You can’t talk about mental health without talking about stigma. Personally, I don’t like talking about stigma – the more you talk about something, the more you entrench it. People often cite fear of stigma as the reason they don’t talk about their mental illness, but I think it runs deeper than that.

Before I was anorexic I’d always assumed people with mental illness knew they weren’t well. But on reflection that’s ridiculous. My Dad has diabetes. He had it for years before anyone realised and no one expected him to innately know. Sometimes you’re too close to your own life to gain perspective; it’s like trying to make sense of a painting if you’re only inches from it.

It’s really hard to find the words to describe my anorexia – it was more of a feeling, a lacking, an awareness I wasn’t really coping. I didn’t know I was doing this any more than you know you are breathing right now. It was just something I did, a process. I didn’t realise how different aspects of my thinking were entwined with my eating disorder – calorie counting, anxiety, mood swings, lack of attention span, lack of sex drive, constant coldness. That’s why it took me so long to ask for help.

My anorexia didn’t really begin so much as develop. That might sound pedantic, but it’s important – it took time to grip me and even longer to realise. It’s hard to tell when a social drinker becomes an alcoholic; it’s the same with mental illness. It’s not like you can compare your experience against anyone else’s so it’s hard to tell when things go a bit wonky upstairs. Over the years anorexia became my normality, always playing in the background without me really realising.

I think one of the first triggers was when I got a role in a school play. I had to appear topless, so I decided to lose some weight. As I lost weight people kept on telling me I looked good. That was the word they kept repeating over and over again: “good”. But anorexia wasn’t about vanity, it was about validation – for the first time in my life people kept telling me I was good at something, like they accepted me.

Around that time I had all the pressures most teenagers have – exams, deadlines and university looming. Some deal with it better than others, but I didn’t deal with it well. Everything felt a bit too intense.

Over time, restriction, weighing and calorie counting became a coping mechanism, a distraction from life. It was something else to focus on, something above real life and something I enjoyed. If I could just reduce my calorie intake, exercise more and weigh less I believed somehow everything would fall into place.

I wanted to talk but I didn’t know what to say. I was waiting for something to happen so I could classify myself as ill. I was worried people wouldn’t take me seriously, that if I didn’t explain myself properly people would think I was attention-seeking or pathetic.

So I understand why more people don’t just talk, because sometimes finding the words can seem impossible. Not all the silence on mental illness is to do with stigma. It’s also about finding the right words.

Dave Chawner is a comedian and will be appearing at the Seriously funny comedy night to raise money for South West London and St George’s mental health NHS trust’s charity on 19 October in Tooting, London. Tickets are available here.

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