She tells Stylist: “From my teens, the build-up to Christmas, the smell of the tree – I hated it. I hated everything it brought with it. There was fear in the run-up to the day itself with all that food just sitting round. What if I couldn’t control myself? What if I just ate everything?

“No one saw what was really going on – the panic from mid-way through the year that only heightened as we got closer to Christmas. I am 33 now, but having lived with anorexia since I was 13, this has been the way I have spent and felt about most Christmases each year for over half my life.”

As her recovery began, Hope started to feel pressure not to let her health needs “ruin the day” for her loved ones. “While my family has been brilliant at making Christmas work for me,” she says, “it hasn’t always been easy, and there have been times when things have gone a bit wobbly, to say the least, when celebrating with others.”

One year, Christmas dinner was served later than planned. For someone not dealing with an eating disorder, this might sound fairly innocuous, but to Hope and others like her, deviating from a mealtime routine or plan can really ramp up the anxiety.

She recalls: “I could feel the stress increasing rapidly as seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into an hour. Everyone was else sitting around laughing away while, inside, I was trying to work out how eating the meal was going to be possible. I sat down at the table, having managed to put food on my plate and start eating, when out of nowhere someone piped up: ‘I can eat this because I missed breakfast today.’ Then someone else chimed in with ‘I am starting my diet in January.’”

Hope remembers the feeling of the sweat “slowly seeping” down her back. She wiped her mouth, and left the table to head to the bathroom where she tried to compose herself and remind herself of all the things she learned when she was getting treatment in hospital.

“To some, those words mean nothing,” she explains, “but to many of us these statements have a catastrophic impact on that meal, and then for goodness knows how many days beyond that. These feelings aren’t unique to me; they impact millions all over the world who are affected by eating disorders. And not just those directly living with the condition, but their entire network.”

This year, however, she says her festive season feels different. She explains: “I have an 18-month-old who I want to be able to enjoy Christmas with, who is my reason for embracing the fear and pain of recovery.

“People with eating disorders can and do recover, so this Christmas, hold onto the hope that things can change and you can be free too.”

“I hated it all”: what Christmas can be like when you have an eating disorder