I can't draw ...

I also can’t count, walk in high heels, touch my toes or develop an affection for stairs. And that’s just the start of things I’m not much cop at.

Thinking about my perceived limitations, let’s put “go on a diet and stick to it” on the list.

If there’s room, shove on positive thinking or the ability to thicken my skin just by will alone.

Ask me about my achievements, or to ruminate on what I’m good at, and I get stuck.

As part of my new therapy sessions for the TV documentary I’m making for the new year, I get to think about all this stuff while my feet dangle child-like off the end of a huge settee on the fourth floor (fourth!... even I can do the maths on that one) of a “treatment centre” in London’s Little Venice.

We’ve had tears, we’ve had mild tantrums, days without make-up, some where I’ve felt so joyous my roots have spontaneously back-combed themselves, others that have left me feeling rather battered and confused by the jumble of contradictions that goes by the name of Me.

For anyone who’s ever struggled with their weight, let’s just say that my sessions with the Fat Shrink (an oxymoron if ever there was one) are going to be more enlightening to the uninformed masses than they are to me at present.

Hopefully, anyone who sees this programme will learn that weight isn’t all about what you put into your mouth and what you don’t do with your sweat glands (ie use them on anything other than rushing to make the breakfast times at Burger King).

For my Fat Shrink, the question isn’t so much what I need to do to lose weight (“eat less, move more, stupid”) but what’s happened in my life that’s made food my number one coping mechanism and my prize-winning pain.

Why are people fat? Superficially, this is as stupid a question as “How the hell did I get pregnant, Mam.”

We came, we chewed, we swallowed. Simple. Or is it?

The Fat Shrink has me literally drawing my life. And as I said, I’m not that good at it, or thinking about the things I’ve achieved or am good at.

She says I tend to kick around the positive aspects of my life and character with the tip of my toes. When it comes to shouting from the rooftops how flawed I think I am, I do it with ease and Olympian dexterity.

Only I needed her to tell me so.

But what’s made me like this?

A look at my ridiculously naive drawings to age 10 and then from 10 to 20, and patterns start to appear – or rather, characteristics and circumstances which I hadn’t really considered before.

An insular child. Self-contained. A busy family business. Self-reliant. Easy going. Sad. Sing-songy. Gutsy. Lazy. Lovely. Complicated. Happy. Content, with a box of salt ‘n’ vinegar Chipsticks for company sometimes.

And there are finger drawings for all of the above.

Then I find myself an Over Ten, in Tiswas competition terms. It’s boys (or lack thereof), school, music, decisions (Atkins or the French Women Don't Get Fat But Italian Women Do diet during the first year at university), the crippling loss of loved ones and the awful realisation than being a grown-up is a terribly sticky and difficult business.

But buns, as the Fat Shrink loves to remind me, don’t have to be.

Next week it’s back to the drawing board as I consider the trials and tribulations of my third decade. I’m not sure what revelations are awaiting me in purple and green hues.

Just like diets I’ve loved to hate and not lost anything on in my past, going back to my future is anything but a piece of cake.