Halloween is a funny time of year for me. While others dress up and trick or treat, I flashback to a haunting episode that coincided with other more commercial scares.

In late October 2014, I left my university campus for a doctor’s appointment in town, my bag packed with books for my seminar that afternoon, my diary marked with plans for a Halloween bash that weekend.

Instead, I was admitted to an eating disorder unit. My weight was drastically low. My mood was withdrawn, and my lacklustre attempts to recover on my own terms, at my own speed, were becoming increasingly dangerous. I had driven my body to a point where its recovery required specialist supervision.

It took ten years to feel ready to share my story, which I first examined in a different feature through the lens of shame. More recently, I’ve been struck by the rising cases of people with eating disorders, and I’m increasingly frustrated by society’s regressive shift in understanding and approaching disordered eating.

Admissions for eating disorders in England have now passed 30,000 a year, according to Beat. These are mental illnesses, and for many people control sits at their core, which makes this a hard moment to be vulnerable to an eating disorder. Calorie counts now sit on the menus of large restaurants, which Beat opposed because they can worsen eating disorders. Weight-loss jabs are everywhere, and optimisation has become a way of life. Control over bodies is praised, shared and sold.

At the same time, eating disorders are not clear cut. Instead they are complex illnesses, which can be triggered by several factors, from issues with body image to societal pressures or a means of finding control in an uncertain world. Whatever the reason, the prevalence of eating disorders is on the rise, and cases are more likely to be concealed in a culture where restraint is largely rewarded. That’s why I’ve decided to write about my experience again, and hopefully offer a reassuring perspective from a place of recovery.

As far as I was concerned, my admission to hospital was a case of mistaken identity. I had grown up convinced that eating disorders were singularly triggered by a desire to lose weight, taken to the extreme. My disordered behaviour was instead fuelled by the need to control something, anything, when I felt overwhelmed. It became a source of misguided strength, one that made me weaker by the day.

My reaction somewhat mirrored the seven stages of grief. First came shock and denial: “No thanks, I’ve got a seminar to attend”. Then anger: “I have rights”. A stroke of bargaining: “I can do it myself, I promise”. And finally despair, followed by a silent nod of acceptance. Within the space of an hour, my freedom had been ripped away, my identity distilled down to a disorder, and my trust in those I opened up to broken. What came next was a short and not so sweet experience as an inpatient, and a return to university, weekly weigh-ins and all.

Looking back on my experience, I’ve been struck by the importance of community in my recovery. Eating disorders are by their very nature insular, taking hold most when your warped mind is the only thing keeping you company. They twist your perspective, instilling harmful behaviours and brainwashing you to fear, rather than embrace, recovery.

Community provides an antidote to this, distancing you from that which seeks to destroy you, while also offering a glimpse at an alternative reality: one that’s safe, healthy and far less stressful.

In my case, that community was a very new one. Hospitalised just two months into my first year of university, my new friends knew little of my former bubbly self, instead witnessing me at my worst. And yet they regularly messaged me, filled me in on their shenanigans and took a risk by including me in their second-year flat signing.

During my absence, they had formed their own community, but left a space just big enough for a broken girl to fill. Mealtimes became fuelled by laughter rather than stress, with my rancid banana-flavoured shakes even repurposed into shots for a drinking game, and they invited me into their social circle when I didn’t yet have the confidence to meet new people.

Ultimately, they brought normality when my life was entirely abnormal, patience over pity, and understanding instead of judgement. Most importantly, they had faith in me to get better, and so I did.

While my recovery was thankfully quick, I know that isn’t everyone’s story, and it has taken me over a decade to unpack my experience. Coming of age is messy for most, but throw in a disorientating inpatient environment and defining your identity becomes more challenging.

At the time, my first instinct was to wipe any shred of evidence from that stage of life. I kept the secret confined to a small group of friends, deleted every message time-stamped from that period, and trained myself to act composed if the topic of eating disorders ever came up in conversation.

Where burying matters once seemed like a safe bet, I discovered that traumatic incidents have a sneaky way of filtering into your personality in weird and curious ways that only distance you further from, well, yourself, and others.

I previously saw sharing as a dangerous act, something that would cause my world to implode. In reality, opening up about my experience helped put my life back together. Through writing, I’ve become lighter, happier and more confident, distanced from the shame that once cloaked my identity. Most surprising of all, it has come quite naturally, which feels particularly rewarding after years of feeling disconnected.

I’ve also discovered a new community as a result. Friends have reached out to share their own stories, shedding light on the various pathways that this complex illness takes, breaking down any stigma and filling me with compassion for my younger self.

That community doesn’t have to be wholly founded on friendships either. During my recovery I found comfort in song lyrics, the intuitive kindness of strangers who sensed my struggle, and the powerful distraction of a change of scenery.

My final hurdle was one that was largely subconscious. Since my particular eating disorder was triggered by control rather than issues with body image, I had always treated it as a mental illness, and my body as the shell that required feeding, fuelling and fixing.

Distancing the two meant I overlooked the pressure I had put my body under, first by straining it, and later by strengthening it. To outsiders, it was a visible sign of my illness and later proof of my recovery, yet I was uncomfortable in my body, scarred by it, detached from it.

Over time, however, my brain and body have begun to work together, in tune at the best and worst of times. I have this comforting sense of feeling connected and whole, and can finally tap into my gut instinct. Life has become clearer, sometimes more painful, often much more joyful.

This sank in recently in a seemingly small way. There’s a long-standing joke among my friends that I’m rather resilient to jump-scares, my body paradoxically remarkably still. Where I once treated this as some kind of bizarre skill, I’ve come to realise it was likely a lingering fight-or-flight response or sign of detachment.

That was then. Today, you’ll find me jumping out of my skin. About time, it’s Halloween, after all.

If you’re struggling with food, or worried about someone else, Beat, the UK’s eating disorder charity, offers free, confidential support. Call the helpline on 0808 801 0677 (England), use their one-to-one webchat, or find help at beateatingdisorders.org.uk. If someone needs urgent medical help, call 999 or NHS 111.