Life is a journey not a destination so .....my story isn't over yet;...me

It showed up on my Facebook memories today that I couldn't face going to choir last year as I felt too fat to go out. It actually was worse than that and I ended up taking an overdose and spent 5 days in hospital. This time last year I had just had my gallbladder out but even that wasn't stopping bulimia in its tracks and I took the overdose as it was the only way to get out of the cycle of eating and being sick...even the thought of bursting my stitches after my gallbladder OP didn't stop me making myself sick. Fast forward a year I'm proud to say I haven't taken any overdoses in exactly a year...so since 2014 this is the safest year I have had. (I do have support workers do my prescribed medication but I haven't had the strong thoughts to buy paracetamol that I used to obsessively do). A big part of this is since joining a choir I have found a purpose and enjoyment in life I never thought I would find again. For a year I do still have fleeting obsessive suic...

I've mentioned before about having avoidant personality disorder, a type of severe social anxiety. I often say I don't have friends anymore when I'm really down. But what I mean is my good friends who I've had for years have busy lives and I feel I don't fit in their lives anymore. Which I do just not always as often as I would like but when we get together I do end up enjoying seeing them. Over the last 5 years really because of my severe and enduring mental health problems I have been more avoidant of social situations as my anxiety about feeling I'm not good enough , I won't fit in, what if i embarrass myself especially if i have one of my emotional meltdowns and end up crying and also with my eating disorder what if i get anxious about the food or conversations about diet talk etc. that often happens at social gatherings. So last night I was invited to a gin and jazz night for my actually oldest friends birthday (we have been friends since I was about 13...

In society and by medical professionals we're made to  believe it is unhealthy to be fat, it is healthy to be thin and there are good and bad foods. It is all too common to hear people going on about how good they are being because they are only having a piece of fruit for lunch...how they are being good by not having cake etc. Yet in the same society every social situation involves food...yesterday I went to the local mental health services agm meeting where all the local service areas showcase their services. There are contradictions though...there are services encouraging people to follow healthy lifestyles to lose weight because alot of mental health medication has side effects of weight gain (which can't easily be lost just by healthy diet and exercise...I put on between 4 and 6 stone on mirtazapine an antidepressant and even when I was swimming 100 lengths a day and barely eating a few years back I didn't lose any weight and am struggling to lose it now even after sto...

I know I have been very open in this blogg with my story of the past. I felt I had to tell my story especially for people who have known me more recently. I feel that my life stopped about 5 years ago because of my mental health and I feel ashamed and embarrassed of the way my life went and felt that my story explains why I don't work, why I'm single and have no kids and i feel it looks like i haven't achieved anything with my life. I feel that the last 5 years of severe and enduring mental health problems has over ridden any good I did before then. I did work for 17 years ...10 years as a support worker for adults with mental health problems and learning disabilities, I taught horse riding for 4 years (at the same time as doing care work) and times I didn't have other work I did factory work. I feel my life came to a standstill but I guess the achievement is my life didn't stop. MY STORY ISN'T OVER YET;.... At the moment I have half goals I want to achieve ...

This is kind of a blog post about help I have had (or not had) for my eating disorder and other mental health problems...how I feel failed by a system when I first asked for help. I first saw any mental health professional when I was 14...I saw a mental health worker and I remember talking to her about being bullied at school and struggling with issues around being adopted....I originally got referred there because my parents and school had concerns about me skipping meals and making myself sick and some mild self harm. Apparently this mental health worker told my parents that I had issues about my sister being pregnant which wasn't the case at all...and I was discharged with no help after 6 or so sessions. I continued to restrict, binge and purge throughout school then college then university and I didn't see anyone during that time for help....in fact if anyone confronted me about my eating habits or weight loss I would be defensive and deny it was a problem, I was happ...

The eating disorder voice is always there telling you that if you restrict you will lose weight. When I was younger I could go a couple of days without eating....I would be tired and slow at work but I would tell myself I was fine I was losing weight but a couple of days restricting always leads to bingeing at some point....all restrictive diets will cause bingeing and now I am older and after years of unhealthy eating disorders restricting leads to me feeling more physically Ill my liver and kidney and heart function aren't normal after years of abuse I have put my body through through eating disorder and overdoses. I don't want that life anymore but I don't fully know how to start. The strict eating disorder voice says I can have no calories a day....but obviously you need to eat to live...but life would be so much simpler if it didn't exist. Ironically eating disorders I know for me and for other sufferers are used as a way to escape from life because life is scary...

I did a blog on avoidant and dependant personality disorders but wanted to do a separate one on Borderline personality disorder (bpd). Borderline is border between neuroses (a mental health condition that causes distress but you have a grip on reality such as anxiety and depression) and psychosis (a mental health condition where you lose grip on reality and may see or hear things that arent there or have delusions of thinking or dissociate).I have borderline  personality disorder but scored higher for dependant and avoidant personality disorders but do recognise bpd in myself too, but I think the stigma that goes with bpd makes me more reluctant to accept the diagnosis but I also believe my avoidant and dependant personality disorders affect my life negatively the most because they cause me the most anxiety and loneliness and social isolation that feed my depression). Bpd is a stigmatised and controversial diagnosis...some psychiatrists don't believe it exists others believe it exi...

I want this blog to be honest and informative.Often people think self harm is a suicide attempt. In fact often people self harm ironically as the opposite and they self harm to feel alive in a state of dissociation(dissociation for me happens when I am so emotionally distressed I zone out and end up acting on self harm thoughts...it is like being drunk in that you know you are doing it but your not in control).Also people think of self harm as cutting but it can take many forms such as burning, hair pulling skin picking , head banging, overdosing and tying ligatures. I was about 13 when I first self harmed but it was only a couple of minor scratches really and at that age my main problem was an eating disorder which wasn't as a form of self harm (I've heard some people say they used food as a way to harm themself by starving or bingeing and purging but for me my eating disorder was about wanting to feel I was good at something and wanting to feel in control and to help me fit i...

I thought I would do a blog of what's going on now re eating disorder rather than another long story of the past. I started a group therapeutic community for personality disorders this week and it is still early days in that. The therapeutic community is to help you to deal with emotional stuff and working with other people with similar emotional issues to help each other. But they even admit they aren't an eating disorder service and eating disorder services are so stretched it is hard to get help from them especially for bulimia.  The problem with that is I cant get any help with meal planning, portion control, weight management, body image, dealing with the eating disorder voice that makes you feel guilty about eating and then how to deal with urges to binge because of emotions or restricting. So I'm trying the best I can to deal with it myself..... Last week I was doing a special k diet which although was eating regularly was too low calorie...was making me feel faint....