-Christmas diet, but she was soon eating little more than apples each day. By the summer she weighed just five and a half stone. Ford believes the illness was fuelled by the “turbulent” years that followed her father’s death when she was aged 10.

In the spirit of Children’s Mental HealthWeek, I’m sharing too. My bulimia started during the confusing, hormonal rollercoaster of adolescence. I can recognise a few aetiological factors including a need for control, a lack of true cognitive autonomy and a frustratingly underdeveloped emotional vocabulary. Not uncommon among teenagers. Or adults, as I have later discovered.

After gaining a few pounds while on a gap year in Australia, I started weighing myself and bingeing and purging upwards of 15 times a day during the worst early days.At first, I thought I was a rebel genius – able to eat whatever I wanted without gaining weight. With a wince, I still remember laughing maniacally over the toilet bowl thinking I had struck upon some brilliant life hack.

It took a full decade and two intensive years, with long admissions to a specialist eating disorder unit, to rid myself of the condition’s vice-like grip. As Ford wrote in her excellent piece: “It’s hard to expose those vulnerabilities of the past, fearful that others might judge you as a person who lacks control.”

While I completely understand some feel there is a stigma attached to eating disorders, I personally don’t feel a shred of shame. It’s not a badge of honour – but nor is it a guilty secret.

It was no easy feat to free myself from the compulsive rituals and obsessive thought patterns that had dominated my life for 10 years. But through weekly sessions with a clinical psychologist and meticulous cognitive behavioural therapy, the vicious dictatorship that had claimed residency in my head began to lose its power. I’m pleased to say, to date, I have not relapsed.

Campaigners have warned that it can be difficult for children to get the help they need before reaching crisis point. Early intervention is the most effective antidote to reverse the changes to brain, body and behaviour in a significantly shorter time.

So there really can be no question of treatment delays and the sooner schools reopen the better. It’s less of a mental health time bomb and more a Chernobyl-style nuclear fallout… and the reactor is about to blow.

●●Children’s Mental HealthWeek runs until Sunday. For more information on eating disorders contact charity Beat on 0808 801 0677