T – Trauma

Who knew that memories could be so terrifying and paralysing?

That mere thoughts could bring you to your knees, gasping for air.

That a certain sound, smell, place, image, could rile up the brain into a wild fervour.

That an event that happened long ago could still hurt today.

One might at first doubt the power that a distressing event can yield over an individual. After all, it happened in the past, they’re safe now, time heals all wounds, it could be worse, they are just bad memories, right?

Well, yes, an unhappy memory is like a broken arm: it needs time to heal, it hurts, it’s annoying… but it does get better eventually.

But on the other hand, a traumatic experience and the resulting memory is like both arms being driven over by an oversized truck. The resulting mess of flesh looks quite ugly, it needs much more intense work and much more time to recover, painkillers aren’t always enough, it’s dysfunctional, it really gets in the way of things and can be extremely inconvenient, it’s not something you would forget – ever.

So some memories can be strong. Really strong. And these vivid memories are nestled in the brain, one of the most powerful organs in the body. The brain is responsible for controlling all bodily functions, so it follows that severe damage can cause impairment, loss, disability. The overwhelming and lasting power of trauma should not be underestimated or trivialised.

A traumatic event might not always result in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (aka PTSD), at times it just leads to an unfortunate cocktail with varying shots of intense anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. But no matter what manifests afterward, the sufferer cannot do a ‘Frozen’ and “Let It Go.” You see, trauma can cause a deep mental wound that feels as real as anything, and any resulting pain is not imagined or illegitimate.

It does all sound pretty hardcore, so you might think that only super hardcore things can count as trauma and perhaps cause PTSD. But you don’t have to have lived through the events of ‘Game of Thrones’ to have experienced a trauma. Maybe you were deeply afraid, perhaps something felt intrinsically wrong, your physical integrity and sense of self might have been violated, there could have been feelings of fear, helplessness, terror… all of that, or just some parts of that, that’s trauma.

Trauma can take the form of abuse, assault, rape, war, death, for sure, but it can also be an experience of divorce, abandonment, a natural disaster, a serious illness, prolonged exposure to distressing events or images, a bad accident, etc. It doesn’t have to be epic to be valid, and no matter what the source, feelings of trauma are legitimate and should not be discounted. Furthermore, past traumatic events may be confusing, blurred, and unclear, but that does not mean that the resulting distress is not real or valid. Dealing with trauma is exhausting, overwhelming, lonely, and crippling, and just because it is all in the head does not mean it doesn’t physically hurt.

There is an unhealthy pressure out there to act strong, to appear like we have it all together, to play down the effects of a traumatic experience and try to be a Productive Member of Society (PMS, hahaha…) But just as leaving an open gashing wound unattended to and risking infection is counterproductive and silly, ignoring the effects of post-trauma stress and not seeking help may cause it to fester and strike you down later on.

To realise and admit vulnerability takes courage and intelligence. Seeking help and support for this vulnerability is brave and a sign of true strength. Maintaining a façade is not worth the endless suffering in silence of intrusive memories, nightmares, flashbacks, loneliness, isolation, fear, guilt, anger, shame. Would you wander through the streets pretending everything is fine if half your chest cavity was missing? Would you seek help if you were bleeding to death? Would you try to help someone else bleeding to death?

The good thing is that recovery is possible, healing can happen.

Holes can be filled and pieces can be glued together.

The lies and hurtful stories that a traumatic experience may create can be dissolved.

With the right help and hard work, someone can realise that they are more than what happened to them, that it wasn’t their fault, that they’re not to blame for their traumatic experience, that not all people are bad, that now, they are safe.

Things that help may include but are not limited to time, space, professional therapy, ongoing support from loyal and patient friends and family, acceptance, discussion, openness, medication, being aware of triggers, learning self-care and self-compassion. Just like recovery with any other mental illness, there are good days, bad days, and really bad days, but eventually, finally, there are more good days than bad ones, and the bad ones feel less frightening.

Please take care. Feel free to comment, share and like!

Q – Quiz

Firstly, this article (if you can call it that) gives me a chance to add the letter ‘Q’ as a letter-tab in this website, which is good, as I don’t want to write a whole article on quetiapine.

Secondly, and more importantly, I have wanted to do a fun quiz for a while but originally struggled thinking how to go about it. When you have a mental illness, you do sooooo many forms, evaluations, and questionnaires that your paper trail becomes more significant than *insert a political event here.* The forests of documentation on how much you sweat, sleep, function, eat, talk, and concentrate can help with examining progress or setbacks, but boy can they get tedious and dreary after a while. So time for another one! You should be used to them by now. Some questions you may relate to, some you may not.

QUIZ OF STUFF – MULTIPLE ANSWERS MAY BE CORRECT. OR NONE OF THEM.

1) You notice that Klinkina Goobies, a friend of yours, seems to be doing much better than you. She seems to be super happy, popular, and successful. It’s making you feel bad because you doubt you will get what she has. How can you not feel bad?

a) Remember that you are only seeing a segment of her life, a selection of her at her best. Everyone has boring days where they do nothing, fart a bit, and attempt to clean a dirty house.

b) You haven’t been dealt the same cards in life as she has. If you have a mental illness and she doesn’t, you have extra obstacles that she probably doesn’t. Things may take longer, cost more effort, be more difficult, and it’s important to forgive yourself for that.

c) What sort of a name is Klinkina Goobies?!

d) Comparing yourself to others will not help. Focus on what you have achieved and enjoy. If you honestly feel like you haven’t achieved anything, remember that you have made it this far already.

2) You feel like you are never ever going to get better and truly believe that the mental illness will always be stronger than you. What should you do?

a) During the more difficult periods of your life, it’s so much easier to resign yourself to ideations of failure. You can’t control the long term. Since you’re miserable in the short term, may as well take care of yourself now.

b) Challenge your mental illness to a duel by taking off your glove and throwing it on the ground.

c) Know that it isn’t. Know that you are so much more than it. The horrible feelings and compulsions say nothing about your capabilities or merits. (You’ll still feel like utter crap though, don’t get me wrong.)

d) Were you thinking of another, darker option that is not mentioned above? Trust me, it isn’t one. Drop everything and get as much help as you can, NOW.

3) It’s really hard to stay focussed and keep on track when the world is giving you the opposite message. What do you do?

a) Distance yourself from and unfollow both friends and media who promote rubbish such as dieting and unnecessary weight-loss, who satanify sugar and flour, encourage fat-hatred, gym-obsessions, calorie tracking, zucchini ‘pasta,’ and guilt surrounding certain food-groups, who think that you should replace every icecream with a frozen brick of kale, etc.

b) Distance yourself from and unfollow both friends and media who promote rubbish such as the idea of mental illness being selfish, attention-seeking, made-up, and that it can be cured by yoga/raw almonds/jogging/positive thinking.

c) Distance yourself and unfollow from both friends and media who promote any rubbish that upsets you that isn’t mentioned above.

d) Turn into a train and build a train track for yourself. Ignore the peasants and only let the people you like into your carriages. Run over anyone who dares stand in your way.

4) You meet someone who has completely recovered and is leading a fulfilling and happy life. You feel like that will never happen to you. What is good to take note of?

a) You are not the exception to the rule. You are as bullet-proof as you are the worst person in the world. (That is, you aren’t.)

b) People recover differently and at varying rates, just like children learning at school. Some people struggling with an eating disorder, for instance, need five years to recover, others need ten years. It’s not a sign to give up, it’s a sign to be patient and persevere.

c) The weather and rain forecast.

d) What makes you so sure that you will never recover? If you know what exactly will happen in the future, buy a few lottery tickets and invest in something lucrative.

5) Which metaphor best describes what having a mental illness is like?

a) Having two weeks where I consume 500 cans of energy drink, 300g of coffee beans, and inject myself with steroids. Then two weeks where I get forced to helplessly watch everyone I love be tortured to death.

b) Being in a dark, underwater cave, struggling to breathe and stay warm, with everyone telling me that it’s great out here in the warm sunshine. There is also smelly seaweed everywhere.

c) An abusive partner who bullies me and stops me from doing the things I love. They fart in my favourite pillow.

d) The sky is purple and the clouds are black and the trees are turning to dust… but everything’s fine, no really, it’s fine.

6) Is there a positive side to having a mental illness?

a) It gives you a (dangerous) crash course in fields that may include chemistry, nutrition, finance, mathematics, humanities, politics, and debating. You also get extremely good at condensing information when summarising your medical history.

b) If you die, not really. Plus, treatment is expensive and time-consuming.

c) You do meet some amazing people, who are truly strong, supportive, patient and kind. But you also meet some really horrible people who just make things even worse.

d) When you work on recovery, you become an expert in identifying thoughts and emotions. You are able to adjust brain synapses, increase your maturity and mindfulness. You learn who true friends are, appreciate freedom much more, and value positive emotions to an extent that others can’t.

7) This is not really a quiz any more. I should stop now.

a) Indeed. I have stumbled across this site and have no clue what is going on.

b) Please go back to writing normal blog posts.

c) I am cynical and attack mental illness with humour.

d) I need a witty comeback when talking to the ignorant masses.

Take care everyone, feel free to share and comment. :o)

B – Bravery

Did you know that the noun bravery can mean fine clothes or a showy display? I myself didn’t until I looked up the dictionary definition online for bravery. At first, I was going to aspire after high school debating teams and attempt to start this article with a dictionary definition, but I got side tracked by the idea that you could wear bravery. Anyway, moving on…

Too many people think bravery simply means doing something and not being afraid of it. That to be brave is to be bold and fearless. That a brave person is someone who continually holds faith in their capacity to successfully manage any situation, regardless of how dangerous it may be. However, that is not bravery – that is either being drunk and/or knowing that you are immortal.

Bravery also often has connotations of victory and success: accompanied by triumphant music, the hero’s head is held high while they charge into battle/towards the dragon/keep on getting shot at but somehow magically be able to keep fighting/raise their weapon, roaring about their homeland/mother/freedom. But bravery in real life is quite different. The type of bravery that is required when recovering from a mental illness isn’t so noble or cinematic.

When a mental illness flares up you have to be brave every day. You aren’t really given a choice. If you want to recover and be free from it you have to constantly confront uncertainty, intimidation, terror, and pain. You are required to always be a knight, wobble around in rusty ill-fitting armour, and face off a giant wrinkly dragon (or a giant spider, if you like dragons and don’t want to envisage hurting one) who just won’t leave you alone.

Being brave is personally different for everyone. Especially when it comes to mental illness. Please bear in mind that certain situations and tasks which may seem trivial, forgettable, and even enjoyable to some, may seem to others a like a dragon who has just stepped on a piece of Lego.

Being brave, or having “the quality or state of having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty” when trying to recover from a mental illness is exhausting. But you don’t have to do it well. Being brave means confronting your fears, and so even if you make a mess of it all, you’re still brave if you’ve ploughed through and given it the very best shot that you felt capable of at the time.

Your legs have been bitten off, the princess has vomited on her dress, and you’re still facing an enormous, utterly terrifying monster. The dragon breathes out and searing flames of panic attacks, flashbacks, hallucinations, phobias, and hateful criticisms engulf your body and its flimsy armour. As the fire blinds your vision, you start to cry, which is unromantic for a knight, especially when you start getting snot all over your armour, but do you know what? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how badly you screwed up trying to fight the dragon, because you tried. You may be a crawling, sobbing knight, but you’re still facing the situation, and you’re not running away.

You untangle your legs, you buy some tissues, you try to repair your damaged armour… and you go out and face the beast again. You know that it will be waiting for you, growling and cooking up another blistering firebomb in its stomach. But you still go and confront it, because you know that in order to survive, you have to face the dragon, and as awful as it may be, it is the only way forward. And every conscious choice to attempt to move forward is an example of bravery.

Maybe I am getting a bit too into the metaphor here… just let me put it this way: When you are let go of the ideas that are both your safety net and trap, when you accept the crippling yet liberating truths about yourself, when you give up the dangerous behaviour and rules that are comforting and feel like all you’ll ever know, when you say ‘no’ to the ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ to the ‘no,’ that is you being super-duper incredibly brave. You would put a dragon-fighting knight to shame.

C – Choice

Psychology 101. Lecture Stream: Positive Psychology. A few years ago, a large crowd of first-year university students were slouching in the lecture theatre seats (myself among them) while a wrinkled and unfashionable professor waddled around. “You always have a choice,” he said, while numerous yellow smiley faces bounced around on the power point presentation screen behind him. “You can do whatever you want, be whoever you want! Things such as time, money and responsibilities mean we often feel confined to reasonable and rational choices, but in the end they are still choices, and you always have the freedom to make different ones.”

‘Huh,’ I thought to myself afterwards, when shuffling out of the hall. ‘Maybe I can make the choice to not self harm tonight, if it’s that simple.’

I couldn’t. The overwhelming anxiety, intense self-hatred and paralysing fear were simply too much for me and I felt unable to cope.

There are various life coaches, religious leaders and wealthy gurus who claim that we always have a choice, and that the only reason we don’t feel like we have a choice all the time is because of the negative consequences of an appealing choice. For instance, we may dream about quitting a soul-sucking job, but do not, because we need the financial stability and would have a lot trouble finding another job. These so called life experts say that we feel stuck because we are only complaining and thinking negatively. Instead of thinking ‘this is unfair, I can’t do much about this at the moment,’ the solution, according to them, is to apparently ‘take charge’ of our situation, ‘accept responsibility’ for our actions, and ‘become proactive’ in getting what we want. It’s all very well to accept responsibility for quitting a job you hate, enjoy the resulting freedom, and work hard to find another job – but personally I would find it a bit pointless if you eventually were to starve to death in a cold street because you couldn’t afford to pay for food or rent.

But I digress.

Mental illness is not a choice. Hence the term ‘illness.’ No one chooses to be chronically sick. Some believe that it is a choice: that eating disorders are simply a vain cry for attention, anxiety is just an excuse for nervousness, and that depression is merely pessimistic laziness. They may also think that mental illnesses are akin to lifestyle diseases, brought on upon oneself through particular ways of thinking and an inability to realise the ‘selfishness’ of their situation. This could not be further from the truth.

Luckily, most people nowadays can agree that suffering from a mental illness is as much of a choice as a disease or virus: they realise that it is legitimate, it gets in the way of things, and it wasn’t asked for. You never smoke but can still get cancer, you can always wear warm clothes and yet still catch a cold, you can be a well-adjusted human being and still suffer from a mental illness.

However, what many people tend to forget is that the symptoms of mental illness are not a choice either. Just as someone with bronchitis can’t stop their coughing and (somewhat gross) phlegming, just as someone with a broken leg can’t help but block the footpath with their crutches, someone with anxiety can’t stop worrying or stop being self critical and someone with depression can’t magically increase their energy and simply cheer up. All need a variety or combination of time, medication, extra energy, and rest to improve.

What we can choose is recovery. Unfortunately this is not as easy as it sounds – if recovering from a mental illness were simply a one-off choice or a way of thinking, a lot fewer people would still be suffering from it. You cannot outthink a mental illness. It is extremely hard to rationalise constant, intrusive, and cruel thoughts. Nor can you simply choose not to have a mental illness, as much as you might wish for it to not exist.

In the end, recovering from a mental illness is making the constant choice to do what is right for ourselves and our lives.

These include the small, everyday choices that benefit our mental and physical health: going to bed on time to get enough sleep, taking our medication, eating well, getting fresh air and a bit of exercise, showering regularly, seeing other people who are kind and forgiving, spending time with animals, and making time for hobbies.

These also include the humongous, daunting choices. Consciously fighting by putting an end to unhealthy behaviours, resisting urges, giving in to what is healthy and ignoring what the illness screams at you to do, facing your fears, and exposing yourself to your demons. These choices are indescribably difficult and often terrifying. They can feel unrewarding and thankless. You have to choose not to do what is easy, preferable, comforting and routine. The anxious person goes to the party, despite the nauseating fear. The person with an eating disorder eats something they haven’t touched in years, despite their guilt. It is easy to forget that these are continual choices that people with a mental illness have to make numerous, infinite times every single day. It does get rather tiring. Imagine all the routine choices that you make in the day suddenly becoming conscious ones you need to make an effort to do and feel afraid about – getting up, choosing what clothes to wear, what breakfast to eat, who to email or message, when to leave the house, what to look at, who to talk to, what to pay attention to, which train or bus to catch, which lane to drive in, what to do when you get home… Following through the choice to recover is exhausting and takes up an immense amount of concentration, bravery, and effort.

Yes, life is made up of choices, but to constantly make difficult choices all the time, even while knowing that they are the best for us, gets, well, difficult (or onerous, for those who say I need to use a thesaurus more.) And that’s why continually choosing recovery needs to be commended and appreciated. People also need to realise that recovery, like a fractured spine, needs a lot more than one night to happen (unless we live in a futuristic robot society, but I will save that idea for another time.) And it’s a struggle. Sometimes we make the wrong choices because it’s the best we can do in that moment and we feel incapable of more. That’s ok, as long as we try our best to choose the right thing the next time.

The last choice a mental illness gives you is the ultimate choice: whether to hold on or not. If you’re reading this, you’ve made it this far, so well done. Keep choosing not to give up.

Happy Thursday, dear readers. Please take care. :o)

I really appreciate all likes, shares and comments!

B – Binge Eating Disorder

This will be a long post. Bear with me! *insert bear picture here for wittiness.*

A few years ago, sick of being sick, I donned my Totoro slippers, downloaded a bunch of rather average movies onto my laptop, and went inpatient for several weeks, determined to recover and stop my binge eating for once and for all.

Part of the services offered by the clinic were educational group sessions, where a psychologist or doctor would explain various concepts such as mindfulness and acceptance. One time, we all got a photocopied picture of an unhappy underweight person with a list of all the effects of starvation syndrome and the risks of being malnourished: the hair thins and falls out, circulation gets poor, the bones weaken and the organs shrink, etc, etc. One girl who, like me, was trying to recover from binge eating, piped up and asked what the risks of binge eating were. We got a vague response about Type 2 diabetes and obesity, and then the doctor went back to talking about the dangerous risks of purging and restricting.

At night time, drinking tea and crocheting with a little too much efficiency, some of us patients would gossip about the extreme behaviours we had gotten up to. The compulsive exercising, the lowest weights, the fear foods, the hormonal irregularities and the laxatives. I found myself referring to my previous times of anorexia, as no one there at the time directly related to my then recent struggles of daily binging without compensation.

I began to realise an unsettling pattern.

When I told people that I was suffering from an eating disorder, the most common response I got was “but you are not underweight. You eat everything and seem to enjoy your snacks.” Indeed, my BMI was healthy and I could eat out at a restaurant without having a panic attack.

The truth is this: when people think of eating disorders, they think of anorexia or bulimia. They think of the dangers associated with being underweight and purging, and remember the high mortality rates. They do not think of an obese adult bulk buying chocolate from the supermarket. That person who stuffs their face can’t possibly have an eating disorder! Some might say *insert snooty voice here* they enjoy their food too much and unfortunately didn’t get a proper education in healthy nutrition. Others would say that they are lazy and should exercise more.

I have personally felt that anorexia and bulimia come with a sense of elitism. It is much easier to acknowledge the existence of a disorder when confronted by someone who has the physical attributes and behaviours unique to their illness. If you are extremely underweight, have a lot of anxiety around food, and engage in behaviours such as taking laxatives, how can you not have an eating disorder?

Please don’t get me wrong – I am NOT saying one eating disorder is worse than the other. They are ALL absolute hell in their own ways, and they all have their individual risks and complications. Everybody’s struggle is valid and every attempt at recovery deserves praise and acknowledgement.

But it is a lot harder to ‘prove’ you have an eating disorder if you simply seem to eat ‘a lot.’ “How dare u say u have a eating deesorder,” says a highly intelligent commenter on the internet. Their even more intelligent counterpart adds, “u just gotta understand that sugargh n fat are addictife. I usd to binge on biscits heaps then I realisd sugargh is baad so I stopped and I lost wait. Also u need 2 exercise more! Stop making excooses for being an ugly fatty. And dw its ok for me to call u ugly cos that can motivait u to loose wait.”

BED is not a made up disorder so people who eat a lot can have an excuse. It’s a thing in the DSM-V. BED is not just eating a whole packet of biscuits out of boredom, or comfort eating due to being in a sad mood – it is continually suffering from episodes of severe overeating in a short period of time. People with BED suffer from intense feelings of guilt, shame, misery, embarrassment; disgust, and self-loathing. They also suffer from extremely high levels of distress, often have clinical depression and anxiety, and tend to experience episodes of self harm and suicidal ideation. In short, binging episodes are the opposite of an enjoyable indulgence.

What causes confusion is that there are overweight people who do not have Binge Eating Disorder (BED), just as there are people who binge at times and do not have BED. There are also those who suffer from BED but are not overweight (for instance as a result of a faster metabolism, medication, and/or being at a lower weight when the binging starts.) There are people who are overweight but get trapped by behaviours consistent with anorexia, such as restricting and compulsively exercising. Without this knowledge, it’s understandable that there is confusion and doubt.

The determining factor is that those with BED can’t stop the binging. Even when they are full and feel like throwing up. Even when they are curled up on the ground in pain. Even when they can’t afford to buy any more food. Even when they KNOW it is extremely unhealthy for them. Even when they aren’t hungry and just want to go to bed. Even when their weight continues to climb and they desperately want to stop binging… but they just can’t. And they bully themselves, dismayed at this perceived weakness in their self-control: I am indescribably disgusting. As soon as I finish this binge I will lose all of this weight and never binge ever again. But before they realise, they are confronted by another awful binge episode. The lack of control feels terrifying and can be devastating. It only reinforces their highly critical thoughts and further erodes at their already fragile self-esteem.

But many people don’t realise this. They don’t realise that telling someone with BED that they eat a lot is like telling an alcoholic that they drink too much, or a gambler that they lose more games than they win. They also don’t stop to think that telling a BED sufferer to “just stop binging and lose weight” is just like telling someone with anorexia to just gain weight and stop restricting. It feels literally, physically, utterly impossible. To recover, just like with any eating disorder or mental illness, they need professional help, time, support, compassion, and kindness. It is never as simple as do or not do.

Some fear that this type of eating disorder will give some people an excuse for their behaviour. Surely those who are simply lazy or enjoy excessive amounts of food or don’t have any willpower then won’t be motivated to help themselves because they are ‘sick!’ But someone with this illness doesn’t just eat a bucket of chicken nuggets and then not leave the house. BED is horribly powerful and can make sufferers feel compelled to do almost anything in order to quench the overpowering urges to binge and intense feelings of anxiety and self hatred. Examples may include: stealing food from shops, lying about their eating habits, eating food from the bin, eating other people’s leftovers, going to multiple supermarkets in one day, hiding food, eating vast amounts rapidly in secret, ravaging the food cupboard like a swarm of locusts, borrowing or stealing money/going into debt just to buy food to binge on, missing appointments or being late to work/school because they can’t stop binging, the painful list goes on. The sufferer is aware of these detrimental behaviours. They are miserable about themselves and their situation. But they feel completely powerless to do anything about it.

The other extra challenge posed to BED sufferers is our dieting and fat-shaming culture. While it is extremely hard for someone with an eating disorder such as anorexia to actively gain weight in a society that encourages weight loss, they do at least have science on their side – their bone density improves, as does their concentration and circulation. They can reap the physical rewards of the body repairing itself and receive physical confirmation that they are doing the right thing. However a BED victim cannot recover by dieting and actively trying to lose weight, because that will just refuel their binges. They have to focus on any personal issues, such as trauma or anxiety, work on finding healthy coping mechanisms instead of binging, concentrate on eating a balanced diet with no restrictions, AND figure out ways to manage the addictive behaviour before they can even begin to think about working towards a healthy weight. But when trying to eat a chocolate bar one afternoon in order to avoid eating ten that night, some unhelpful poo-bum will decide it is their holy mission in life to tell you that chocolate has sugar in it (who would have thunk it?!) and you should eat a salad instead. They effectively make you feel guilty about doing the right thing.

To finish, if you or someone you know suffers from Binge Eating Disorder, get help. Your eating disorder is just as deadly, legit, and devastating as all of the others. However, just like these other eating disorders, you CAN get better, even if you currently feel like you can’t. Full recovery is completely possible. Please be kind to yourself.

[Well this post has turned out to be loooooooooong. My longest article ever, to be honest! So thanks for reading it all if you did. But this is not a niche subject. BED is more prevalent that you may realise. In Australia, out of all of those who suffer from an eating disorder, 47% of them have Binge Eating Disorder, compared to 12% bulimia nervosa and 3% anorexia nervosa. BED is also the most prevalent eating disorder in the USA.]

Take care now. :o) I really appreciate each like, comment and share. If you want, please use this as a resource to explain to others the nature of Binge Eating Disorder and it’s legitimacy.

P – Pride

The other day I realised that I was over eight months self harm free. I felt something stir within me, something that I had not felt in a long time. It was a really powerful feeling and it seemed to fill up my whole body… No, don’t worry, it wasn’t a violent cannibalistic urge, or a desire to join ISIS. This strong sensation inside of me was actually pride.

This may not seem very significant. Surely it would be more exciting if I had realised my dreams of fulfillment lay in public nudity or learning the body language of spiders.

But it was, in fact, extremely noteworthy. Because like many who suffer from a mental illness, experiencing feelings of pride are few and far between.

I’m not talking about being proud of having a mental illness. Certainly, it is nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s not really trophy worthy. It would be like congratulating someone for having cancer. Recovery, on the other hand, is definitely worthy of praise.

People with mental illness accomplish tremendous feats on a daily basis. Those recovering from eating disorders try to wade through a sea of terror and eat their meals. Those with social anxiety force themselves to go to the party, despite desperately yearning to stay at home. Those who are clinically depressed push themselves to get dressed and leave the house, even though they feel like they are capable of nothing more than breathing. Every unhealthy behaviour delayed, every healthy meal consumed, every dangerous urge avoided, every shaky breath consciously slowed.

What is easy for many is incredibly difficult for those with a mental illness, and that should be acknowledged. Every day survived to the best of your ability is a victory.

And the bigger signs of progress – the weeks or months free of a particular behaviour, the weight restored or lost to a healthy level, the honesty with which you evaluate yourself and accept help, opening up to friends or family or the doctors, learning to be compassionate towards yourself despite what your head tells you – they each deserve an Oscar/Nobel Peace Prize/$10,000 gift card with no expiry date.

Unfortunately it is all too easy to disregard any progress, even if it is objectively significant. Common symptoms of someone with mental health problems can include low self-esteem, a distorted view of oneself and a highly critical internal dialogue. As a result we belittle ourselves for the situation that we are in and the illness convinces us that everything is our fault. Any progress isn’t good enough, it didn’t come about quick enough, there is still too long to go, and it should have been better executed. Or it doesn’t even feel good.

Take recovering from an eating disorder. Consuming a food item that you haven’t touched for years, not restricting any food group, or resting instead of over-exercising – surely accomplishing these insanely difficult feats would be met with some sort of exhausted pride, perhaps similar to that of finishing a marathon? Nope. After valiantly fighting the clutches of an eating disorder in an effort to be healthy and safe, the person is met with intense guilt, anxiety and worry.

It’s a vicious cycle because the motivation and sense of accomplishment that comes from realising how far you have come in your personal recovery is quelled by the mental illness itself: it simply wants to keep us trapped in our anxious negativity and hopelessness. Bastard.

So let’s try the following.

Currently, your mental illness might not let you say or believe it, so I will say it for you: congratulations on making it this far. Well done on not dying. Good on you for holding on and trying your best. You have every right to be proud of yourself, no matter what.

And guess what, believe me, eventually you will make enough progress that the illness will further relinquish its hold on you and you will finally revel in the unique and wholesome feeling that is pride… as a result of your mental health achievements. Yes, they are achievements and they are noteworthy.

Take care everyone. :o)

M – Medication

Having a mental illness is about as much fun as having a clown at a party that decides to reveal an axe that was hidden in their coloured wig and then frantically kill everybody with it before they have even had a chance to eat any cake.

In a vicious and unhappy cycle, not really similar to an axe wielding clown, not only is mental illness often stigmatised, but so is the treatment of it. Especially when it comes to taking medication.

Of course, medication (and by this, I mean the drugs one takes for depression, anxiety, bipolar, OCD, etc.) can’t really help if the doctor prescribing them is inexperienced and not knowledgeable of your condition. They should follow your progress and be willing to try a different drug if one isn’t working for you, or the side-effects are too disruptive. No one reacts the exact same way to the same medication and as a result it can sometimes be a bit hit and miss: you may have to try out a bunch of them before finding one that works. This is a fiddly, time-consuming and annoying process that can leave your cupboard looking like a pharmacy’s storeroom. And yes, medication for a mental illness often has annoying side-effects, from making sexy-times less fun to excess sweating to really really weird dreams. Plus, medication for a mental illness is never really 100% effective on its own and it’s not a cure. It simply can’t fix mental health problems just by itself.

So why bother?

Well, medication reduces the symptoms of a mental illness and thus makes it easier to deal with the monsters in our mind and get the other supports that we need. To give a few examples, it can stabilise the mood and lessen extreme mood swings, reduce the frequency of panic attacks, minimise severe fears or worries, increase or decrease energy levels, help with incessant thoughts, and reduce or eliminate hallucinations, paranoia, and delusions. In other words, it can make a mental illness manageable, bearable, liveable. It can make it easier to get out of the house and go to therapy or art class or a tea party (or all three.) There should be no shame or judgement in taking meds to achieve this. While one cannot see these types of diseases with the naked eye or through a blood test, they are as every bit as real and legitimate as cancer or the flu. Plus, and perhaps most importantly, you can sound intelligent, learned, and practise your pronunciation skills as you rattle off the chemical composition of your pills: reboxetine, fluoxetine, quetiapine, olanzapine, lamotrigine, desvenlafaxine, sertraline…

Yet medication is seen by some as unnecessary, counterproductive, wrong. Some claim that it alters you permanently, is addictive, and makes the illness chronic. Others go in the other direction and think that with medication you are perfectly fine, need no further help, and are unjustified in suffering further. There is simply too much stubborn ignorance surrounding medication for mental illness, and as a result it can make recovery even more difficult. It can increase the feelings of doubt and failure. But remember: anti-medication stories often consist of biased opinions and unfounded beliefs.

If you think, for instance, that “it is wrong to put foreign drugs into your body,” then in order to not be a bigoted hypocrite, you must have never ever received a vaccination, eaten a biscuit or bread that isn’t homemade, taken antibiotics or cough medicine, received an anaesthetic, or ingested anything from a different country. (Get it? Foreign? Ha ha ha…) Anyway, good luck if you or someone you love gets meningococcal, hepatitis, malaria, or all of these at once.

If you believe that “it is not healthy to be dependant on medication to live a normal life,” then you better not be friends with any healthy female who takes the pill in order to avoid having a billion babies while studying and trying to find a job. Or friends with a diabetic who takes insulin. Or a healthy person who is treating their asthma or arthritis or insomnia. Or maybe you don’t have many friends?

If you claim that “eating kale, sleeping well, loving yourself and doing yoga is a better alternative than medication,” then congratulations, you have cured depression, cancer, HIV/AIDS and Alzheimer’s! Time to spread the word and save the world! Maybe meditation and natural remedies work for you, that’s great, you’re very lucky. But if it worked so well for everybody, then there wouldn’t be a need for psychiatric hospitals or psychologists anymore. And saying that someone’s suffering can be eased by eating overpriced vegetables is just plain rude.

If you wonder how “so many people are on antidepressants yet so many people still die by suicide,” remember that while medication can be extremely beneficial to many, it is only one part of what can be a challenging and time-consuming recovery. External factors such as trauma, living conditions, the amount of support or bullying, the type of therapy, the quality of the doctors, and (unfortunately) the financial situation all play an important role in treating mental illnesses.

In summary, do not think any less of yourself if you are taking medication for a mental illness… or any less of others who do. And if you are considering taking medication but have some trepidation about it, remember it won’t be as bad as being killed by an axe-wielding clown. I’ll leave you with a quote I like and have on a T-shirt, surrounded by serotonin and noradrenaline patterns: “if you can’t make your own, store bought is fine.”

Take care of yourself and feel free to share. :o)

O – Obsessions

It is nice to have a clean and tidy house. It is easier to find things, there are less cockroaches, your mother approves, and it reduces the workload when preparing for snooty guests and epic parties.

It is also important to wash your hands and be hygienic. It isn’t nice to shake hands with people and give them your poo germs. It isn’t ideal to spread your boogers and cough remnants to the public, even if some particularly rude people deserve it. It isn’t good if the food you eat and serve to others has elements of raw mystery meat after making sausages.

What’s not good is spending so much time cleaning and tidying up that you miss social events or are late to work. What’s not good is washing your hands so frequently that not only do you use up all the expensive soap you got for Christmas from your aunty, but you also rub your hands so raw that they bleed and are painfully dry and cracked.

And yet you can’t stop these behaviours, because you are so terrified that if you don’t engage in them, something unspeakably awful will happen, something so dreadful you don’t even want to consider it.

I don’t want to preach, but there isn’t enough awareness about the truth of this disorder. All too often OCD is linked to words such as “quirky, individual, weird, cleanliness,” instead of words such as “emotional distress, incapacitating, fear, terror.” The near-constant preoccupation and worry felt by someone living with OCD are diminished and invalidated by offhand comments about things being in order and double checking.

People seem to forget or don’t realise that Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (i.e OCD) is, well, a disorder. Which is, boringly yet accurately put, “an illness that disrupts normal physical or mental functions.” OCD is not being simply upset or annoyed at, say, uneven eyebrows, the TV volume on a particular number, when the pencils aren’t in order of colour, someone taking too long to reply to a message, the non-uniformity of decorations or ornaments. In reality, it is having intrusive, unwanted, repetitive and often highly distressing thoughts that take over your entire head-space. It can cause panic attacks, depression, extreme anxiety and even suicidal thoughts. The preoccupation with the thoughts and the distracting urges to act (or not act) on them also result in lower concentration and difficulties at school or work.

OCD can manifest in a variety of compulsive behaviours, for instance constant checking, constant counting; and also exercising, calorie counting, body checking (the latter group are sort of bonus features of the horror movie box case set ‘Eating Disorder.’) They are either a form of solution seeking “if I do ABC, then XYZ will/won’t happen” or a result of seeking relief from the thoughts and urges.

OCD can also be just in the mind, and may not result in visible behaviours. Instead, over 3/4 of waking hours can be spent ruminating and worrying, thanks to aggressively repetitive thoughts. These obsessional thoughts not only feel real and tangible, but also, rather inconveniently, are often strong fears of acting violently or creepily. They may include doing sexual stuff that would put 50 Shades of Grey fanfiction to shame, killing or badly hurting loved ones, or harming animals and children. (The difference between these OCD thoughts and Hollywood depictions of ‘crazy people’ is that the thoughts are near constant and accompanied by anxiety and distress.)

The above type of thoughts are called ‘Pure-O.’ (but please don’t get them mixed up with the type of ‘O’ that Cosmopolitan will talk about!) While they are just thoughts, their constant presence means the sufferer will worry that they will actually act on them, and so will attempt to avoid situations in which they could happen, or try to figure out ways to stop themselves from doing whatever it is that the thoughts are saying will happen. Unfortunately, it is hard to out-logic any type of OCD. Plus, the thoughts seem so absurd, abhorrent and taboo it takes a lot of bravery and trust to open up about them.

Just like many disorders, OCD can be treated with medication, professional counselling, and support. Yay! Unfortunately, recovery does take a lot of effort, time, dedication, and many moments of feeling helpless and afraid… Then again, OCD tends to take up lots of time and make you feel helpless and fearful anyway, so you may as well seek treatment. After all, these thoughts, as frightening as they are, cannot hurt you unless you choose to act on them.

I don’t normally do this but I honestly don’t think there is enough out there on OCD so below are a couple of links with information if you want to find out what it’s like to have it, understand a loved one who is going through it, or understand your own disorder more clearly.

Living with intrusive thoughts

Obsessive morbid thoughts

Sciency stuff about OCD

Psychological stuff about OCD

Remember, OCD is a noun, not an adjective. You wouldn’t be forgetful and say “OMG I am so Alzheimers today.” Try and encourage the use of alternate adjectives such as organised, pedantic, anal, fussy, tidy, fastidious, selective, particular, and/or demanding.

Take care everyone.  :o)

Please share if you think it will help, and like if you liked this article!

P.S I know I normally post Thursdays but I forgot. So here it is, on a Friday. How spontaneous and exciting.

Y – YOLO

“Live every day like it’s your last day on earth.”

“Live in the moment.”

“Carpe Diem: Seize the day.”

“Today’s a brand new day.”

“Try something new every day.”

“You only live once.” [YOLO if you are a grown up and don’t know what it stands for.]

“Make today ridiculously amazing.”

“Dance, love, sing, laugh.”

“Live life to the fullest.”

“Make the most of every day.”

No.

Why? Well, practically speaking, it’s impossible. With this mindset, you’d never go to the doctor or dentist. You wouldn’t do school work or turn up to your job. Instead, you’d spend a lot of money eating your favourite meals, buy a one way ticket to somewhere and not plan the accommodation, and dance under the stars on the beach in front of everybody. You’d ignore pneumonia and go swimming. You’d go out to the beach or countryside and wouldn’t bother putting on sunscreen or insect repellent. You’d spend your savings on a bright green supercar. I would get some form of nutrition deficiency if I literally lived every day like my last, as I would probably eat nothing but chocolate and cake. Also I would run out of money and not sleep enough, determined to make the most out of the last few seconds ‘living’.

For people with a mental illness, all of the motivational stuff can be, well, demotivating. Someone with depression can’t simply just be happy or get up at sunrise everyday for a jog. How can someone with an eating disorder enjoy a ‘last’ meal if it fills them with utter terror? Someone with PTSD or anxiety isn’t going to be able to make their day brilliant when they can’t stop a sudden panic attack or control flashbacks.

If you really, really, really wanted to, you could abandon western society and live with a nomadic tribe in the Quimpalotchucka forest on the desert island of Fdiklybobfetttrasdisploo, and worry about more simple things such as food access, shelter and communication barriers. But the reality is we have to take care of our future selves and be somewhat future orientated if we want to live comfortably and sociably, have enough money to eat, and be physically healthy. We arrange meetings in the future to meet up with busy friends and anticipate new movies. We look forward to things tomorrow, we don’t eat the most amazing food every day, we get bored, we don’t make new amazing worldly friends, we procrastinate, we sit on the couch doing nothing, and that’s OK.

It is important to be grateful for what you have and appreciate the good moments in life, for sure. It’s great to be happy, and it’s heaps of fun to have an adventure now and then. It’s vital to take care of yourself and do what makes you happy and healthy overall. But life is often full of monotony, grief, stress and hardship… and again, that’s OK.

Because you know what?

You are allowed to be sad, miserable, grumpy and bored. You don’t have to be happy all the time, even if a reason exists that you feel should make you happy.

You don’t have do something fulfilling or intellectual all the time. If you enjoy them, don’t feel guilty for rereading silly romance novels or binge watching rubbish TV dramas.

You are allowed to get up at 3pm if you’re severely depressed and the best you can do is have a shower and get dressed.

You are allowed to be annoyed at public transport delays and traffic. You don’t have to be grateful that it’s better than India or Peru when it’s delayed for 30 minutes because someone vomited in a driver’s face.

It’s OK to not know what you want to do with your life. I don’t either.

You don’t have to get up early every day and work out and eat perfectly all the time.

It’s fine to be a little late or a little early now and then.

You don’t have to get great marks all the time, nor do you have to study everyday.

It’s normal to dread some things, whether it be exams, a fight with a friend, or an appointment.

You don’t have to be perfect. People should accept you and love you for who you are, flaws and all, rough patches and all, baggage and all.

You don’t have to go out every night and meet new people. No one is like the adverts on TV. In real clubs there is no toilet paper left, the girls are underage and the guys are twice your age. Real beaches have rubbish, screaming children and sand gets EVERYWHERE. Real people having drinks at a party aren’t perfectly dressed models and there will always be at least one random person who is creepy and/or throws up everywhere.

What I’m trying to say is: don’t beat yourself up for having a mental illness. Don’t beat yourself up for not being happy. These sicknesses are awful, and get in the way of so much, I know, but it just makes it worse when you feel guilty or ashamed that you can’t change the situation, no matter how hard you try. It’s much better to accept your current reality, as flawed and rubbish as it might be.

Why? So you can try to stop beating yourself up for not being as happy or carefree as you may want to be, so you can stop feeling guilty for not enjoying yourself as much as you think you should, so you can accept that your personal best is not the same as another person who is not hindered by a mental illness.

If you are accepting of your position, something that may seem small can become something for you to be proud of. For instance: Getting up before midday, doing the washing up, and calling a friend. Three things that might take all of the energy out of you, leave you exhausted, but are noteworthy because in your situation, that’s your best. It doesn’t have to be perfect or fantastic or amazing. It can just be small goals. It might be better on some days and worse on others. We have to realise that this is good enough. We don’t have to follow our dreams and work ourselves to the ground everyday. We’re only human. Consistency is good but perfection is impossible.

The only thing you’re not allowed to do is give up. If you accept your situation, that doesn’t mean you stop fighting to get better. It just means you take it easy on yourself when you don’t achieve as much as you may want to. Alright? Alright.

Now go live your day, even if it’s a shitty one.

Take care, see you next Thursday :o)

L – Loneliness

We are always, at some point in our life, going to feel lonely. There’s not always going to be someone right by our side, unless we have superglued them there against their will.

While this is a part of living (being alone, that is, not superglueing people), it gets a lot harder if you’re suffering from a mental illness, because with it comes an extra layer of isolation, self-criticism and loneliness. No one seems to understand exactly what chaos is going on in your mind, or what it feels like to have overwhelming thoughts that plague you every day. It’s hard to truthfully answer the question “how are you?” It’s difficult to rock up to school, uni, work, and put on a brave face when you just want to run away, hide and curl up in a scared little ball of human vulnerability.

Yet there are always positive pictures and stuff, saying “you are not alone in this!” and while they may sometimes seem too cheerful, they are actually true.

Because over the years I’ve learnt something important. No matter how lonely you feel, when it comes to mental illness, there is ALWAYS someone out there who is experiencing the same emotions, fears, thoughts and feelings as you.*

You could comprehend this by looking at it from a statistical perspective (which can be boring or fascinating depending on your interests.) I got stuff from a few different countries to try and encompass the scale of it all:

-350 million people worldwide suffer from depression

-Approximately 14% of Australians will be affected by an anxiety disorder in any 12-month period

-Over 18% of the population in the USA suffers from an anxiety disorder

-In Australia, approximately 1 in 100 adolescent girls develops anorexia nervosa

-Around 1 in 20 people in the UK will be suffering from a type of personality disorder at any given time

-Eating disorders are a daily struggle for 10 million females and 1 million males in the USA

-In Australia, suicide was the leading cause of death for people under 44, a rate higher than road accidents or cancer.

 -Around 1.5 million people worldwide have schizophrenia

-In Australia, 1 in 12 people between the ages of 15-24 engage in self-harm

-The incidence of bulimia nervosa in the Australian population is more than 5 in 100. 

…Ok, this is getting rather depressing, so I’ll stop. But statistically speaking, you are not alone! You have number friends!

You can also look at it from personal experiences. Here are some of the times I thought I was utterly alone in a thought, behaviour or fear, but turned out not to be:

 ~ Crying in The Shower: One night, while people partied away in the city, I was squatting in my own shower, crying my heart out. The events of that week had been too much for me to bear, and the many fears about my future threatened to engulf me. Shower water mixed with tears and I felt utterly alone and pretty pathetic. The next day, in group therapy, a girl was describing how she had trouble dealing with the aftermath of a challenging dinner. She said she was having a shower and then just started crying and crying and couldn’t stop. Somehow, on the same night, at the same time, someone else was crying in their shower too, just as I was, over similar fears. There’s probably more shower-criers out there.

~ Binge Eating: the time I ate $30 worth of cashew nuts and was called disgusting, the times I picked up and ate food from the footpath, the times I furtively ate scraps from the household rubbish bin, the times I secretly ate other people’s leftovers, the times I asked to borrow money so I could spend more on food when going home… I could go on. I thought I was alone in what I perceived as disgusting greed. Turns out, somewhere out there is a person who ate their sister’s wedding cake. There is a person who pretended to have children so she could buy more sweets from the shop. There are people who, like me, hated themselves as they bought a family’s load worth of groceries from the supermarket and then ate it all that afternoon, simply unable to stop themselves. There are people who threw out their binge foods in an attempt to stop the behaviour, only to go back out, fish it up and eat it all. I met some wonderful people when I was in hospital, but my homies were the ones who had suffered from binge cycles and knew what the secrecy and shame felt like.

~ Opening Up: I was on exchange overseas. On the train after class, a friend I had recently made at the uni was having fun stalking through my old Facebook photos. “You look really different in this one,” she commented, pointing to a two year old photo of an underweight-me. “I was sick,” I answered, trying to play it down. She  (melodramatic warning, but honestly true for me) then said two words that I won’t forget: “Me too.” We then quietly told each other our stories and our struggles. Despite knowing her for only a few weeks, she was the one who held me in the girls bathroom when I was sobbing, terrified by suicidal thoughts. I had blubbered at her, asking if she minded my snotty face and irrational thoughts. She didn’t, because she had been there too.

 

This realisation that we’re not alone in our suffering can sometimes come with feelings of sadness and distress. It’s not fair, nor is it a nice thought, to know that there are other innocent people out there struggling too, who feel the same pain you do.

But I, at least, feel less lost when I know that there are so many individuals who, like me, are labouring on a daily basis for things that seem invisible to many others. I am losing count of the amount of times I have opened up to someone and told them my ‘issues’, only to have them admit their struggles too. People who I thought had it all together, who seemed confident, happy and carefree, I now know have had, currently suffer from, or are recovering from: anxiety, eating disorders, depression, BPD, hallucinations, self harm, trauma, PTSD and bipolar. I have high-fived a guy I met because after 5 minutes of talking we found out we went to the same hospital. I have read so many stories of people who have low self esteem, self hatred, addictions and unsure of their futures. There’s a reason why many mental health services have a waiting list…

Trust me, you are definitely not alone, nor will you ever be.

* Of course, if you were to test this by going out and riding a unicycle through the snow wearing nothing but purple gumboots and balancing a potato on your head or something, and shouting “I HAVE A MOOD DISORDER,” it could be said that your experience is unique.

** Source: Google.