I aimed to write this post some months ago, after an experience in one of the more unlikely of places gave made something unexpectedly positive to hold on to. I believed this to be the piece that had been missing; this would be the critical thread that could help knit me back together.

It was whilst I was undergoing a surprisingly thorough health M.O.T. at my gym that I, for the first time, calmly confronted my diagnosis and engaged in a conversation that left me feeling liberated. It lifted the crushing sense of shame that had been pressing down on me more and more each day. Every molecule of time had felt contaminated and I began to fear I was contaminating everything and everyone around me too.

Sitting in a chair, recovering from a number of fitness tests (which left me convinced I had turned into a blimp), the woman…