Do men get EDs?

I was never a small child, my mother always said that I was “a massive baby and would split her” if born naturally. As an adult I never cared what I ate or when I ate it. I still vividly remember eating a Big Mac meal in my bed in the exact spot where I find myself writing this. How 10 years can change a person.

After my 21st birthday party, I remember seeing the photos and thinking maybe I should lose a bit. At times my best mates would call me a “fat f**k” and tease me about my weight. I have struggled with OCD since I was 8 and always obsessed about things and have then latched on to certain things, unfortunately, this would lead me down a dark path. I lost weight quickly through purging and in 6 months had lost a ton of weight. Before I knew it I was I was 24 in 2016 in an ED clinic in St George (Sydney). It was a terrible experience but I did it for my parents. After that I moved (stupidity) to London to work in a pub and restaurant, there I was working 14 hours shifts making no money, eating minimal meals which I would then purge. My parents arrived and I will never forget my mother crying when I took my shirt off after a shift. I was nothing but bones but I could not see this.

My best mate who I had moved with ended up breaking down at a restaurant in London and I decided to get help. I found an ED clinic in London but they could not help me as they only took females and therefore I had no choice but to get an emergency flight home. Before I left my father had told me that when they left me to go back to Australia he had to hold my mother as she cried non stop from a taxi in London till she finally fell asleep on the plane due to sheer exhaustion.

From 2016 I did 4 or 5 hospital admissions in North Side West in Parramatta. That was a lonely experience, I was the only male in the whole ward of 20 females. Although the ladies made me feel welcome, I could never shake the feeling of being alone and abandoned. I have recovered to a degree and I have also relapsed. I have been told my organs were shutting down and I have seen friends die when an eating disorder finally wins and the battle is over.

I have toiled with the idea of writing this for 6 months and have come to the realisation that I owe it to the friends I have lost and to the people that will, unfortunately, experience an ED. All I can hope for is that if they read this they will know that you CAN win this battle.