Why I'm a mental health bore

I’m dusting off my keyboard and posting for the first time in ages about mental health, but given it was Time to Talk day this week, it's time to start talking, or typing, again.

The thing is I’ve never stopped.

In the last seven years I’ve spoken more about my own mental health then I have in the almost 34 I’ve been alive. Sadly in those seven years the situation we find ourselves in has got worse and worse. Not a day goes by it seems without a worrying statistic coming out highlighting a rise in suicides, eating disorders, self harm or too-long waits for care. But not a day goes by without me trying to start a conversation about mental health either.  

Loosing my shit with anorexia in 2011 scared me enough to finally get help and speak what was on my mind and it did help. I decided to openly write and share my recovery too. But since then, I've That realised the positive benefits of saying out loud what's going on in my brain, for protecting my own sanity, and for normalising what millions of people worrying about confessing everyday.

Some may call me a 'mental health bore', I do talk about it a lot, I pull people up on things I don’t think are appropriate, I tell people when I think the stigmatising mental health and I definitely share my experience wherever I can. 

It's not easy on the old grey mass though, talking openly about my anxieties and obsessions still feels like a drain on others, it makes me feel that everybody judges me or moans about the fact that I talk about mental health or tell people diets are dangerous or correct people's reporting on mental illness. I really do feel like a bore. But today I’m going to put it out there, I don’t give a fuck.

You know what I do give a fuck about though? It is the number of people have died from mental health issues, either through suicide or the physical impact of their mental illness, since I was first diagnosed with one. In 1992. To help, let's say when it hit crisis in 2011. Around 6000 people a year take their own lives, so 42,000 dead from suicide alone, three quarters of those men. 

Research last year suggested the number of referrals to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in England has gone up by by 26 percent over the past five years. One in 10 children are now thought to have a diagnosable disorder. That's about 3 per class. More and more children are waking up wishing they didn't.  As I write this, I've just heard on the BBC News channel there's a wait even if you're a suicidal kid. More are starving themselves in the search for something better. That's more under 18s self-harming or purging every year. That's what I give a fuck about. In 2017-18 more than a quarter of a million children were refereed to services. They are the lucky ones put on a waiting list or shipped hundreds of miles from home for care. Lucky, huh? 

So, let's take it back a step. How about the number of people have been too scared to ask for help or amount of people that have tried to open up and faced resistance from a society that didn’t want to hear them. Or the number of people that have heard, 'we understand' but then are isolated from friendship groups for being 'the crazy one'. Or those who've been able to open up only to be told there is a six month waiting list to see a shrink. They are the people I will keep talking for.  The NHS can't do everything, the Government can't just throw money at services overnight, so in the mean time let's keep talking.

It's not all bad though, in the past seven years I have had so many positive conversations. Come across people who've never opened up about their past, or current, battles with anorexia, met people just like me who've been suffering with panic attacks since childhood. I've found out people's sisters, daughters, sons and mothers are battling right now. I have also laughed about some of the obsessive habits I still have.

In mental health training at work I spoke up (even though I was terrified) to share my experience to help colleagues understand. I met my OH and on the first date 'confessed' my mental illness(es) and continued to talk to him about them, and he still loves me. I've supported my best friend, who helped save my life, through her own battle with depression and recruited her to the 'bore club' too.  I've opened up to the amazing women at my yoga studio, my reflexologist and the gorgeous Emma, who 'sugars' my bikini line. while she was sugaring. And they're in too. 

I don't know for sure how many people are alive today because someone asked them more than once if they were 'really' okay. We don't keep statistics on the children who've realised they're not alone feeling worthless and asked for help. I am unsure of the percentage of people now getting help because me or other mental health bores have campaigned in the past, but that doesn't really matter.

I will keep being open, disclosing my mental health issues to anyone who'll listen, talking about recovery and relapse and I will keep being a mental health bore. Please join me, people's lives depend on it. 

GET HELP HERE:

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If Britain needs to go on a diet, do I?

Oh calories, diets, Public Health campaigns, obesity epidemic headlines, it's all over the news AGAIN and I'd be lying if I said I was okay with that. I'm not okay with the bombardment of yet more 'should and should not' rules of eating. It's a constant threat to my recovery. 

I'm finding the more 'physically recovered' I am from anorexia, the more these campaigns bother me. They stick in my brain and make eating more complicated, they blur the lines between 'recovered me' and 'anorexic me'. 

It feels like it applies to me. Today it's made me feel guilty about having a breakfast that tops 400 calories, because PHE's top doctor says "The agency is also launching a campaign encouraging adults to consume 400 calories at breakfast and 600 each at lunch and dinner."

I know in reality that my lunch and dinner are never close to 600 calories each, but if I could logically believe that and ignore the message, I would. I really bloody would. But if that were easy, the last decade of my life wouldn't have been f*cked up by anorexia. 

When people think eating disorders feed on skinny models, airbrushing or vanity they forget that for some people anorexia is more likely to feed on campaigns like this. It's also like other eating disorders don't exist when we talk about this. We seems to forget that some of our overweight population will probably be suffering silently with eating disorders too...I'd put money on it.

I want to scream it’s not it’s the fact that these campaigns exists, because I realise they are needed to tackle an obvious obesity crisis, but they exist in a society where eating disorders are also a problem.They are also costing the NHS and lives. A study by BEAT in 2015 found treating eating disorders DIRECTLY costs the NHS between £3.9 billion and £ 4.6 billion a year, and, potentially, up to £1.1 billion of private treatment costs too. Combine that with lost income and all the bits like carers eating disorder rack up a bill to the UK economy of between £6.8 billion and £8 billion A YEAR. Meanwhile, this much discussed obesity epidemic costs us £6 billion. Yep. 

On an another personal note, I’ve woken up this morning having the messages about the need for this 20 percet reduction in the calories of food by 2024. A call for 13 food groups to be targeted to make cuts, more calories warnings, more signs in takeaways and PHE saying, 'it would be prepared to ask the government to legislate.' if supermarkets and alike didn't buck up. So, today I’m going to call them out, embrace this - because doing all that will help make my life a little easier. 

Do you know why? Because when I go into a supermarket or restaurant and they've dropped the calories in their foods, maybe, just maybe I'll allow myself to eat it. To buy a bread roll, a dip or a savory snack. Safe in the knowledge that my eating disorder is a little less worried about it. 

Why? Because every day I wake up worried that I am greedy, fat, eating too much and 'one of the people that needs to listen'. So if you’re telling me to reduce my breakfast for my health, it gives me a legitimate reason. Officially, I’m not considered to be anorexic anymore, so in my mind it’s obviously not that driving the urge to reduce? It’s because I’m following guidance I don’t want to be overweight or greedy do it? 

I know this sounds like I’m taking the piss a little, but I’m not. I honestly believe these campaigns are affecting me more than more time goes on. The thing is, like for thousands of other people, the rules I have around food do affect my life and possibly always will. Then campaigns like this just make it feel like I have to be more restrictive with my diet. 

There is a very obvious obesity epidemic, but the thing that gets me is that over and over again we print calories on more menus, talk about reducing sugar over and over, about moving more and eating less - but I've said it before, and I'll say it again, "your healthy eating campaigns are wasted on me." 

It makes me question if they have even thought about who it is listening to these messages the most? My money is on people like me, ironically, the people that avoid those 13 food groups anyway.  But maybe I should embrace it. Look forward to the day when sugar and fat and calorie content is reduced? It means that my anorexic brain will let me eat junk. Or maybe I’ll still avoid it anyway? 

NEED HELP? If you're are worried you or someone you know if suffering with an eating disorder, be it anorexia, bulimia, OSFED, binge eating, emotional overeating or orthorexia, you can find info and support online at BEAT's website - HERE 

#EDAW2018 Namaste and me

Firstly, picture the scene if you can, me, late 2012, very anorexic, very anxious, my brain going to thousand miles an hour and generally a bit scatty, not really caring, and sitting in the therapy clinic with a very chilled out therapist who says ‘right Sarah, we’ve tried CBT, let’s give active mindfulness a go...” that was one of the first sessions I had with Dr B. I remember thinking at the time ‘what the hell are you going to make me do, weirdo....’ People had spoken about mindfulness but I’m much more of an ‘action person’. I just don’t do meditation.

I suppose I got my back up about mindfulness from the off. I tried to do it, tried to meditate. I tried to embrace it and to do the whole ‘let it happen and let it go’ listen to his voice and remain present, but it just wasn’t working for me. 

So yoga then? Is it about my mind or body? Well, both. For some context, I’ve tried yoga over the years, a few sessions here and there, but generally at a leisure centre and focused around fitness weight loss and middle-aged women in lycra. None of which were helpful to me and my mental health. I’d always wanted to rock up and be the bendiest; thinnest and best. But wasn’t, obviously. 

Now, after years putting it off because my own issues with body and making excuses, last year I walked in to Sky Blue Yoga studio at the Northfield Centre in Stafford. I took a big gulp and thought ‘I can do this, I know how to breathe, I know how to stretch...’ I told myself I’m just going to have to see how it goes. And the rest is already history.

I'm now practicing almost daily, mixing a hot vinyasa flow class, with Yin - is a slower practice where you hold your asana for longer, and Yoga Nidra - which is also called 'yogic sleep'. I’m pretty sure if Dr B saw me doing yoga Nidra on a Sunday, he drop down dead in front of me out of shock of seeing me setting aside an hour for meditation.

Nidra is purely the practice of focused breathing, body scanning, switching the sides of the brain used and listening. I love it. I also practice dhama yoga wheel, which really stretches me and is all about balance and coordination and core. Nell, my teacher who’s own learning of yoga theory inspires me to read more and guided savasana is more helpful than any meditation I had in hospital, (as is Kelly's - seriously, these ladies need snapping up by the NHS!)

But all in all I’m loving it. I’m not just turning up and working out. I am taking this with me outside the studio. Learning more about yoga, being a yogi and the theory behind it. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to following a religion! 

Take Sankelpa - the setting of an intention or dedication for yoga practice - it is much like the ‘rewiring’ challenges in the active mindfulness therapy I had. It’s like a metaphor to translate yoga off your mat and into real life. This to me is what makes yoga a lifestyle, rather than something I’m doing just for exercise. My intentions have ranged from ‘Believe am enough’, to ‘focus on breath not body’ and so on.

For some reason yoga and it’s theory clicks with me more than reading books about meditation or trying to practice pure mindfulness. I’m doing it with out thinking. Those days when I have yoga after work it’s like a reset button, it’s teaching me to be more present. I’m slowly learning through yoga to act without ego. With that I mean not to be doing what I think I should be doing, but just what my body is craving. Regular practice is teaching me that taking a moment breathing and just focusing on purely that can put everything else aside and seem less pressing.

I believe finding Nidra or gentle yoga class earlier in recovery would have helped me massively. It’s got the potential to be a really positive things for someone fighting anorexia, after all it is about connecting with your body. Creating new prana. You need to know where your body is, what it can do, when it feels sore and when you need to back off. The more I read, the more I am understanding about yogi lifestyle, the more I accept, and let go. 

According to yoga tradition, there’s a part of us we can’t see. It’s where our energy flows, There are seven key parts, the chakras. Ancient yogis taught that when energy becomes blocked in a chakra, it triggers physical, mental, or emotional imbalances that lead to things like anxiety. 

Never before did I think that focusing on certain part of my body, be at the root or the solar plexus, recalling chakras, could make a difference to my wellbeing. But trust me, it does. I’ve felt really connections to asanas, the poses, which are believed to balance places linked to body or anxiety, I’ve almost cried when practicing pranayama with mantras about self esteem or grounding. I always walk out, standing a little taller. A little more balanced. The release in tadasana, just standing strong in mountain pose, alive Is simple but powerful. It’s just standing up. But it’s not!

Not only that I have met some inspiring people at the studio too. Those who share the same ethos as me, they are not people with multiple disorders, those in and out of therapy or people that simply do yoga for the way it looks to others. They believe in the practice and that’s inspiring. Some of the people at the studio live yogi lifestyles. 

It’s often said when one door closes another opens, and it seems to me that as therapy closed, both at the eating disorders unit and private counselling stopped benefiting me, the door to the Yoga studio opened.

Having done CBT and mindfulness, and all the bits in between, during recovery and before, I can honestly say yoga is more than enough in terms of therapeutic time than I need. Plus a glass of gin and a massage now and again, it’s changing my life, one savasana at a time!

I've also been speaking to Kelly, one of my fabulous teachers at the studio, about how we could work together to help more people with EDs try yoga. I think that people with anorexia especially, could really benefit from practicing Nidra. I’m hoping that one of the positive changes I can make this eating disorders awareness week is to set the ball rolling in implementing this onto the ward at my old hospital. I know If I had been told I was practising yoga in hospital it make me feel better, and maybe, just maybe I’d have been a little more accepting of those mindfulness sessions with Dr B if yoga had taught me to just breathe...? 

Namaste 

Don't forget that if you are suffering from an eating disorder - YOU NEED TO SEEK HELP and speak up about it. Don't wait, there are services out there for you: Check out https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/support-services