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

 Christmas is probably my favourite time of year, the season of goodwill, spending time with family and friends and choosing presents and cards for family and friends who I appreciate have supported me all year in one way or another. So many non Christians celebrate Christmas and it has become very commercial but I was bought up Christian and there has been a strong Christian connection to a few people who have supported me this year and this year is a year I have often thought I wouldn't survive and despite struggling still I'm thankful I did, my mum always says where there is life there is hope and I want to believe it and God obviously wants me to stay alive to do good things one day and so Christmas is definitely a time to celebrate. Christmas is bittersweet because there is so much food around, everyone celebrates with food and drink over Christmas and naked new years resolutions to diet every new year. With an eating disorder it is really hard. I want to be with family an...

 So many people think an eating disorder is a weight and think of a low weight anorexic but there are so many different eating disorders and even someone that becomes anorexic in weight started at a normal or higher weight. It's a mindset rather than a weight, therefore an eating disorder isn't a diet gone wrong it's a mental illness but a diet can trigger it in someone who's mental health is vulnerable. Not everyone who diets will develop an eating disorder. I've had eating disorders the majority of my teenage and adult life, even fad diets like the special k diet I would do as part of eating disorder thinking and behaviour. My weight has fluctuated alot especially as an adult but it was only 7 years ago I became overweight because of mirtazapine an antidepressant I got put on that can help you sleep (I could sleep but got more depressed over my weight) and I had heart failure and gained weight because of water retention and then couldn't be as active as I was ...

 What else do you do when you can't sleep apart from count sheep lol write a blog post lol. Seriously though 8 years ago I was sent to a locked rehab for ladies with personality disorders as a sectioned patient because I was severely self harming and suicidal but my problems began with an eating disorder long before that when I was only about 12. I've told my story in different ways alot but to understand how it is now its easier to explain where it began. Someone who has an addiction to alcohol or drugs has a story and life history how they got there wether through starting through peer pressure or to deal with negative life experiences but once they're an addict all anyone sees is the physical symptoms and behaviours of the addiction but the life story shows the person under the addiction and the same goes for an eating disorder, the underlying causes are long gone and the eating disorder becomes all consuming in your mind. In primary school I was known for 2 things being...

 If someone has a mental health problem they are blamed for their illness by many. I've had too many friends die from their mental illnesses over the last few years and not all of them, probably none of them wanted to die I'd they had a healthy mind. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness due to the physical effects of the eating disorder or suicide. Having a voice in your head 24/7 making you feel guilty about everything you eat is hard to live with, it's not a diet gone wrong, it's not vanity. A diet can trigger it but it becomes more than that and the ed tells you you have to punish yourself for doing something we need to do the live, survive, enjoy life. Last week I went on holiday to Florence in Italy it was a beautiful place, I was with choir friends and there were good times and laughs. My eating disorder came though and I envy people who could go and enjoy the Italian food, have an ice cream etc. I end up crying over just having t...

If we have a broken leg, we can visibly see what's going on with an x ray but a broken mind can't be seen and behaviours because of the mental health such as suicide attempts, self harm and eating disorder behaviours are stigmatised and judged. I originally started writing my blog at a time I was doing quite well with my mental health but to raise awareness of my own journey of how I became suicidal and struggled with an eating disorder to help people understand from the perspective of someone who had suffered. Recently this year I've struggled more with my own mental health again after 4 and a half years of being more stable from self harm and suicide attempts, I relapsed.  I had still struggled with an eating disorder in various forms during the 4 and a half years I was more stable but I could push away thoughts to self harm. I had some eating disorder therapy but only got 10 sessions where I was told to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks, don't count calories but wasn't to...

 Sometimes the only thing we have to fear is ourselves. I went so long without taking any overdoses or self harming in anyway but recently I've been struggling alot with my eating disorder and that leads to more self destructive thoughts that I deserve to hurt myself etc. I ended up taking a paracetamol overdose after my thoughts took over. I'm always open in my blog because mental health is so misunderstood, I'm misunderstood. I would rather be healthy and happy not spending nights in a and e and following days scared I might die. At the time my thoughts are I deserve to hurt myself or die but my rational self doesn't want to. I have my furbabies Warwick, Arthur and Rocky who need me as well a my parents I love and care about as well as friends who care about me and vice versa. It scares me how things can turn so quickly I was teaching at the riding school only a few hours before. I started struggling with my mood when I was with my horse Warwick and knew I was just ti...

I'm always open about my long battle with eating disorders and tried an actual conventional commercial diet last year I'm actually normally anti diet industry as its an industry that cashes in on societies stereotypical idea of what we should look like and doesn't necessarily consider health.  As a society weight loss is praised however it is achieved and as I'm overweight I need to lose weight. But eating disorder therapy told me to eat 3 meals 3 snacks, don't weigh yourself and don't count calories and your body will find its own "set point weight", the weight it is naturally healthy at. This goes against other medical professionals idea that we have to fit into a certain bmi range to be healthy as someone's healthy set point weight could be higher than that bmi range and also would mean having to accept myself whatever weight which I find impossible to do. The diet I was doing kept showing up on my Facebook page. I had been struggling with my ea...