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

I guess I'm not the easiest person to understand sometimes, especially as a can be positive one minute, then negative the next. With the mental health diagnosis i have there are usually triggers to low mood and impulsive behaviours. Recently my mum has been poorly and my biggest fear I have is losing my parents and also someone pointed out I seem to struggle close to my birthday and I always feel guilty being alive around my birthday because of my birth mum dying at 28 as a result of me being born. I guess I am open about stuff, some people would say too open, but i guess i have been in mental health services so long it has become normality to be around other people with issues who often also talk openly so i forget " normal people " aren't as open. Also I think the last few years my identity became my mental health problems but I'm trying to break away from that. That is why I joined a choir and have started going to a drama group so I can do things to distract a...

After a couple of low weeks, I'm feeling more positive again in general (I'm making myself eat regularly as skipping meals leads to having to eat later on anyway so ends up a yo yo effect which affects metabolism and leads to weight gain in the end anyway and when I don't eat and restrict my mood goes rubbish and I feel physically ill and struggle to enjoy anything including the things I love doing)....hopefully this thinking and feeling can last. The positive is even when I have my low moods I still have positive life goals....I think thinking of the big 4 0 in a years time has got me thinking. Anyway that's the mental health stuff out of the way, I have decided to cancel my gym membership as I rarely use it. I haven't swum since October when I did a sponsored swim because had a sinus infection and blocked ears so I don't want to make them worse and I'm going to save the money I would have been paying for the gym to save up to hopefully go on a choir tour...

Last week I saw my heart consultant and got a letter back saying my heart function is only just below normal now which is good. I'm having another heart scan in March to see why I got heart failure in 2015 and to see if there is a reason for me being permenantly tired and get breathless exercising relating to my heart. This got me thinking back to 2015. In 2014 i was the most suicidal i had ever been and took about 60 overdoses (I'm sure that contributed to the heart failure as i also got told i had chronic kidney disease at that time).At the end of 2014 i got a really bad cough, was coughing up cups full of phlegm (gross i know) and could barely make it across my bedroom without being out of breath and nearly passing out. At the same time i was getting assessed to go to a mental health therapeutic community in London and me and my mum went and it was supposed to be a 5 minute walk to the hotel we were staying in and it took an hour and i had to sit down at every wall we got to...

The reason my mood has been rubbish is purely down to bloomin food glorious food. Before Christmas I did a sponsored swim. Because I was swimming and I had to swim because I was doing it for others to raise money, my head was allowing me to eat regular meals ( I was restricting on days I wasn't swimming)....as I was burning off the calories. I often get anxious swimming on my own but managed to push through the anxiety to make myself do it as I don't like not achieving goals and letting people down. Since I stopped the swim I've struggled and gone back to feeling guilty about every bloomin meal, so the days I'm out for the day I generally don't take any food just fruit juice. But then there comes a point you have to eat because your feeling dizzy and irritable and mood is low. Even choir hasn't lifted my mood but rationally I know it is due to food....but irrationally the eating disorder thoughts take you over to the point you feel guilty eating anything and I ...

I think it was about 5 years ago I stopped working after being let down by mental health services at the time...being told I was too high functioning for help because I was working and not committing crime to being too complex (don't worry not because I then turned to crime ...not that I'm judging anyone that does there are reasons for every person's paths in life and it is sad some people end up down that path...often due to mental health problems and addiction). I came out of an eating  disorder clinic in 2010 and seeing as I wasn't getting any therapy I thought I would just try forget my own problems and aim to train as a nurse...a career I have wanted to do since I was 12....unfortunately that was the same age my mental health problems began and they seem to have won....at the moment. I did the access to nursing course, got accepted to uni to train as a mental health nurse but then my fear of failure and other unresolved issues made my mental health problems the wor...

Today is time to talk day an important day on the mental health calendar, a day funded by mental  health charities mind and rethink to get people talking about mental health to change lives. 1 in 4 people suffer from mental health problems, from mild to moderate anxiety and depression to more severe and enduring illnesses, yet there is still a stigma that causes many of those people to become socially isolated, ashamed and worthless. By talking openly about mental health problems we can help break that stigma and change and even save lives. I have struggled with my mental health since I was about 12 when I first struggled with an eating disorder and some self harm which has followed me into my adult life and resulted in me making multiple suicide attempts and spending a year sectioned in hospital in 2015. With an eating disorder, the eating disorder thoughts take you over until you feel that you have become lost and you feel like you lose your own personality. It is like ...

Food affects mood so skipping meals causes low and irritable moods. But so does eating when you have a "voice" telling you off for eating, telling you you are a fat failure. Recovered anorexics and bulimics who are weight restored so physically look "normal" mentally still have a constant battle in their head. ( this is alot of the problem with eating disorders treatment...it is rarely available until sufferers reach very low BMI and then are refed with little headwork...and then most of the headwork is focused only on thinking about food and body image which are half of the problem but doesn't deal with the underlying causes such as low self confidence, social anxiety, life problems which all triggered the eating disorder and then patients are classed as recovered based on weight.. meaning mentally you become more tormented then when you were smaller and so mentally aren't recovered). My main mental health problem i now deal with is the eating disorder voic...

I'm honest and open in my blog posts. I have days where I'm 100 percent positive about recovery and life in general but I also have days, I guess like everyone else where I still struggle. In my case that includes getting thoughts to self harm (like I have said in previous posts self harm is separate to suicide and I no longer have suicidal thoughts as even on the days I struggle I am positive about my future) but I am doing a therapy called dbt and one of the skills is "distress tolerance" which is basically being able to sit with often overwhelming uncomfortable feelings and emotions which in the past would have been times I would have self harmed. I still get those times where I get those overwhelming feelings and I'm trying to reflect on what causes them and how to reduce them.My new years resolution was to not diet and eat 3 meals and 3 snacks a day (a recommendation from CBT therapy I had for eating disorders) but the part of me that still has strong eating ...