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

 I'm open about my mental health, I want people to understand what it's like for someone living with an eating disorder.  An eating disorder doesn't come in a specific size, someone of 20 stone or 5 stone can have the anorexic voice that screams at them daily that all food is bad, that bullies them into believing they are fat, a failure every time they eat. It can scream at you as you are trying to sleep, making you hate how fat and disgusting you are.....it has you believe....and the sad thing is if you are fat, people say things like well you haven't just realised you are fat....eating disorder thinking and behaviour aren't understood but are even less understood in people with Eating Disorders who are normal or overweight. It isn't the same as a diet gone wrong, or just over indulging......it is the cycle of your head not allowing you to eat, then eating,  then not eating again.... Yet most people with bulimia or other non specified eating disorders are norma...

 Mental health is so unpredictable, borderline personality disorder is definitely unpredictable and stupid things can trigger it. Borderline personality disorder causes highs and lows but with bipolar the highs and lows are caused by chemical imbalances and can be medicated  but with bpd the highs and lows are caused by the environment, circumstances and relationships, not just close relationships. I have long periods of good times and I don't want the short periods of bad times to set me back but it's so hard, I know my lows take me to dark places and it's hard trying to put on a happy front when I'm feeling so emotional and I also get scared where my bad times take me. I think the unpredictability of the pandemic and the lockdowns has affected my mental health, when I joined choir in 2018  I hadn't been socialising with anyone apart from support workers for a couple of years apart from the couple of times a year old friends had been available to meet up, I have a ...

 Today is World suicide prevention day and the theme is "create hope through action". I want to share my story of suicide survival and what it's actually like to be feeling suicidal, what causes me to feel suicidal in the hope it will dispel myths of suicide and help people understand how they can help someone who is suicidal or at risk of suicide. Hopefully by sharing my story (which unfortunately is a familiar story for too many), I can help raise some awareness and understanding and help break the stigma and judgement the topic of suicide and mental health causes. I'm classed as complex by mental health services, I have a diagnosis of personality disorders and often people with or without that diagnosis are classed as attention seeking or manipulative when reaching out for help when feeling suicidal. Often we hear people who are going to commit suicide won't talk about it and if they are they are obviously just after attention, that isn't true. For me I hav...

I haven't written a blog post for a while so felt like writing one. I had a bit of a bad day yesterday and sometimes when were feeling down we can forget all the good we have going on in our lives. I still get triggered by thinking about things from my past and the way some people have treated me especially when I was at school and college and got bullied I think because I was quiet and sensitive so an easy target so I always felt I didn't fit in and often the times I did have friends I had ones who used me when they had no one better and would arrange to meet me then not turn up or cancel last minute as they arranged with someone else or forgot then I would go home crying on the bus, thinking what was wrong with me. ( I will admit there was a time when I was a bit older I let friends down when I kept falling asleep and feeling ill because of my eating disorders).  I now have a couple of good friends I've had for my adult life, but they either don't live local and / or ...

 I write my blog to record my journey and "tell my story" . I'm often told I shouldn't be open on Facebook etc. but I feel at my worst times with my mental health I was very open in often a negative way ( because I was very mentally unwell at the time) but I now share my journey and the positives and hopefully coming out the other side so to speak and I'm not ashamed of my mental health problems anymore than I am physical health problems, I want to raise awareness and help break the stigma and hopefully give hope to others who have been where I have been. I have been left with the scars of the last few years and physical health problems as a consequence but I'm trying not to be ashamed of them and see them as a reminder of where I have been and how far I have come on my journey since then. This week 6 years ago I got sent to a locked hospital in Mexborough for ladies with personality disorders because of the severity of my self harm and suicide attempts, the l...