Everybody's free to stop comparing themselves to everyone else

Around six or seven years ago I became mildly obsessed with following an old school friend’s life on Facebook. I watched as she got married to a very handsome man and bought a large house, which they proceeded to fill with cute animals and beautiful babies. Of course, she was also slim and beautiful. Oh, and they ran their own successful business together and they even had a goat.

At the time I had just changed careers for the third time and was living and working in a boarding school while carrying out an unpaid internship during the day. I was a 29-year-old intern and – to steal a line from Grey’s Anatomy – I was a grunt, a nobody, bottom of the journalism food change. I was also knackered, skint and in love with someone who didn’t love me back (story of my life). The contrast could not have been starker between her life and mine.

Sometimes if I was feeling particularly blue and she posted a new set of pictures, I would examine each one, almost wishing I could fall into the image and…