Shakily biting into a small spoonful of paella, I silently prayed that my partner, Piyus, wasn’t watching. 

Even though we’d been dating for a whole year, I hadn’t dared eat in front of him until now.   

I was too scared of spilling something down myself or getting food on my face and that he’d point or laugh at me for making a mess. A fear that I’d held onto for years.  

As a child, other kids at school had started teasing me for ‘walking like a robot’, and I became self-conscious about how I came across to others. So though I wasn’t a particularly messy eater, I became paranoid that it would become the next thing they’d pick on.  

That’s when I decided to give up eating in front of anyone entirely – even those closest to me.  

It was easy to get away with at first. My parents worked long hours in a shop, meaning we never ate together.   

But big family gatherings became a nightmare: I’d either go hungry or only eat foods that wouldn’t make a mess – like crisps, which could be broken up into tiny pieces. Even then, I’d nibble them in my room, or in the corner where no-one could see. 

I thought I was just self-conscious at the time, but years of training has helped me realise I was suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) estimates up to 12% of people in the UK are affected by social anxiety at some point in their lives and I was one of them.  

It is described as a fear of doing everyday activities – like catching a bus, walking in public or filling the car with petrol – with those affected worrying they are being laughed at or judged by onlookers. 

My fear came with all of those activities but eating was the worst. Yet I hid my problem so well from my parents that they had no idea what I was going through and probably never will. 

Experts say that social anxiety often gets better with age, but by the time I was 18 and at university, things were getting bad.  

If I had no choice but to eat in public, I’d hide away in the corner and only eat items that were impossible to make a mess with – like chopped fruit or pasta. 

I received counselling through university, which helped a little bit, and the GP offered me antidepressants but never took them.  

Things got so bad that I attempted suicide. 

Around that same time, I met Piyus, who spotted my problem when I kept sending him away at lunchtimes. That’s when I confessed to him what was going on – the only person I’d told other than my best friend. 

To my relief, he couldn’t have been more supportive and our connection continued to grow.  

Eventually, after a year together, I finally let him take me on our first ‘proper’ date to a restaurant.  

I chose paella, a meal with ingredients that would stick together so it wouldn’t go everywhere and Piyus casually carried on eating, which allowed my fears to quickly fade away.  

It was a huge step and I knew then that Piyus was the one. However, it’d still be a long time before I’d ever feel truly comfortable eating in front of anyone.  

At our wedding, four years later, my disordered eating was still crippling me and I had to get Piyus to distract our guests so nobody would notice that I was barely touching my food. 

At my job as an optometrist, I felt forced to have lunch facing the wall at a nearby coffee shop as there was nowhere private I could eat.  

One time at a pizza restaurant with friends, I picked at a yoghurt dessert instead of a main meal as I was so paranoid about eating slices in front of people.   

Eventually, I decided enough was enough and paid for private Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave – in which I was set tasks to face my fears head-on. 

It started with small things like going alone to a café to people watch. That exercise alone taught me that others were too wrapped up in their own lives to pay me any attention.  

Gradually, my fears eased to the point where I was able to eat small meals in front of people, using a knife and fork to cut it into pieces first. 

By the time Piyus and I had our girls – Sienna, in 2011 and Isla, in 2013 – I was able to eat family meals with them at home, but I still couldn’t eat normally at meals out or big family parties. 

Worried about the impact my disordered eating could one day have on them, I became even more determined to do something about it. That’s why, in 2018, I decided to become a Rapid Transformation Therapy Practitioner.  

Rapid Transformation Therapy allows you to understand where these beliefs came from, why they arose in someone’s life and then works on letting go of what no longer serves us and rewiring the neural pathways for better beliefs.  

As part of my training, I had to have my own counselling and discovered my fears had stemmed from childhood – I never felt good enough and always wanted to fit in and belong. 

I had to learn to accept that I didn’t need to be perfect and that we all embarrass ourselves occasionally. And it really helped to remind myself that, half the time, no-one is paying any attention anyway.  

From that moment on, things got gradually easier and today, aged 41, I’m in a much better place.  

I still have to push myself to eat things in a way that might make a mess – like eating a burger in a restaurant last year with my hands. But on the whole, I feel a lot better.  

The biggest difference now is that I can go out to eat with Piyus and the girls and order what I really want to eat, not just what will make less of a mess. 

Just recently, I even faced my biggest fear of all when I bit into a bagel in front of my boss and the cream cheese filling spilled out everywhere. He didn’t so much as bat an eyelid and I felt elated.    

I spent years avoiding things and certain foods because I was scared of being embarrassed. But now I know I have nothing to fear.    

Life can be messy, and for once, I’m OK with that.  

As told to Carina Platt

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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‘I don’t want you to feel insecure,’ my mum said, as she looked at me with pity, ‘we will pay for a hair transplant.’ 

I was only 18, which is young to be balding but the process had actually started a few years before that.

I had confided in my parents about it so that they could help me try to figure out a way to not be self-conscious about it – not to offer to pay for a hair transplant. 

I was not thrilled about the prospect of losing my hair but more than that, cosmetic surgery was not on the list of things I wanted to discuss with my parents. It felt embarrassing.

I knew they were still paying off their house at the time so $10,000 USD (nearly £8,000) to buy their son a rug was out of the question. 

After the initial outburst and insisting my mother to ‘just drop it!’, I gathered my emotions and said: ‘Mum, I appreciate the offer. I don’t want a hair transplant and I also don’t want to talk to you about this anymore.’  

The first person to notice I was going bald was actually my sister, who was a hair stylist.

At 14 in 1999, I had a routine haircut with my mum when my sister said: ‘Kevin, your hair is thinning, you are getting a bald spot.’ 

Mum rushed over as they combed through the crown of my head, both attempting to assess whether this was new or a development that could be slowed or stopped. Disbelief was my first reaction. 

Within one year, my mother booked a doctor’s appointment to see if there was anything seriously wrong. 

A doctor that looked like George Clooney entered the small sterile examination room with a sombre look: ‘Kevin, you have an incurable disease. Androgenic alopecia,’ He let out a deep breath, ‘I’m sorry.’ 

‘Oh no, what is that? Is he going to be OK?’ my mum worried aloud. 

‘I think he will be OK because that is just a fancy term for… male pattern baldness,’ the doctor made a face to punctuate his already failing joke. 

That was the joke – make a high schooler think he has cancer of some sort, then pull the rug out from under him. The worst part was how thick the doctor’s hair was. He didn’t know the life of a bald man, it wasn’t his place to joke about it. 

I felt deeply self-conscious for the first time in my life. My mother wanted to do anything to make it go away and the doctor – who surely saw much worse conditions every day – wasn’t crushing it with his bedside manner. 

He ran through my options – get a hair transplant, get on finasteride and rogaine (hair loss drugs) or go bald. 

Hair transplants were expensive and were not yet as perfected as they are these days, while finasteride can cause early onset erectile dysfunction. But going bald? Completely free! No impact on erections! 

After the doctor’s appointment, my mum would sheepishly bring up the hair transplant every few months, as she could see the process of my androgenic alopecia naturally taking its course. 

The doctor explained that hair loss drugs are best to retain the hair you have and they are only partially effective at growing hair back. So, the longer I waited the more the thinning would become permanent – it felt urgent. 

All of this was clouding my mind – I would’ve rather been thinking about graduating high school instead. 

I went into denial for a few years. By 18, reality was setting in. I was reaching a crucial decision point – and that’s when she seriously offered to pay for the hair transplant.

In the ensuing years, I wore various hats: baseball, beanie, fedora. I got used to wearing them to hide my scalp, as there was less and less hair.  

When I didn’t wear hats, the biggest enemies of my thinning hair were the elements – wind and rain. 

Then one incident when I was 22 changed everything. I was out to dinner with some friends, with no hat, a perfectly arranged head of hair, and hair spray to keep it in place. 

When we left the restaurant, the wind blew and the rain poured and by the time I got to the car my hair was a wet thin mess. My (poorly) but carefully covered scalp was exposed. 

That night, I wrote in my journal: ‘I want to feel joy and comfort in how I look. Every time I try not to care, I start caring. So after years of worry and self consciousness and my mind being focused on my hair, I pray that by buzzing it off and facing my head, and not trying to cover it up, God will just give me relief and happiness in who I am.’ 

Sure enough, I went to the bathroom and shaved my head. And I have never looked back. 

Before that point, I’d worried about everything from being attractive to women to getting cast in acting jobs, and – with hindsight – it honestly turned out not to make any difference. I’d taken control. 

Looking back, I can comfortably say that going bald is much harder than being bald. Whatever hair loss represents, it is difficult to swallow; it brings up thoughts of death, aging and a general loss of attractiveness. 

Not to mention the way it’s easily joked about. That was all a lot to handle for a teenager and young adult. 

Embarrassment, discomfort, frustration – they were overwhelming for me. But in the ensuing years, I found starting stand up comedy a huge help.  

It was cathartic to get on stage and talk about the doctor’s appointment or kids laughing at my bald head when I took my hat off. There is something that happens once an audience laughs and all that discomfort turns into a connection and conversation with the crowd.  

After performing my show, Diary of a Bald Kid, I’d get many audience members say, ‘Kevin, honestly, you look better bald. I can’t imagine you with hair.’  

I am 39 now and a happily bald man. In fact, I like the way I look. 

I look at that journal entry from when I was 22 and I understand that young man’s fears, so I am glad to be on the other side of the process. 

At the end of the day, what I longed for was to not care. To just like who I was and like my body for what it was. 

I have nothing against hair plugs, transplants, toupees, hats, Rogaine or anything else. Let a thousand flowers bloom but, for me, what I deeply wanted was to be my authentic self and I could feel in my heart that I was not comfortable. 

Lately, my social media algorithm floods me with ads for hair transplants, hair loss drugs, and all kinds of experimental therapies for male pattern baldness. They always begin with some sort of hook like ‘We all know going bald sucks’ – and that is true. It did. 

But choosing what nature intended was the best choice I could have made. I learned a lot about myself – mainly that I have a really well-shaped head.  

I can’t imagine myself with hair now either. My mum agrees – and is really happy to have saved $10,000.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

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Our preconceptions of screaming kids and lobster-red boozers crammed into sun loungers put us off cruising. But we couldn’t have been more wrong.

I’ll be honest, my husband Tom and I are probably holiday snobs, and have these romantic notions of discovering wild beaches and the real, lesser-travelled nooks and crannies of a place. Rules, be gone, all we need is a dogeared Lonely Planet and a damp finger in the air.

Well, that’s more my style anyway. If Tom had his way we’d be working to a tightly-planned, laminated (preferably) itinerary with complete adherence to everything on it throughout the trip. But, marriage is a partnership.

To put our usual holidays into perspective, before lockdown, we stumbled on a beach whilst travelling around Goa. It could only be accessed via a clapped out SUV that took us down a steep and treacherously rocky path – I’m talking neck dislocation from being flung around as the car slowly descended the boulder-strewn track towards the shore.

With only had a couple of tiny hotels, a deserted beach and a lagoon, it was so remote that even the beach dogs had bailed to a resort-heavy strip some way away. We, on the other hand were so captivated by our discovery that our plans to visit the rest of Goa were instantly binned. This place felt like Alex Garland’s book, ‘The Beach’, only less murdery.

So, you’ll understand how anxiety-inducing the idea of spending a week on a ship bigger than your average London five-star hotel – shoulder to shoulder with three and a half thousand people – could be.

It’s a world where shore days are booked in advance, orderly queues are formed, eye contact and conversations with strangers happen in the lifts and timings are a thing if you don’t want to be stranded in St Lucia (though I could think of worse things).

In short, our comfort zone was last seen at Heathrow Airport and would take two working weeks to relocate.

But for all our fretting, it has to be said, we acclimatised quickly once we’d clocked that there wasn’t a single child on board the P&O Britannia, and got checked into our balconied cabin with sea view and complementary bottle of bubbly. Funny, that. It turns out that having a deluxe cabin in easy reach of restaurants, bars and the pool is actually pretty reassuring. Spoiler alert, we ended up having a fantastic week, but this isn’t a cruise review.

Once we’d had a sharpener and explored the insanely large vessel on the first night, we got our bearings and headed down the ship to eat. And, here’s where the magic happened…

The Glasshouse isn’t just any tapas bar, it’s helmed by Spanish celebrity cooking powerhouse, José Pizarro. This same restaurant can also be found on board P&O’s other ships; Arvia, Azura, Iona and Ventura. The dishes are elevated-Spanish (if that’s even a category) but luckily they weren’t venturing into deconstructed haute cuisine. They still bore a strong likeness to their descriptions on the menu, thank goodness – we’re talking fan favourites like pan con tomate, lamb chops with patatas bravas, king prawns a la plancha, Iberico ham and my favourite, squid croquetas filled with their own ink.

Being handed the wine list was like receiving the keys to Willy Wonka’s boozy chocolate factory, thanks to TV’s wine whisperer, Olly Smith. He’s curated a fascinating list, full of classics, icons and lesser-known, discoverable treats. It’s adorned with fine wines from Tignanello by Antinori at the market retail price of £225 a bottle to Pintia by legendary Spanish producer, Vega Sicilia is £65 a bottle (its currently £75 in Threshers).

Without giving too much away, here were a few of Olly’s wines that made waves with us during our cruise. And since there are so many superb contenders, it was tough to only choose a selection.

Sparkling

Breaky Bottom, Cuvée Grace Nichols, England

• 175ml: £8.50
• Bottle: £38

I love that Breaky Bottom is front and centre on Olly’s wine list. It’s a lesser-known and beautifully eccentric sparkling wine producer from East Sussex.

Unusually, this cuvée is made from 100% Syval Blanc, not the triumvirate of Champagne grapes you’d expect to find in an English sparkling. The resulting flavours of Golden Delicious apple, river stone and lip smacking preserved lime will have you yearning for a second (and third) helping.

*£36 in Waitrose

White

Anhydrous, Santorini, Greece 

• 175ml: £13.95
• 250ml: £19.50
• Bottle: £52.50

Ah, Santorini; all blue rooftops, alabaster-white buildings against that turquoise sea. Aside from looking like a Zoom background, Santorini also produces some of the finest white wines in existence, counterintuitively due to its hostile growing conditions of aridity and a fierce wind that batters the vines.

This is an exceptional example, headed by their signature grape, Assyrtiko (ass-ear-tick-oh), giving preserved lemon and dried oregano with a lick of sea salt on the finish.

Or try: The Best Assyrtiko White Wine, £10.25, Morrisons

Orange

Naranjo, Torontel, Chile

• 175ml: £6.25
• Bottle: £24

Strikingly copper in colour, this is an orange wine that’s been fermented in giant concrete eggs for eight months.

The juice has been in contact with the pinkish skins of old-vine Torontel grapes, which is how you make a red wine though unusual for white grapes. This process brings in exotic notes of orange peel, cardamom, apricot and lychee and beautiful, mouth filling texture.

Or try: Côté Mas Orange Vin De France, £8.99 (£1 off), Waitrose

Red

Bedoba, Saperavi, Georgia

• 175ml: £7.50
• 250ml: £9.50
• Bottle: £28.50

Hands down the highlight wine of the trip for me. Saperavi is Georgia’s answer to Malbec, with a hint of Syrah about it. A percentage of the grapes are left to dry on the vine until November, then aged in underground, earthenware amphorae called ‘qvevri’. All of which adds oodles of intensity and concentration to the wine.

Interestingly, Saperavi is one of a handful of ‘teinturier’ grapes, red-pigmented in the flesh and skin. It’s savoury, spicy, inky-coloured and tasted of spiced blackberries, dried Mediterranean herbs and a quick twist of a pepper grinder.

Or try: M&S Found Saperavi, £11

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Don’t forget your Lotto ticket with your Aldi shop.

The grocery giant has announced that it’s making a major change to self-checkouts, giving shoppers the opportunity to purchase their National Lottery tickets directly at the till.

By the end of spring, a range of tickets, including Lotto Lucky Dip, EuroMillions, Thunderball, and Set For Life games, will be available to purchase at the self-checkout, making the supermarket chain the first in the UK to offer the service.

And it doesn’t stop at just purchasing your tickets, either.

Punters with a National Lottery Fast Pay card are in for a sweet deal, as they can scan their card to generate their bespoke tickets, too.

In a statement, Richard Thornton, communications director at Aldi, said the grocery giant is always looking at how to improve the shopping experience for customers and believes this is yet another way of doing so.

‘As the UK’s cheapest supermarket, our shoppers know they’ll always find amazing value at Aldi, but we hope some lucky customers manage to find the winning numbers at our self-checkouts too.’

Meanwhile, Jenny Blogg, operations director at Allwyn, explained that part of transforming Allwyn’s retail presence means adapting what’s on offer in stores – including Aldi.

‘However Aldi customers choose to shop – whether at the main tills or via self-checkout – they’ll always have the option to pick up a National Lottery game,’ she said.

‘This project has been a massive effort by the teams at both Allwyn and Aldi, and my sincere thanks must go to everyone involved.’

As with all lottery ticket purchases, customers will be subject to an age verification check to ensure they meet the age restrictions, and just like with restricted items such as alcohol, Aldi staff members will carry out these checks before shoppers can pay for their goods.

It’s a huge win for punters as the National Lottery is currently sold at most large Post Offices, supermarkets and newsagents but never before at self-checkouts.

The self-checkout lottery marks the second major announcement by the retailer this week, after Aldi revealed plans to upgrade all its supermarkets, with a particular focus on improving the bakery section. 

The business is going to be splashing a whopping £67,000,000 to upgrade its stores across the UK this year, and in addition to improving the bakery fixtures, they’ll also be making changes to health and beauty sections, as well as the fridges in the chilled aisle, where they’ll be upgrading the units to reduce carbon emissions (equivalent to heating over 6,500 homes).

These are all big changes Fulham Broadway in London, Billericay in Essex, and Cheadle in Stoke-on-Trent are getting to be a part of as Aldi is opening stores in the three locations.

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As I picked the photograph off the desk, my heart stopped.

There were seven of us in it – but I suddenly realised, within five years of it being taken, only three of us were still alive.

It was taken in the summer of 1989, at the end of an AIDS conference we had been attending. We had our arms around each other, all smiling and ready for a big night out.

The picture was old and a little blurry, but filled with life.

It was February 2025 and I was at the Bishopsgate Institute in London. I looked up at the others who, like me, were sorting through photos from the past 40 years of the HIV epidemic stored in the archive of the Terrence Higgins Trust.

In the calm and quiet, there were gasps of recognition of faces remembered, followed by a struggle to connect names, places and events.

We were young when AIDS began to devastate our generation – and all of us in the room that day had volunteered or worked for Terrence Higgins Trust in the early years of the epidemic. We had been fighting for our lives while creating a dynamic range of services supporting those who were getting sick and dying.

Now in our 60s and 70s, we’re helping preserve that history by sifting through photos, identifying the faces of those who led the community response to the virus and the prejudice, hostility, and fear that surrounded it.

So many faces which, unlike ours, had not had the chance to get old.

Many of us there that day had journeyed a long way to arrive at Terrence Higgins Trust.  

As a gay teenager in the early 1970s, homosexuality was completely hidden where I lived in West Somerset, and only a little less hidden at the university I attended – Keele, in the countryside near Stoke-on-Trent. Which at least had the benefit of leaving me plenty of time to concentrate on my degree.

It was only when I moved to London in 1978 that I made my first gay friends, came out to my family and fell in love.

While I’d been a very happy teenager, coming out felt like my world changed from monochrome into glorious technicolour, vibrant and full of potential.

In the early 1980s, I moved to Amsterdam, the gay capital of Europe and an oasis of tolerance in an otherwise hostile world.

The bars and clubs were fabulous, but by 1984 the dark cloud of AIDS had begun to cover the sky, and I returned to London. I was angry there was so little concern about the growing number of AIDS deaths amongst gay men; and I realised, if anything was to be done, we would have to do it ourselves.

Terrence Higgins Trust was the first UK HIV organisation, set up in memory of Welshman and Heaven DJ Terry Higgins, one of the first to die from AIDS-related illnesses in 1982.

By 1985 Terrence Higgins Trust was able to advertise for two full-time members of staff. I was appointed office administrator, alongside Janet Green as counselling administrator.

We had two small rooms, rented by the week, in a ramshackle office warehouse, just off the Gray’s Inn Road. One room housed the Helpline and Buddy service – the other, everything else. Around 300 volunteers worked in groups focused on health education, social services, legal services, drug education, communications and fundraising.

The next eleven years were a rollercoaster ride of activism, passion, growth, success, failure, funerals, hopes raised and dashed, bravery, courage, determination, burn-out and resilience as we struggled to contain the ever-growing epidemic.

Then, in 1996, a new combination of drugs was shown to control the virus.  At last, we could look forward to living with HIV, however difficult that might be, rather than dying from it.

This was too late for so many people, though.

The breakthrough was announced in July 1996, in Vancouver, Canada. During that conference, Paul – the handsome, talented, man who ran our Hardship Fund – died in London. It was only eight months after he had first become ill. AIDS could be terrifyingly fast.

He was just 29 years old.

I led his funeral: amid the swirling emotions of sadness, loss and grief, there was also real hope for a better future.

Now, gathered in the Bishopsgate Institute that day in February, around the tables overflowing with photographs and memories, we are some of those who have lived to see that future.

In 2025, over half of people living with HIV take one pill a day. With that treatment, they can expect to live as long as anyone else, and cannot pass on the virus to others if their viral load is undetectable – even during sex.

The UK is committed to ending new HIV cases by 2030. Hard fought campaigns have succeeded in delivering effective medication to people living with HIV in some of the world’s poorest countries – although progress is fragile, as the recent freeze on US foreign aid has shown.

As we put the photos back into their folders, I knew this was still an incomplete archive of Terrence Higgins Trust. I imagined what it might feel like in ten, twenty, thirty, or more years’ time, when we’ve finally ended this epidemic and the stigma that so many people living with HIV still face.

We have come this far and achieved so much. One day we will be able to fully close the archive – but I will still remember the faces from the photographs of those we lost.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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I was volunteering at George House Trust – a charity which offers support to people living with HIV – cataloguing their archive, when I reached for a large black leather album.

I could feel the tears welling up as I flicked the pages to the one I was looking for.

There it was. The words ‘To be remembered’…Paul Higson. Born 31.8.68. Died 01.11.96, and a photo of a smiling young man.

Just one entry in a memorial book for people who died of AIDS.

As I read those words, surrounded by boxes of reports, photos, memorabilia and meeting minutes, the memories flooded back – from nearly 30 years ago, but strong as ever.

Such joy and happiness; pain and loss.

I first met Paul in 1992, when I was 29 and a student at Sheffield Hallam University. He was visiting a friend who’d told me Paul needed cheering up; he’d just found out he was HIV positive.

The three of us met at a club. By the end of the night, our mutual friend had disappeared, leaving Paul stranded – so he came home with me.

We talked until the sun rose, constantly laughing as he made jokes and sang along to the music that was playing. By the morning I felt I knew everything about him: His love of music and cars, his work at an accountancy firm, and his family.

But behind the carefree façade I could see there was also a frightened young man whose world had been turned upside down.

When I hugged him goodbye I didn’t want to let go. We swapped numbers and spoke daily on the phone until he came to visit me from Lancashire the following weekend – a routine that then carried on for a year.

Being with Paul just felt right. I’d found my soulmate.

I moved to Manchester to do a Masters – but then Paul started having health problems.

First, Paul had several seizures, which meant he could not drive for six months and had to take additional medication, in addition to his preventative medication, as his immune system started to weaken.

He started a course to complete his accountancy exams but after a few months his health got worse with night sweats, sickness and diarrhoea, leaving him weak and losing weight.

I picked him up and brought him back to live with me in Manchester.

Weeks passed with no improvement and he became thinner and weaker, eventually needing a wheelchair when we went out. 

By this point, I’d given up my studying to care for Paul. His sister, Linda, was a great support but lived in Canada and his widowed mother would not have been able to cope with the illness – so it was up to me and there was no way I would ever let him down.

He was my world.

There were regular stays on the infectious diseases ward at North Manchester hospital. The terrace house I was renting was unsuitable for Paul’s needs so Body Positive, a Manchester HIV charity, helped to get us a flat in Hulme.

By November 1995 it looked like the stomach infection that was causing his illness – an opportunistic infection that took advantage of the suppressed immune system – was going to kill him.

With little left to lose, doctors put him on a large dose of drugs – and the results were incredible. Within a few months Paul had put on weight and all symptoms had gone. It was like a miracle.

Paul visited Linda in Canada and she rang me in tears saying, ‘I don’t believe it – I’ve got my brother back.’

I started work and life got back to normal. But the bug causing Paul’s illness slowly became resistant to the treatments and started to return.

SIx months later, he was back to how he had been.

This time, I continued working while caring for Paul, as he had support from two ‘befrienders’ – Paul from Body Positive and Barbara from George House – who visited regularly and provided emotional support.

Along with the team at North Manchester hospital and a home help, they helped us to cope; soon I was lucky to get four hours of sleep at night, what with changing bedding wet from Paul’s night sweats and helping him to the bathroom.

At lunch, I’d come home to help Paul get out of bed, shower and dress. Evenings were spent doing laundry, cleaning and preparing his medicine for the following day.

The only time I had for myself was at a weekly group for HIV-negative partners run by George House Trust volunteers that provided support from others who were going through the same things.

Eventually Paul was so weak a feeding tube was inserted into his chest to provide nutrition, and I was taught by nurses how to administer it along with all his other drugs.

By this point, Paul was a shadow of his former self but his humour always shone through.

The treatment seemed to work and his health improved – until he became unwell again and, this time, was diagnosed with an E.coli infection.

The feeding tube was removed in case it was the infection site.

When Paul told the consultant that he didn’t want the feeding tube replaced, because he didn’t want to go on like this and it just seemed to be delaying the inevitable, there was a strange sense of relief for both of us.

Without any nutrition, Paul would have about three weeks left to live – but the rollercoaster of illnesses followed by slow recovery would be over.

There’d be time for tears later but there were three weeks to pack with memories first.

Having come off treatment, Paul was started on palliative care, including regular doses of morphine administered through a syringe driver, and we returned home.

Initially, there was a relief from symptoms and the first week we went out daily – but by the second week Paul was too weak. So many people came to visit and say goodbye: Physiotherapists, nutritionists and social workers, as well as friends and family.

Paul died at home on 1st November 1996 with me and Linda lying by his side.

He was 28 years old.

The situation now is so different with effective HIV treatment. Paul was so unlucky that these treatments were not available in time for him.

I often think about what Paul would have achieved if he had not died so young. AIDS took so much talent, so many wonderful people from us.

I now work for the Passionate about Sexual Health (PaSH) Partnership: A collaboration between BHA for Equality (formerly Black Health Agency), the LGBT Foundation and the George House Trust, which offers support to those living with HIV and which aims to help end HIV transmission within a generation.

Caring for and losing a partner to any disease is devastating but the stigma and fear around HIV in the 1990s made it particularly intense and probably brought Paul and I closer together.

I treasure the memories I have of Paul – and count myself lucky to have people in my life who also remember him.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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Depressed. Isolated. Disconnected.

These were the main things my patient, Seamus*, was feeling when he came to me for help in February last year. 

As a GP I see my fair share of patients and treat all manner of physical and mental ailments.

Mostly though, I listen. That’s what helps me get to the root cause of a problem. 

That’s why, when Seamus explained to me that he and his wife had recently separated – leaving him alone and living miles away from his kids – I knew it was unlikely any medication would help in the long run. But I knew something that could.

‘Have you tried parkrun?’ I suggested with a smile. And a confused Seamus shook his head.

Parkrun first launched in 2004 but has since grown to have a huge following across the UK.

Every Saturday at 9am, in public open spaces across the country, a group of volunteers put on a free 5K walk, jog or run.

And in my personal opinion, these runs are the perfect prescription for patients – even I’ve benefitted.

Now, a poll of 2,000 people has found that 65% agree with me, and 51% believe prescribed parkrun could reduce pressures on the NHS.

My first run in (if you’ll pardon the pun) with the organisation came in 2016. I was 25-years-old, overweight, sedentary, had little work-life balance and was eventually diagnosed with fatty liver disease.

As there is no specific medication to treat this condition (only pills to manage the problems that occur as a result), my only choice was to make healthy lifestyle changes. That’s when a colleague suggested parkrun to me.

Attending my first event at Leamington Spa one Saturday in October 2018 was nerve wracking. I hadn’t run any distance for seven or eight years, and I’d never completed a 5K before, so I was braced for a serious challenge. 

To my surprise, the first 400m felt amazing. The joy of running, jogging and walking alongside others was incredible and I felt myself enjoying it. But then the exhaustion began to set in. 

My legs soon felt heavier, my breathing became laboured and I started to slow down – I even recall being passed by those twice my age and even some pushing buggies.

Had it not been for my wife, who was by my side the whole way, I would have called it quits. But I’m thankful I didn’t, because as I reached the end, there were swarms of people cheering me on as I plodded through the finish funnel.

It really was such a buzz to have so many people, so many strangers, supporting you. And it was that moment, that community feel, which made me want to come back and commit to a healthier lifestyle.

Soon I’d committed to an event each week, which then encouraged me to start making small changes in other areas of my life. I began eating better, adjusting my work day to move more regularly and slowly it transformed my health. 

I felt healthier and more confident and like a whole new person. Now all I wanted to do was tell more people about it.

So when, in 2018, parkrun launched its ‘Practice Initiative’ – which aimed to foster engagement among both staff and patients of GP surgeries – I was keen to get involved.

I started by leaving the parkrun magazine in the waiting area of my surgery, then I encouraged other members of my practice to ‘take over’ one of the Saturday sessions – meaning everyone from myself to the receptionists filled the volunteer roles.

By doing this at my own surgery I witnessed the benefits for both our patients and community first-hand. My patients had improved menopausal symptoms, diabetic control and those that started attending parkrun with us seemed to be coping better when it came to mental health in general.

And now, I’m the Royal College of GPs physical activity lead, which sees me support other surgeries to become parkrun practices.

Personally, I’d love all GP surgery’s to get involved and I can’t help but wonder how many lives could be helped by prescribing parkrun as a course of treatment.

We already know that physical inactivity contributes to as many deaths as smoking in the UK, yet we are 20% less active than in the 1960s and around 26% of men and 27% of women are classed as sedentary.

Physical activity has been shown to play a significant role in the prevention and management of over 20 chronic illnesses, including: type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression and certain cancers – all of which are on the rise. 

As a GP I often see patients who have more than one health problem and, in many cases physical activity can help tackle more than one issue. So why wouldn’t I prescribe it?

It’s also zero cost and has no side effects, unlike medications, so to me, it’s a no brainer really.

We regularly prescribe parkrun at our surgery and have done so to hundreds of patients, including Seamus. 

While not all patients take this prescription seriously – we, of course, continue to work with those people on barriers they face to physical activity and treat them in other ways – those that do have never once given negative feedback. 

Even in Seamus’s case, though he was, understandably, perplexed at first, I knew it could be a way to help him connect with the community and that the physical activity itself could help his mood.

Of course, we agreed that if he did not find parkrun helpful, he could come back to me and we could revisit the medication discussion. But he never did. 

Instead, we regularly bump into each other at parkrun events – where we have a catch up. 

And he has since told me that connecting with others in the community has made a real difference to improving his mental health. I second that.

I always feel welcome, well supported and have met incredible people from all walks of life and volunteering is equally rewarding.

Perhaps one of the most rewarding aspects of my work though is seeing patients like Seamus at parkrun and witnessing the joy and the benefits they get from it and the friendships they have formed.

As a nation we need to get more active and with 1,247 events around the UK, there’s plenty of opportunities to get involved. It doesn’t matter if you’re a patient or a practitioner, a runner or not, you will be welcome at parkrun. 

I believe in the benefits, and that anyone can do it. So I guess I’ll see you at the starting line soon?

A version of this piece was originally published in June 2024

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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Some lucky people will find themselves out like a light as soon as their head hits the pillow at night.

Others will be tossing and turning, replaying the day’s events, counting sheep and watching the hours tick away as they struggle to fall asleep.

Thankfully there are tips and hacks aplenty to practice better sleep health, and handy trick might be just what you need.

Have you tried to, just stay up? We know it sounds totally counter-intuitive but it seems there is method in the madness.

A technique called paradoxical intention has been in the works since the 1930s, usually used to treat anxiety disorders, but it can also be utilised for better sleep – you just have to tell yourself you’re not falling asleep and not put any pressure on yourself to drift off.

Paradoxical intention is an accepted psychological technique for treating insomnia. It was first named by the Psychologist Victor Frankl in 1939. He believed to treat anxiety we need to face the fear of whatever it is that is making us anxious. 

As well as anxiety and insomnia, the technique is also used to treat OCD, anorexia and many different phobias.

For insomnia, the theory is that when we get into bed and try to go to sleep, the pressure of trying to sleep, causes anxiety. This switches on the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) – the body’s ‘fight, fright and flight system’ which is the response needed for the body to flee from danger.

The anxiety of trying to sleep then puts you on high alert, something that isn’t helped if you keep glancing at the clock. However, you can lull yourself into a sleep by telling yourself to do the opposite.

We spoke to Dr Deborah Lee, sleep expert from Doctor Fox, who tells us about how to practice paradoxical intention, and activate your PSNS instead of the SNS nervous system.

Dr Lee tells Metro: ‘If you get into bed and tell yourself you must stay awake, funnily enough the opposite happens, and the parasympathetic pathway (PSNS,) the body’s main rest and relaxation pathway is activated.

‘The PSNS is the dominant autonomic nervous system in operation when we sleep. Your natural sleep drive takes over and you find yourself falling asleep. 

‘The key principle is that you need to be convinced that it’s fine to be lying there awake and that sleep will come. If you don’t buy into the exercise, it won’t work.’

While more tests need to be carried out, in 2002 a study concluded that paradoxical intention was better at reducing sleep-related anxiety than other passive methods of trying to induce sleep. In some studies, the effects of paradoxical intention on insomnia led to large improvements in insomnia symptoms.

Dr Lee notes that there a myriad of reasons why someone may be having trouble dozing off and that it’s worth interrogating what these are. She also warns that paradoxical intention alone might not be enough, as you’ll also need to be practicing good sleep health.

‘Sleep and falling asleep are complex,’ she explains. ‘Many of us are kept awake by all sorts of issues such as noise, overheating, an uncomfortable bed, night-time allergies and worrisome thoughts.

‘Paradoxical intention can’t fix everything! It’s only likely to work if you practise good sleep hygiene, with all these variables corrected, and a set bedtime and getting up time.’

But given that the brain is so powerful, you could run the risk of manifesting the assertion that you won’t fall asleep and end up staying up.

The expert adds that while you might not get the technique right straight away, don’t put pressure on yourself and don’t give up – come back to it.

‘Learning to control our thoughts is a crucial part of going to sleep. By facing up to what we dread, we are normalising the situation. Each time we go through it, it feels a little less frightening. 

‘Paradoxical intention is not a quick fix and it works little by little, over time. If you find it isn’t working, go back to basics and address all the key issues for sleep hygiene. Work on increasing your natural sleep drive by not napping during the day, taking exercise during the day and going to bed a bit later when you feel tired.’

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Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

Confused, I repeated the doctor’s words back to her. ‘I have endometriosis?’ 

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘And I recommend going straight for IVF, promptly.’ 

I was too stunned to speak. What had started as a check of my reproductive health after trying for a baby for nearly a year was now more serious. 

While I’d expected some complications with conceiving as a result of my 16-year-long battle with anorexia, I never could have predicted this. 

Growing up I’d had a stable, happy childhood and no serious body image concerns.

However, at age 20 when I started my PhD, I joined the gym for the first time in my life. 

I wasn’t striving for skinny, just aiming to feel ‘toned’, strong and healthy. But very quickly I became obsessed with the calorie counter on the treadmill as it represented all the food I was ‘earning’ – not that I ever did repay myself. 

Though I didn’t know it at the time because I was on the pill, I had stopped menstruating around this period due to being underweight. 

By the time I turned 21, my obsession with being ‘virtuous’ turned into a full-blown eating disorder.  

It felt like I was saving up for a day when I would eat all the food I’d ‘earned’ but that day never came.

In 2007, now 22 and feeling trapped, I sought help from university health services and was officially diagnosed with anorexia.

It made me feel like an imposter, not least because by this point I wasn’t yet drastically underweight.  

So, I carried on as I had been. Before long, I was exercising every day and eating in a restrictive, ritualistic way. 

None of it was enjoyable, but I felt unable to live any other way. In my mid-twenties I moved cities to start my first job and was quite reclusive, unable to socialise because of my strict gym regimes and fear of eating anything other than my safe foods in the environment of my flat, which I rented alone.   

A few years later, however, I requested help again as, by now, my weight was dangerously low. 

I knew I looked visibly ill and my family and friends were very concerned. I was also absolutely sick of being trapped in a disordered lifestyle. 

I went to a new doctor, who took me off the pill, which I’d been on since I was a teenager, as he suspected my menstrual cycle would have been stopped anyway due to my weight. 

Sure enough, even after stopping contraception, my periods were absent. 

My eating disorder was obviously doing serious damage to my reproductive system, which scared and saddened me. 

Inpatient treatment was suggested but I refused because I just couldn’t see myself living in a hospital.

I therefore began treatment as an outpatient at a NHS eating disorders unit. Despite this, my weight continued to decrease and, just days before my 29th birthday, the mental health crisis team arrived on my doorstep.

I came to realise that gaining weight was my way out of this mental torture, as the brain needs nourishment to think clearly

They told me the eating disorder unit had a bed waiting for me, insisting I needed to go into inpatient treatment. Once again I refused, forcing the crisis team to conduct an assessment, there in my living room, to see if they could section me.  

I answered their questions in a way that avoided that fate, but it left me frozen in stasis – I felt I had no fight left. 

Gradually I gathered strength and decided to garner more agency over my recovery. 

I leaned into self-help, including podcasts, books and blogs, and my love for science was ignited in learning about the mechanisms of this complex illness. 

Through this, I came to realise that gaining weight was my way out of this mental torture, as the brain needs nourishment to think clearly. 

Slowly, I saw food as a sort of medicine. 

I started gaining weight and the mental torture slackened. I stopped all exercise except walking and introduced more food, and more variety, into my daily intake.

Importantly, I started seeing eating as an opportunity to challenge anorexia by realising what my illness wanted me to do, and doing the opposite. 

In the midst of these difficult years, I’d met my soulmate and, in February 2020, we got married – my weight just within ‘healthy range’. 

Against all odds, when I was almost 36, my periods restarted. 

They weren’t regular, which I put down to ongoing recovery, but suddenly, the thing we’d barely dared to dream about  – having children – was now a possibility. I felt proud, hopeful and with a renewed sense of responsibility. 

But when we still weren’t pregnant after a year, we were referred to reproductive medicine and received that shocking endometriosis diagnosis. 

I’d presumed the reason I wasn’t getting pregnant was that my body needed help ovulating, that I’d be given some tablets to encourage ovulation and that a baby would follow soon after. 

Now I was facing IVF and the fact I had endometriosis without knowing it?! I felt blindsided. 

On reflection, the fact that the disease had been hidden was understandable. Endometriosis can be silent, but I may have noticed symptoms – perhaps irregular, painful periods – had I been menstruating throughout my adult life.  

Specifically, I have something called ovarian endometriosis, large cysts which have damaged my egg quality and quantity, which has significant implications for fertility. 

‘Combined with your low egg reserve and age of 37, there’s no point bothering with less invasive forms of treatment because your chances of success are too low,’ the doctor explained kindly. 

I was crushed, and daunted.  

After seeing me through a life-threatening mental illness, my husband and I had thought our battles were mostly behind us.

We’d come out stronger together so we could get on with being married and starting a family, but now there was another hurdle in our way. 

As it later transpired, my endometriosis was all over – spreading to my pelvis and twisting my fallopian tubes – meaning we’ve had to face the fact that, even with IVF, our chances of success are relatively low.  

Determined not to give up, we’ve followed the doctor’s advice and started treatment –  our fertility crusade continues. 

So far we’ve been through 10 egg retrievals, 9 embryo transfers but zero pregnancies. We are still holding out hope and, fortunately, our relationship seems to go from strength to strength with every setback.  

Had I not been ill for almost the first decade of our relationship, we’d probably have started trying for children sooner.

If we had, maybe my endometriosis would have been discovered at an earlier age before my egg reserves were so damaged, so treatment could have started quicker and improved our chances. 

During recovery I’d become philosophical about my eating disorder, almost grateful to anorexia for the empathy, compassion and resilience it gave me. I was even starting to accept its part in my life trajectory. 

Now though, I will never forgive it for its part in infertility. 

If I could go back to 2006 and drag that young woman off the treadmill, or smash the calorie counter, I would. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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In the world of pro wrestling, when both your shoulders are pinned down flat on the ring and the referee counts to three – otherwise known as a three-count – you’ve lost that match.

I’m a pro wrestler and my shoulders have been pinned down in that way many times.

I’ve often been unable to ‘kick out’ – using my legs to break out of the pin and get my shoulders off the mat – before gingerly walking backstage to shake my opponent’s hand.

I expect it in the ring; but I would have never thought my shoulders would be flat on a hospital bed instead, as I was wheeled into an operating theatre to remove a tumour from my kidney. Diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma – stage 3 kidney cancer – I faced my biggest opponent yet.

It started on a perfectly normal evening.

I was at home playing Call of Duty: Warzone with the boys in lockdown 2020. We were all joking around, waiting for the next game to start. I got up to use the bathroom, and that’s when my world shifted.

Blood. In my urine. A vivid, unmistakable red.

What was happening? My thoughts raced but I convinced myself it wasn’t worth spiralling yet.

That was the beginning of my journey with kidney cancer.

After that initial shock, I went back to my game, trying to shake the unease. ‘Hey, something weird just happened,’ I said casually, as if downplaying it might make it less real.

When I told my friends about the blood, the joking around stopped. Their concern was immediate, but so was their advice: ‘You need to get that checked out.’

But the macho wrestler in me decided to leave it for a few more weeks, ignoring the daily image of blood in my urine. It became increasingly red but I continued to brush it off. Google told me it could be a UTI, so that was the narrative I stuck with.

Around this time, I started noticing other changes too. My appetite vanished. I could barely eat half of what I normally would – I had always had a big appetite from lifting weights.

But I dismissed it, blaming lockdown and not being able to work out how I did due to the gyms being closed. So, I accepted my 7kg muscle loss. 

I eventually told my sister. She’s the kind of person who doesn’t mince words. ‘Adil,’ she said firmly, ‘You have to see a doctor.’ I brushed it off at first but her insistence stuck with me, and when I saw blood again a few days later, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

I finally booked an e-consult with my GP, a month after the initial red flag. The doctor’s voice grew serious as I spoke over the phone and they immediately referred me for tests.

From that moment on, everything moved fast: blood tests, urine samples, ultrasounds, a cystoscopy, CT scans, and finally a biopsy. Each appointment brought a mix of dread and hope. ‘Maybe it’s nothing,’ I’d think. But also ‘What if it’s something?’

The day of my diagnosis is etched into my memory. I asked to be called with my biopsy results instead of traveling 45 minutes to Hampstead’s Royal Free Hospital. I just wanted them to rip the band-aid off.

‘You have kidney cancer,’ said the doctor on the phone.

Time seemed to slow down. I remember staring at the floor, trying to process what that meant.

Cancer. How? Why me?

All I could think about was how drastically my life had just changed, but I needed my mindset to be bulletproof.

The decision to have surgery was made quickly. My tumour was large, and surgery was the best, and only option to remove it before it could grow further. I was terrified but also relieved that something could be done. 

Between my diagnosis and the surgery, only a few weeks passed, but those weeks felt endless. The wait was agonising. I spent a lot of time reflecting, praying, and trying to prepare myself mentally for what lay ahead.

The surgery was physically and emotionally gruelling – my abdomen was bandaged up, I was still high from the anaesthesia and sat in an empty ward with no friends and family around me as lockdown restrictions were still active. 

The pain was intense, but so was the relief – the tumour was gone. The surgery had been major – they’d removed my entire kidney, so recovery was slow. 

There were days of frustration and tears, as I processed what I’d been through and struggled to adjust, but also moments of gratitude. Friends and family rallied around me – their support was a lifeline through the tough days.

When I got the all-clear that I was cancer-free, ‘Alhamdulillah’ was the first thing I said. The Arabic phrase meaning ‘All praise to God’ captured my overwhelming relief and joy.

But the experience left its mark, which is why I decided to share my story and make a documentary – ‘Wrestling with Cancer’. It’s a self-made project, directed by me, with my good friend as the director of photography Saif Babur, and SHXRPSHOOTRS production house. 

It went to film festivals worldwide and is aimed at helping others going through similar battles – we talk to other cancer survivors and their journey, raise awareness about cancer, and show that there is hope, even in the darkest moments. 

Working on the documentary has been incredibly rewarding, and given me the opportunity to go on national TV to tell my story – it has turned this from a negative into a positive. 

I also get DMs from newly diagnosed cancer patients saying that they didn’t think there could be any light at the end of the tunnel, until they found my story. 

It’s important I tell people that cancer cannot put you in a box and shackle your life down – instead it gives you the biggest fight of your life and if you are blessed to overcome it, anything is possible.

These days, I’m back to acting and wrestling, a passion I’d put on hold during my treatment. 

Getting back in the ring after one year post op was both terrifying and exhilarating. My body felt different, but it also reminded me of my strength and what I’d overcome.

If there’s one thing I want readers to take away from this, it’s this: Listen to your body. Don’t ignore the signs, no matter how small they seem, and contact your GP to get checked.

When faced with challenges, lean on the people around you. Their support can make all the difference.

Cancer changed my life, but it also gave me a new perspective. 

My doctor told me that I still have to live with the fact that there’s a one-in-three chance my cancer will come back, but I’m more determined than ever to live fully, to chase my passions, and to make every moment count. 

But finding cancer early makes it more treatable, so I won’t be putting off any warning signs in the future.

There’s no way in hell I’m letting cancer pin me with my shoulders down for the three-count. Instead, you best believe I am kicking out.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing izzie.price@metro.co.uk.