Uncategorized – The BED Post

Blue skies

I’m slowly learning to see blue skies

When I was taught to see the grey

The thunderclouds of disappointment

The sharp lightning strikes of shame

I’m starting to see the marvel of rainbows

Fractured light through drops of rain

The hidden beauty found when sorrow

Gives way to hope as life begins again

I will never know if you’re proud of me

If I’m good enough, if I’ve done well

So I’m teaching myself to see blue skies

To see light where once darkness fell

No, life isn’t all rainbows and blue skies

But nor it is all darkness, blame and pain

I get to choose where I put my focus

I choose sunshine over rain

Some “R”s to try in Eating Disorder recovery

I felt that this Instagram post deserved its own place on the blog. I hope you find it useful.

Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter for more content.

#TimeToTalkDay is a day of conversations about mental health. It’s a day to check in with others, share experiences, and most of all, to challenge stigma around mental illness. Even though the Time to Change campaign is no more, the day is still marked by Mind, Rethink Mental Illness, Co-op, and of course, those Champions from the original campaign, albeit under different banners.

I joined the campaign in 2017. I was a very different person back then, and in a very different place mentally. Still unwell, on antidepressants and in therapy, very unsure of myself, and fairly new to being open about my mental health issues, I wasn’t strong enough to campaign fully yet, so I started small. I wrote an email to my friends and colleagues at work, some of whom knew about my issues, some who didn’t. Here’s what I wrote:

Hi all,

Today is Time to Talk Day. Many of you already know this is a cause that means a lot to me. It’s a few years now since I made the decision to be open about my mental health issues, and I have never regretted it, not once. When I was first diagnosed with depression, age 21 and on the verge of failing my final year at university, I didn’t even tell my parents. Finally, thanks to campaigns like Time to Talk and Mind’s 1 in 4, the stigma is disappearing, and the isolation I used to feel is firmly in the past.

We all have some knowledge of mental health issues, it’s part of our daily job, so I won’t bore you with the details of the exhaustion, shame, and frustration my conditions cause me. Instead I want to use today to say thank you.

Thank you for not judging. Thank you for noticing when I’m having a bad day and checking I’m OK. Thank you for sharing stories of people with similar issues so I know I’m not alone. Thank you for seeing me as me, not as a mental illness. Thank you for making me laugh. Thank you for helping me feel “normal” (whatever that is). It makes a massive difference and it’s what today is all about.

Kind regards,

Sharon

I agonised over that email, and was terrified to press send. But of course, my colleagues’ and friends’ response was as kind as ever. It gave me the courage to keep speaking out, having those conversations, and challenging stigma. To join my local hub, where I found more friends with inspiring stories. And then eventually, to start this blog and social media accounts dedicated to those very same things.

You see, Time to Talk Day, and conversations about mental health, can make a massive difference. They can give strength, courage, and support. They can change people’s minds and beliefs. They can create a ripple that spreads out and touches more hearts and minds than you ever thought possible.

This Time to Talk Day, I hope you find the courage to be open, speak out, or just ask a loved one how they are. And if you’re not sure what to say or do, you won’t go wrong by starting with those things I was grateful for back in 2017, because those were things that helped give me the strength to recover, and keep fighting to stay in recovery: friendship, understanding, and love.

If you’d like know more, click here: https://timetotalkday.co.uk/

Swimwear and scars

Content warning: this post mentions sexual assault.

A friend shared a story recently about her struggle with showing her scar in a bikini. It was really inspiring and it got me thinking. I don’t have scars like my friend, well not external ones. Yet it occured to me that I’ve never worn a bikini. Definitely not since puberty, at least.

I suppose wearing a bikini is the ultimate in self confidence, in body confidence. My Instagram feed is full of beautiful fat women wearing two pieces. But since my recovery, I haven’t bought any swimwear at all.

Then I remembered the last time I wore a swimsuit on holiday. Way back when I was straight size, but not really any more confident in my body. And I remember the man who leaned forward and tried to put his hand down the front of that swimsuit, and my friend and I fighting him off.

I remember my therapist asking if I subconsciously binged to make myself bigger to avoid the groping, the unwanted comments and propositions. And it made sense. I feel less visible when I’m fat. I am less visible. My body is certainly less sexualised by strangers.

We’re all conditioned to want to be thinner, more attractive. But whenever I complied and lost weight, my prize was unwanted attention from men who believed they had the right to see me as an object. To stare openly at my breasts. To grope. To shout at me in the street.

Losing weight was supposed to be all my dreams come true. It was supposed to bring happiness, success, everything I ever wanted.

What it actually brought me was a feeling of unease, of not feeling safe. The expense of buying a whole new wardrobe for what I now know would be a temporary body, because my real body and my eating disorder always fought back. It brought a constant hunger. It never brought that confidence the models had in the ads.

So I tried to fake it. I put on a swimsuit. And look what happened.

I don’t know when the feeling of unease began. Maybe with being viewed and treated as an adult women from the age of 12 or 13. Or with the house party in my early teens when a boy kicked in the door to the bathroom, pushed me down on the floor and ripped my knickers off before I managed to get away.

As young girls we’re taught to feel pride in being sexually attractive to men. And so I did. But I also felt afraid. And in the midst of all this were those eating disorder thoughts of being ugly, and fat, and hating myself, and not understanding why men would find me attractive at all.

It’s all so fucked up.

Looking back on my therapist’s question years later, with all that I’ve learned about diets and restriction and how our bodies fight back, I don’t think I was deliberately making myself fat. My body was just responding to famine in the way it is biologically programmed to. Each successive period of weight loss, whatever the reason for it, has inevitably been followed by a period of weight gain, where I ended up bigger than I started.

In many ways I wish my body’s set point weight were lower, that I’d recovered into a straight size body that fit better in the world. But another part of me is glad that I’m fat. And yet another part of me isn’t particularly bothered about my body’s size at all.

Because through body positivity, I found body neutrality, and I’m starting to view my body according to how it feels and what it does, not how it looks. I may not love it. I may never love it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t listen to what it needs and treat it with respect.

I don’t know if I’ll ever reach the point where I put on a bikini. But I’d like to think that if I do, I’ll do it without fear.

Stolen Years

Allowing myself to feel,

To cry,

To realise just how much you stole from me.

Peace, inner calm,

The strength to be myself.

The courage to admit just how terrified I was.

Sapping my self-esteem

Till I felt worthless, unworthy of any joy.

The feeling of dread

That they would all realise I was a fraud,

Not knowing what I was doing.

Seeming calm but completely out of control,

Wanting it to end,

But not knowing how.

Eating down the sadness,

Throwing up the fear,

Not knowing why

But knowing it was wrong.

Knowing they’d be horrified

If they ever knew.

Trapped in the cycle

Year after year.

So many years stolen.

So few remain.

Time to make them count.

Avoidance

It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote a post. I’d convinced myself that I’ve been too busy. And it’s true, a lot has happened since I visited my parents.

I’ve started a new job, which has meant a lot of new things to learn. I’ve started physiotherapy, and been diagnosed with fibromylagia. I was caught up in a rather nasty Twitter storm. I attended a real life Mental Health event after over 2 years of campaigning online and appeared on a podcast for the first time. I’ve met up with friends. And on top of all that, there are a couple of eating disorder projects I’m contributing to in the background.

It’s fair to say there’s been a lot going on.

But I always find the time to write when I really want to. So today I turned on my computer and asked myself why.

And the reason? I’ve been avoiding, of course. The amount of online shopping I’ve been doing should have told me that. Or the amount of mindless scrolling on social media. My new ways of numbing myself now that binges have taken a back seat.

The sheer amount that’s been going on means I’ve got a lot to process. A lot of emotions to feel. But just doing everything I’ve been doing with chronic pain and fatigue is exhausting in itself. And on top of that, I’ve been really tired of feeling so much.

I’ve made a few breakthroughs in the last few months, and that’s amazing. But I had feelings fatigue. I just needed a break, to avoid and feel numb until I have the emotional energy and resilience to start processing again.

The last couple of weekends, my body has forced me to have a break. My migraines have returned, enforcing bed rest and cancelled plans. I’m still waiting for the new medication the rheumatologist advised and hoping it helps with the fatigue and lack of energy. Until then, it was inevitable that my body would rebel against the new stresses it is under.

Because change is stressful. Even positive change. And I know I probably haven’t helped matters by refusing to face that.

I’ve been focusing on getting through, and riding the worst of the thoughts and feelings as best as I can when they come up. But avoiding the rest.

I will return to processing and healing soon, I know I will. I’ve come too far to give up now. But I’m tired, and I need an rest. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve pushed too hard and too fast before in my recovery and it never ended well.

So I’m allowing myself to take my time, and avoid if I need to, while I get used to all the positive changes I’ve made recently in my life.

If you’re feeling tired and in need of a break, too, know that it’s OK. It doesn’t mean you won’t ever get there. It just means that all journeys need breaks, stops along the way, so you can rest, recover, and make sure you’re still on the right path.

Never discount the power of rest and recuperation. It will give you the strength you need to continue on the road to recovery. And if the rest includes a little avoidance, then that’s OK, too.

Have decades of eating my feelings down made me emotionally illiterate?

I grew up believing feelings were bad. I was told I was too emotional, oversensitive, that I needed not to take things so personally. So I stopped talking about feelings, and did my best not to have them. Bingeing became my go-to when I needed to put a lid on those pesky, unwanted emotions.

The only problem is, when you don’t feel emotions how can you figure out what they are? If you don’t talk about them, how can you learn to label them, know what their purpose is? Over the past few months, I’ve been noticing clues that this is a skill I lack.

I recently did an online course where we were asked to name emotions we wanted to feel more. I was stumped. I really struggled to come up with the required three words.

I’ve been more anxious about leaving the house during lockdown, but my anxiety has presented itself differently to last time I had it. I found myself procrastinating and putting off going out. It took months to figure out why I was doing it.

I’ve been crying a lot at little things lately. I don’t know why. I can’t label what I’m feeling. I don’t know what’s wrong, or how to fix it. All I can do is allow myself to feel whatever it is, and not fall back into old habits.

There are some emotions I can label. The big ones. Anger, sadness, frustration, love. And joy! An emotion which has come with recovery. When I first started recovering, every emotion, including joy and happiness, came in an overpowering wave which was expressed through tears.

Finally, I’m at a point where I’m not completely overwhelmed by or scared of emotions. But I am confused by them. I know the words, the labels, for feelings. But that knowledge is abstract. I don’t truly know what they feel like in my body. And if I can’t label my emotions, how can I work out why I’m feeling them or what they are for?

I know that trusting myself and my body is my path to recovery. But it seems like I still have work to do. I need to go back to the beginning and pay attention to my moods, look at an emotion wheel and label how I’m feeling. Learn what those moods are trying to tell me. Then use that knowledge to work out what I do next, so that I continue to grow and evolve. Because what use is recovery if I don’t?

It’s OK to feel overwhelmed

I have a big week coming up. It’s Time to Talk Day on Thursday 4th February. My poem “First Steps” is being published. I’m speaking at an online event. A blog I wrote is being published locally.

I should be excited, right?

No, I’m overwhelmed and anxious. I’ve managed to self-sabotage by over-exercising, triggering my chronic pain and leaving myself barely able to move. This means I can’t shower, wash my hair, and take a selfie to accompany said blog.

Recovery is hard work. Taking selfies is a massive challenge for someone who has spent their life avoiding cameras because they hated the way they look.

I’ll get there. The same way I have so far. One tentative step at a time. Because anything more is too overwhelming. Especially when the world is a scary and disconcerting place right now.

Be kind to yourselves this February. And remember, it’s OK to feel overwhelmed.

Category: Uncategorized