There's a routine I use the day after a binge—it's called Face The Truth. I get out of bed and open my wardrobe door, the one with the mirror on the back of it that I avoid 99 times out of a hundred.

Now I'm looking though. I stand in front of the mirror, wondering if I hit my head hard a few times if it will make me feel better.

I lift my tee shirt—my belly sticks right out. If I walked out of the door right now, people would tut. "Look! One of those teen mums! Pregnant at sixteen and we've got to hand out money to them!"

I grab rolls of fat and stick my nails into my skin. I fantasise about cutting out chunks of my belly so I can't eat any more and I can only get food through a drip or something. That would make life 300 times easier.

I hear Mum leave the house and Tony not long after that. Good. I'll go downstairs later and mess up a cereal bowl and crumble up toast to make it seem like I ate breakfast. Works a treat, and there's no way I'm eating until tomorrow.

I climb back into bed and check Instagram and Twitter on my phone. Looks like Cheryl has put her boobs-out photo on Instagram (her followers this morning—3,014; mine 85) after all. She's had a lot of likes and replies.

I don't do selfies. I wish I could, but most of the time I'm too fat and ugly to do them. But I go through all the celebrities and their pics though. I wish I wish I wish I was as THIN AND BEAUTIFUL as one of them. It's hard to pick one; they all seem so beautiful to me. Kendall Jenner, maybe, but with bigger tits. That's what the guys like, right?

Cheryl says I could start saving up for a boob job, but the money would be better for liposuction instead. Or getting my stomach stapled so I can't stuff my fat face any more.

"SAVVVVVYYYYY!"

Ah. The little rat is up then and wants me to take him to school.

"DID YOU EAT ALL THE DORITOS?"

Not so keen on school, then.

"NO! You finished the bag off the other day, you greedy little rat."

He shouts the F-word at me and I scream back that I'll tell Mum about his terrible language and how he'll not be allowed anywhere near Minecraft for three months. This is usual with Ben and me. He's 11, and he has been a major pain in my arse ever since he was born. Oh, to be an only child.

Still, the sooner I take him to school the sooner I'll have the house to myself. I think of the quiet and the freedom of it, and I put my phone down and swing out of the bed. Under the bed I keep my fat clothes—the clothes I wear after I've been bingeing—loose shirts, leggings, a couple of tea dresses and a pair of Mum's terrible Marks & Spencer's jeans

SHIT SHIT SHIT. The jeans are tight, and they're my fat jeans. I mean it, I'm not eating for three days. I've got to get this weight off. I imagine myself for a moment—stuffing my face every day with pizza, Doritos and cheese & chive dip, white chocolate Magnums, toast and butter—and my stomach grumbles.

For a few seconds, it's fab. All that food, and I won't care, I won't care at all... and then the picture in my head changes. I'm a lone figure in a bare room. I still recognise my face, but it sits on top of a body that looks like the Michelin man, rolls of fat starting from my legs and rolls and rolls of it on my belly, and the backs of my arms.

GROSS.

I fasten the jeans and pull on my bra top. My stomach looks bloated, so I cover up with a shirt. I didn't take my make up off last night, so I just need to add a bit more powder and some lipstick. Good to go as Cheryl likes to say.

I open my bedroom door. "Ben! Time for school."

He's downstairs.

"Bag?" I ask. Ben never remembers anything. There is no way I'm traipsing all the way to his school and then coming back again because he's forgotten his bag and his lunch.

"Here. Dunno where my lunch is though."

Great. Mum must have forgotten. I make my way into the kitchen. The cereal and the sour dough bread have been left out for me. I put it away quickly so I can't see it and be tempted.

I grab a diet coke out of the fridge (me and the Annies drink lots of diet coke because it's brilliant at filling you up) and I make him a sandwich of cheese spread and tomato. I concentrate really hard to stop myself ramming the knife into my mouth and sucking off all the cheese spread and then I go to the 'treats' cupboard to get him some crisps and a cake bar, and I stand there too long gazing at them, the purple, shiny packets. Is it just me or do they rustle all by themselves?

I stuff Ben's crisps and the cake bar into his box and close it as quickly as I can. Safe.

"Right, rat," I say, "here's your lunch."

He snatches the box from me and peers inside it suspiciously. "What's in the sandwiches?"

"Cheese spread and tomato."

"I don't like them. They stink."

"You liked them last week, rat," I point out. "And anyway, we are going out NOW so no time for any more sandwiches. Move, rat."

He runs ahead of me to school, not wanting to be seen with me. Suits me too. I think he's old enough to walk to school on his own—and that's one thing the little rat agrees with me on—but Mum says he isn't, and she's always going on about paedophiles nicking kids.

I once said to her, "Honest, Mum, nobody'd nick him. He's too ugly." She didn't speak to me for three days.

We reach the school gates. Ben turns round slightly; I think he's nervous I'm going to do something embarrassing like hug him. As if. I raise my hand slightly, peace out, and he nods back, relieved. Duty done. I can go home.

I take a slightly different route home—cutting up one of the back streets, which is deserted at this time of the day. I'm trying to avoid walking past Chadwick Street, where the big discount supermarket is. That shop does lots of two for one deals—and it's always on cakes, biscuits, crisps and sweets. All the food I really love.

If Mum hadn't forgotten to make Ben his lunch, I wouldn't have been forced to make those sandwiches. The taste of the cheese spread is burned on my tongue. I didn't even lick the knife clean. The hunger builds up inside me and a voice shrieks in my head, FOOD FOOD FOOD...

When the voices start, I go through a list of stuff to try to stop it. I brush my teeth (can't—I'm not at home); I go to bed (can't—I'm not at home); I phone Cheryl (I try; her phone's engaged). I look stuff up on the internet (can't—I'm not at home and Mum refuses to top up my smartphone so that I've got a decent amount of data for when I'm out and about).

The biggest part of my brain says to me—you've got the house all to yourself, buy crisps, buy dip, buy rolls, buy cakes, buy chocolates, buy éclairs.

The back street brings me out at Macaulay Road. It isn't as busy as Chadwick Street, but it still has a few shops. There's a Tesco's and I bolt in there. The bright lights inside highlight everything.

£1 deal on Walkers Sensations. I stick two into the basket. Packet of cheese-topped rolls with 50p off because they have today's date on them. Fine by me as I'm going to eat them all today. Chocolate cake, ditto date but this time £1 off. Bar of Nestle white chocolate because I haven't eaten that for a while.

My favourite bit about supermarkets is the self-service tills. There's no assistant scanning your stuff and thinking, is this fat cow going to eat ALL of this? When I go to shops that don't have self-service I tell the shop assistant that the food isn't for me, it's for a birthday party for my little brother.

Or that all my friends are coming round for a sleepover.

I stack my goods up at the self-service till, wondering if it's okay to start eating them as soon as I move the food into the bagging area. I guess not because the stupid machine will say something.

"Unexpected weight loss of item in the bagging area. Please wait for assistance."

I take the food home and then up to my room, armed with a dinner plate and a knife. I let the bag sit in the corner for a while as I lie in the bed and take big, deep breaths. I read about that online—the article said you can try lots of slow, deep breaths to stop a binge.

In, one two three four. Out, one two three four. The bag rustles all by itself.

In, one two three four. Out, one two three four. I try Cheryl again. Nope, her phone's now off. She's probably run out of battery. That happens a lot.

In, one two three four. Out, one two—sod it, I swing my legs off the bed and walk across to the bag, taking it back to bed with me.

Where to start first? I don't know too many lovely things in there.

Open the bag of crisps cram handfuls into my mouth salty, salty lovely. Mouth too dry gulp down water, more crisps in more crisps in and open the next packet for a different flavour yum yum but now I need something sweet. Rip open the box with the chocolate cake in it don't even bother with a knife and swipe off a big bit of fudge icing and then a handful of cake there are cake crumbs and crisps crumbs all down my shirt, and a big smudge of chocolate icing. Rip into the packet of white chocolate and break off four bits the packet says 'know your portion sizes', and four teeny little chunks is a portion size ha ha ha I'm eating three portions four portions five portions...

Reality hits. Shit. I'm a big, fat failure AGAIN. I get out of bed and gather up all the rubbish. I haven't eaten everything—the rolls are still there and half of one packet of crisps, and I put them in the food cupboards downstairs. I throw the rest of the packets, papers, cardboard and left-overs in the bin outside, tucking it under the other rubbish to make sure no-one sees.

I wash the dirty dishes, dry them and stack them away. Back in my bedroom I look at the mess in disgust and I tidy my bedroom letting the activity sooth me for a few, short minutes. Rub a surface hard enough with polish and it hurts your arm after a while. I focus on a spot (a mark from the butter? A sticky stain from jam?) rubbing it as hard as I can until it vanishes.

I'm trying not to cry.

The only thing left to do with today is go to bed.