'A row with my mum saved my life'

For Aroosha Nekonam, exercise was a form of punishment.

It wasn’t about calorie expenditure, but she ran every day until she was sore because she believed she deserved to feel that way.

Her eating disorder was not about unrealistic beauty standards or fear of food either; she was too afraid to look in the mirror to see the skeletal figure staring back at her.

It was about control. A coping mechanism for the immense pressure she was under in other aspects of her life.

When doctors told Aroosha she was too weak to walk and that she was so severely underweight she wouldn’t be able to survive a flight, that meant nothing to her.

It wasn’t until she witnessed the despair on her mother’s face in a heated row one day that she realised she was killing herself.

“It was like an out-of-body experience,” Aroosha told the Manchester Evening News.

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“I essentially disappeared. I became very underweight, depressed, but I still was adamant everything was fine.

“I controlled food and exercise because I couldn’t control the things I felt I was failing at.

“It was normal for me that I was having to pin my clothes because they wouldn’t fit me.

“It was normal I had to brush big clumps of hair out of my head every day and feel cold all the time.

“I convinced myself this was okay and couldn’t see what I was doing to myself.”

The 31-year-old, who moved to Manchester for work four years ago, says there wasn't a defining moment that led to her eating disorder.

It was an accumulation of things that had chipped away at her, making her question her self-worth.

As the youngest of two born in Scotland to Iranian parents, she set high academic expectations for