Only days before, her world had been turned upside down when her on/off boyfriend John*– the father of her two-year-old son George* – had told her their relationship was over and that he was now seeing another woman.

To make matters worse, his girlfriend was a size-8 dancer.

Christie had put on nearly 5st during pregnancy, going from a size 10 to an 18, and loathed her body.

“The woman John left me for was the size I thought the perfect woman should be,” she says.

Christie felt so humiliated, she started self-harming.

“I was so desperate I burned my arms and legs with the iron to punish myself,” she says.

“When Mum confiscated the iron, I used hair straighteners instead.”

Christie and John met at college when they were 16.

A year later, in 2004, she fell pregnant with George, now four.

She says: “We were thrilled we were having a baby.

"I told myself I was eating for two, and over the next nine months I went from 9st 7lb to more than 14st.”

She and John started arguing during her pregnancy, but Christie was confident the baby would keep them together.

Instead, the rows intensified after George was born and she found herself in the grip of post-natal depression.

“Looks had always been important to me,” she explains.

“John and my dad were both fitness instructors and all my friends were obsessed with how they looked.

"Now I had a Caesarean scar, was 5st overweight and looked like a beached whale.

“John wasn’t giving me any support but I loved him.

"He was George’s dad and I wanted to make it work.”

During the next two years the couple split up and got back together several times.

Christie, now 22, became obsessed about getting back to her pre-pregnancy weight, thinking it would help salvage her relationship.

“I tried diets but they didn’t work,” she says.

“Then, one day when we were living apart, I remembered friends telling me that certain drugs and energy drinks stopped you feeling hungry.

"So I made a few phone calls and the next weekend, when George went to stay with his dad, I bought some cocaine from a dealer, drank cans of Red Bull and got out of my head.”

Christie liked the way it made her feel.

So she did it again and again.

She also starved herself, drinking Red Bull and coffee all day because stimulant drinks killed her appetite.

She was soon spending £250 on cocaine at weekends and getting heavily into debt.

With no job, she relied on her parents to pay off thousands of pounds of rent arrears and bills.

Hopes of any permanent reconciliation with John collapsed when, in 2006, Christie discovered he was dating the dancer.

She started self-harming with the iron and cutting herself with a kitchen knife.

At the end of that year, Christie woke up one morning and couldn’t lift her head off the pillow.

“I thought: ‘I can’t do this any more.’

"I hated everything about myself.

"I believed I was a terrible mother, so I went to the bathroom cabinet, swallowed a mix of tablets, then went back to bed and waited to die,” she explains.

A friend called round unexpectedly and found Christie unconscious.

She was rushed to hospital, where she stayed for three days.

Christie, who was in the grip of serious depression, took five more overdoses over the next six months.

Her family, who had realised they needed to watch her closely, always found her in time.

Early last year, Christie saw a specialist who diagnosed body dysmorphic disorder, where sufferers are wrongly convinced they are unattractive.

She says: “I was a size 10 by then and I still hated the way I looked.”

She overdosed again in May 2007 and admitted herself to a psychiatric unit close to her home in Tamworth, Staffordshire.

She recalls: “John agreed to look after George, but two days after I went into hospital my mum rang to say he was going to fight for custody.

"I realised I had to get better so I could keep my son.”

Christie convinced doctors to let her out, but access to George was hard.

“When I did see him, he’d scream when I left.

"Knowing I had to get him home spurred me on,” she says.

For the next five months Christie struggled on, determined to get better.

Then, out of the blue, John, 24, dropped his custody fight without any explanation.

“There was a knock at the door. It was John with George,” says Christie.

“George said: ‘Mummy, I’m coming to live with you again,’ and he grabbed hold of my legs and hugged me. It was amazing.”

Now Christie feels happier with her body – she’s a size 10 and 9st 7lb – but still takes antidepressants.

She weaned herself off cocaine a few months before going to the psychiatric hospital.

“It frightens me to think George nearly grew up without his mum,” she says.

“I still feel envious when I look at thinner girls, but having a child is so much more important than having a good body.”

Has your quest for the perfect body almost killed you? Can you understand why Christie started to self-harm as a form of release? Do you think Christie really wanted to commit suicide or was it a cry for help? Why is there this intense amount of pressure on women to be slim?

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* Names have been changed Photography: Syriol Jones Hair & Make-up: Firyal Arneil at Time Agency