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

 This week is eating disorder awareness week but today is also self harm awareness day too, a day to help raise awareness, understanding and empathy around self harm. Self harm and eating disorders are both misunderstood and stigmatized and I write my blog posts to hopefully help raise awareness and understanding from my own perspective of someone who has suffered from both eating disorders and self harm and made suicide attempts (which are different to self harm but there is a big overlap and people who self harm are at higher risk of attempting suicide). As I have said before I'm not proud of my mental health problems but I'm also not ashamed and am proud of how far I have come on my recovery journey.  For me my mental health problems began with eating disorders and I tried self harming once as a teenager but it became a problem in my 20s after years of struggling with my eating disorders, anxiety and depression. The first time I self harmed "properly " I was maybe

 This week is eating disorders awareness week, a cause I am passionate about as there is so much lack of understanding and support for people with all eating disorders. NHS eating disorder services have such strict criteria that so many people fall through the net, too high functioning for help, to complex for help, have other diagnoses of personality disorders, not a low enough bmi, not the right eating disorder...some services only treat low weight anorexia and even then it is often refeeding without any headwork to deal with the underlying psychological causes. I have lost friends to eating disorders and know of far too many others who have begged for help but told they were too complex or there were no  beds available for treatment.  This years theme for eating disorders awareness week is about creating a future where people with binge eating disorder are treated with compassion and understanding.  As I have often been open about, my eating disorder began when I was about 12 but I

 Today is time to talk day 2021, a campaign run by Mind and Rethink mental health charities to help break the stigma and discrimination of having mental health problems. The theme this year is "the power of small" a small conversation about mental health has the power to make a big difference to people with mental health problems to help end the stigma and discrimination of people with mental health problems.  1 in 4 people suffer from a mental health problem in their  lives from mild to moderate anxiety and depression, eating disorders and more severe and enduring mental health problems such as bipolar, schizophrenia and personality disorders, and 90 % of people with mental health problems feel they are discriminated against because of their mental health problems.  I am one of those who suffer from mental health problems and I'm not ashamed of it, I think the more open we are about our own mental health, the more it helps other people understand mental health problems a