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

My mood and confidence has been up and down the last few weeks, partly some antibiotics I'm on I think affected a mood stabiliser I am on but also it is what I am like anyway. I often get down that I don't see friends often, I get down that I feel not good enough, I get down that I'm too fat...I think everyone has those days and it is the way we look at it. On a dark day I can think I don't see friends often it must be something I have done wrong or the other way of looking at it is they have busy lives and we will enjoy the times we do see other more so with it being the summer holidays a couple of my friends are free to meet up over the next few weeks which I'm looking forward to...as much as technology is great to stay in touch it's not the same as doing things together in person. I always get down about my weight, years of eating disorders won't go overnight...probably won't ever go and eating disorders arent great in lockdown but last year I did...

I keep thinking back to Christmas time last year, I was feeling really positive, I was swimming regularly and had the best time at the choir ball. I was feeling positive about 2020 (like obviously alot of people ) and I had a perfect plan for this year. I was still struggling alot with my mental health last year but usually my way of dealing with it is setting goals and plans. I spent 2019 mostly planning my life around choir gigs, volunteering at events for Bransby horses and then did a sponsored swim. At the end of last year I started a group therapeutic community for my mental health which is 3 days a week for 2 years. I was planning on doing some volunteer work alongside it, I actually worked out I haven't worked for 7 years due to my mental health.  I don't like being a "waste of space" as I would call myself and was hoping that I could have done more this year which obviously because of the caronavirus and the risk with my physical health problems I can't ...

For years I have been trying to get on top of my eating disorders, and my anxieties about not feeling good enough (as I have said in previous blog posts  I have avoidant personality disorder, a type of severe social anxiety and eating disorders which are connected  to each other.) My eating goals which I'm trying to stick to and have done for the last week is to eat regular meals throughout the day rather than avoiding eating all day which leads to eating late at night, usually a days worth of food. I don't get as much opportunity to binge as I have given my bank card to my mum and am keeping binge type foods at their house so I only have some of it available at a time...what ever works is worth a try. Also I'm trying to be a bit more active and aiming to walk at least 3 times a week then will build it from there. I'm trying not to focus too much on the scales, although I do weigh myself daily, my weight has gone down this week but I need to tell myself if I put on ...

I've had a really unmotivated, boring day today and felt inspired to write a blog post. I never know how far back to take my story, but I think we have lifetime patterns with our relationship with food and how we feel about ourselves so will go right back but only in relationship to food and where I think my own eating disorders began. At primary school I had packed lunches, I was ridiculously quiet, had no friends and even back then always felt I wasn't good enough and didn't fit in. I would be sent into the lunch room first, whatever year group was in first sitting as it took me a whole hour to eat 2 small square sandwiches, a packet of crisps which I shared around the table and a yogurt. A psychotherapist who I once saw said maybe I subconsciously felt safer in the lunch room rather than in the playground where I got bullied. But even from being that young there was a focus on food, maybe it was the only way I felt I was noticed. Anyway when I was 11 or 12 my mum won...

It is a good thing I am scared of the covid 19, a few years back I was in such a dark place I didn't want to live anyway. In 2015 (my bad year) I had alot of physical health problems. I started the year with heart failure, my heart was only functioning at 20 percent, I was constantly coughing and out of breath and weak, I went to a singing group for older people with my dad and honestly the older people were fitter than me, I could barely sing and it's a helpful to be able to breath to be able to sing. At the time I had heart failure I wasnt scared of dying as mentally I was in a very dark place and was suicidal but physically it was frustrating that I was alive and having to live as a disabled person even though I was still trying to look after Warwick my horse I would collapse just trying to take him to the field as I could barely walk across my bedroom. Later in 2015 I was in a mental health hospital and I got meningococcal septicaemia and pneumonia and gallstones all at the...

This may be long, I'm full of long stories and I suppose I feel like I have to justify why I don't work and why, but in that how I did work for 17 years and how I came to be on benefits, how I want to get back to work but the barriers I need to get over first(I write as a blogg post so it's not a long post on my Facebook feed then if anyone is interested they can read on). People that have only known me over the last couple of years probably think why do I one minute say  I want to get back to working in mental health and then say I want to get back to teaching horse riding but in the past I did do both at the same time. I always feel like I go back to my past to explain now...storytime...don't get too bored. Since I was about 12 or 13 I wanted to be a nurse and was in St John's ambulance cadets, I started horse riding which I loved and I also developed an eating disorder (so life was always a bit of a battle). I got bullied alot at school, I was really quiet an...

For a few years I had become dependant on mental health workers for quite alot of support, socially and practically then last August I joined a group therapeutic community and I had told myself it was for 2 years full time and then another 2 years weekly support. So my plan before lockdown happened was to set myself social, and work goals. I was looking forward to doing more choir gigs, before I joined choir I literally only was socialising with support workers and was barely leaving my flat ( that is one reason I am struggling mentally as it has taken me back to that time and I can barely leave my flat....I can go to my mum and dads to walk the dogs and sit in the garden weather dependant, I can go and see Warwick my horse a couple of times a week but he lives in a field and I'm too big to ride him so I groom him 2 to 3 times a week which me and him both enjoy ...he deserves a bit of pampering in his old age). I want to eventually get back to helping other people but haven't w...