Does My Bum Look Big In This?

Yesterday I was nominated for the Blog for Mental Health 2012 Project by Helena Handbasket. The project was started by Luna Sunshine at As the Pendulum Swings who’s blog I have only recently discovered. She blogs about her experiences with Bi-Polar Disorder and although I have yet to plough through her blog’s archives (that sounds like an innuendo… it isn’t) I know I’m going to learn a lot from it.

The 3 rules of the project are:

1) Take the pledge by copy and pasting the following into a post featuring Blog for Mental Health 2012

I pledge my commitment to the Blog for Mental Health 2012 Project. I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others. By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health. I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.

2.) Link back to the person who pledged you.

3.) Write a short biography of your mental health, and what this means to you.

Ok, so I think I’ve suffered with eating difficulties since I was around 8. This was when I first became aware of my body and I started to gain weight. It all started when my bestest buddy told me I was different because I was fat. I still remember looking down at my royal blue school jumper and realising for the first time that I was fat. Everyone knew it apart from me, and that made me stupid and ugly.

Fastforward 14 years and I’m on anti-depressants awaiting a 2^nd, more person-centered bout of therapy.

I only realised whilst on Lighterlife when I had a binge after losing 3 stone that I might have a problem. I went to the Uni counsellor with stress and she referred me to an Eating Disorder clinic where I received 20 sessions of CBT over 8 months. It wasn’t enough really, and although I became more aware of my issues and how I should attempt to get around them it really wasn’t enough to improve my eating/body image to not affect all other aspects of my life.

I put on weight, carried on at Uni, Graduated and unemployment has brought on an all time low. I finally succumbed to anti-depressants just so I could have at least a sprinkle of enthusiam to at least apply for jobs. To those of you that think maybe overeating and depression isn’t enough to warrant me suffering with mental health issues, I will share a very dark thought I had just a few months ago whilst crossing a road: If I was hit by a car and went into a coma, at least I’d lose weight. I was thinking about how this could be a diet service – a clinic could put you to sleep for 3 months so you couldn’t eat and then voila! You could be thin! What’s the harm in that, right? I didn’t realise how weird this thought was until several hours later, when I promptly wrote it down incase the doctor needed to know just how much I needed therapy.

I want to use this blog to educate others about overeating disorders and how negative body image really can be detrimental to a person’s life, but I also want to be a more light-hearted along the way. Apart from the whole losing weight in a coma thing… that’s not so light-hearted. And to anyone who might be offended, anyone who might think I mean to glamourise being in a coma (if that’s even possible) it’s my Eating Disorder who thought that little gem up, hence the support for banishment of the mental health stigma. Take that.

4) Pledge to 5 others.

Nicole and Gwendolyn – Nicole is a trooper. She has battled with Bulimia and won, having not binged/purged in over a year. Although we disagree on certain topics, I will always be grateful that she blogs about her past experiences and inspires so many people with similar problems to push forward and claim back their lives.

The Spiral Upward –Elizabethat The Upward Spiral is lovely and has recently succeeded again in standing up to her ED by not bingeing/purging for over 28 days now. As I am still very much in the throes of my disordered eating I cannot have more respect forElizabethbecause she is working so damn hard. Also, she liked True Blood and this makes her VERY cool!

Fi and Shalimar – Fiona has written my favourite post of all time (here). It has opened my eyes to the difficulties of Anorexia like nothing before and she has single-handedly managed to right a skewed thought in my head. I always had the obsession that Anorexics had it better because at least they were thing. Not the most sane thought I’ve ever had, especially not when it comes to starvation and all of the awful medical implications of being underweight. This blog post made the ED part of my brain finally realise just how wrong those thoughts were, so I am eternally grateful for that.

Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars – She talks about many different illnesses including Borderline Personality Disorder. Combining poetry with personal stories I love this blog. It’s informative but also real… and I mean she seems like a real person who is constantly kicked down by her problems, but who I find myself rooting for constantly.

I Was a Foster Kid – this blog is focused more on the life of a former foster child, now dealing with some mental health issues such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (formally known as Split Personality Disorder). Her views on the foster care system, child abuse and mental health are all interlinked and so interesting to gain insight into.

So there you go! What do you think about the stigma attached to mental health? I think it’s understandable but terribly old-fashioned… so what better way to confront these misunderstandings than in the world of blogging?!

Emma