Oh, woe! What will become of me if I can't wear five-inch heels ever again?

Being able to walk perfectly in five-inch stilettos, with an added involuntary jiggle, has for some time been one of my greatest assets

(Ping Zhu)

I'm feeling decidedly flat, literally and figuratively. I'm as flat as the cheetah-print loafers on my sensibly shod feet. I'm as flat as the three pairs of pretty yet orthopaedically risk-averse ballet pumps I've just ordered online with a face like curdled catsick. I'm in flats because my days of wearing high heels look like they might be over – or at the very least grimly reduced – due to a popping sensation in the metatarsal bones in my right foot.

I've worn gorgeously, idiotically high heels for at least a quarter of a century. Being able to walk perfectly in five-inch stilettos, with an added involuntary jiggle, has for some time been one of my greatest assets, propelling me forwards in the world of media despite my lack of debating skills, or a well-connected godfather, or an Oxbridge gong, or, for that matter, any real working knowledge of grammar.

But none of that bollocks mattered, because when I turned up for meetings, all 5ft 10in of me, in a pair of Giuseppe Zanotti five-and-a-half-inch silver snakeskin sandals with a one-inch wedge, I was absolutely bloody terrifying. Heels like that change everything about a human: your posture, your gait, your approachability. They nip in your waist and stick an extra two cups on your tits. And when I was in heels, men gave me almost anything I wanted, largely because I was wearing items from the ankle downwards which were more lethal than shuriken throwing stars. Men preferred simply to sign off the budget rather than to live in fear that I'd clomp into their office the following week, like a livid fembot, clad in an even more alarming pair of shoes.

I've always been a big fan of that Richard Burton quote about Liz Taylor – “She was lavish. She was a dark unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much.” Because that's the essence of flouncing about in the daytime in enormous heels – they make a person too bloody much. I'd rather have all my plates spinning at once, infuriating you, than have all my good Denby saucers back in the cupboard waiting for a special occasion.

I am not anywhere in the region of 5ft 10in tall, incidentally. Without heels I'm marginally taller than an Ewok. Without Bic razors I'm marginally more hirsute than one, especially on the big toe, which is why I'm a fan of pointed pumps. But the truth about my small, stumpy self came home to roost in Toronto, just last week, where I was filming parts of a documentary around the university campus.

If you watch many authored documentaries, you'll be aware of the time-worn televisual cliché where the presenter is seen “thinking about their journey so far”. The thinking is denoted by filming berks like me plodding ponderously around the streets staring at things with a worried expression on their face. It's not enough that you, the viewer, imagines that I probably thought quite deeply during the planning of an entire bloody 49-minute film on wearable technology. No, you need to see evidence of the thinking. “Just walk from the Starbucks to the monument,” the director shouts. “Just look like you're thinking!”

I'll let you into a secret – during these moments, I am never thinking about the documentary. I'm more likely to be thinking, “I wonder if that club sandwich on hotel room service is any good, or if they do that awful thing where they put chopped egg on chicken? I mean, for God's sake, why do that?”

In Toronto I was traipsing about in Lucy Choi heels thinking, “Jesus Christ, the toes in my right foot hurt. Hang on, they hurt last week too. And last month. Like I've ruptured something. Oh God, this is the start, isn't it? It's the start of the end – 25 years of smirking at medics' warnings about bunions and hammertoes. No! No, God, please. Not my feet! Not my beautiful feet!”

I filmed the rest of the links in Converse Chuck Taylors. No one cares what you're saying in trainers. Any old Joe or Joanne can get from A to B in flat shoes. My magic powers are over. My pixie-dust has pissed right off. The only special skills I have left now are a smart mouth, borderline-acceptable karaoke, and the ability to fill blank Word documents in rapid time with opinion, despite a labrador gnawing on my Macbook's AC adapter. The director said I looked nice – sure – but we both knew I looked like a provincial Zumba instructor. My life is ruined.

Thus I've chosen a number of pairs of flat shoes, in captivating colours, from the sorts of speedy-delivery online boutiques which first-world feminists favour. It's the slippery slope to frumpdom. If you spot me at a book festival in neon Crocs, you have explicit permission to pepper-spray me. Presently, I am “icing” my foot. Like an athlete, rather than a Bake Off champ. I ask for your support at this terrible time. Post-heels, I'm in sore need of healing.

@gracedent