Tuesday 30 December 2014

Thinking

Today I thought about how I was always thinking
what could be better in me
slimmer, shiner
like what other people have.

If my days could be more meaningful
I would fill them up
with realised dreams
and good wishes.

There's something about New Year.
It makes you think about
everything you've done
and everything you've
not yet become.

Two sides of me toil
in bitter silence
tugging at each other
like melted tar.

Saturday 27 December 2014

Trigger Unhappy: Weight

Today I made the decision to weigh myself. I knew that the news wouldn't be good - just after Christmas is always a damage limitation zone. I also knew that I wasn't being a very good friend to myself because I knew how it would make me feel. If there is one thing that can bring my mood crashing right down it's knowing that I weigh more. I did it anyway. I suppose it's partly because I felt I had to know, partly because it's what I have always done and partly to give own self a scolding.

Rationally I don't know why I place such meaning on the flickering number on the scales - when other people gain weight I almost never think they look bad. That said, I always notice. I used to be obsessed with watching other people eat. I still parallel the people I'm with, berating myself if I eat more than they do, stiff with sadness if I have to make up excuses as to why I'm not hungry.

After everything I've been through there are some things I know. Firstly I know that this is a learned behaviour from a long time ago, when I learnt thin = good. I was a twelve year old writing in my diary about how I needed to lose weight. When you do people tell you look great. 'You've lost weight', unless you are suffering from an illness, seems always to be a compliment. The same magazines that tell you to be proud of your figure advocate weight loss and dieting. I stopped reading them along time ago, but the message rolls around at the back of you. Thin = good, not thin = not good.

I weigh more than I did and I am not happy about it. If I hadn't been through almost two decades of this, if I hadn't gotten help, I know what I would believe. I am not thin (although it must be said no matter how much I weight I lost I never felt content and never believed I was thin) therefore I am not good. That's what I would be thinking right now. It would curl up in my stomach and purr cruelly at me every time I even thought about eating. The thing is now I don't feel like it matters so much. And I'm not sure how I feel about feeling that.  I'm not driven to hurt myself the way I used to, because my depression is under control. Mostly. It makes me nervous knowing that some of the habits I had then, when I spoke to myself in riddles of hatred, I might have to use now. Dieting after having an eating disorder is like walking on the side of a bridge, praying that you fall inside it - not off it- if you stumble.

"What a strange illusion it is, that beauty is goodness."

Miss D x



Thursday 25 December 2014

I hope

Today has gone quickly. 

I hope you have experienced some glimmers of joy this Christmas 

I hope they continue

I hope that you feel a little positive about the world 

I hope that you enjoy listening to this song as much as I do

Merry Christmas 

Miss D x

Wednesday 24 December 2014

Struggles and Sparkle

Last Christmas Eve I spent time half writing a children's story. I wasn't in the best place. Mostly I felt like crying and you can't cry in front of your cheerful family for no reason at all. Not at Christmas anyway. It felt good to escape into something else. Writing calms me, centres me, helps me to understand what's going on. It comes naturally to me. If you have trouble chilling - just being - sometimes like I do I have a few other suggestions for helping.

1. Running/Walking 

Daylight hours are so important! Running works. I'd love to say even a ten minute walk will make you feel slightly better - sometimes it does make me feel lonely but I'm always grateful for the change of scene. Although I love my music sometimes it's also important to go headphone free and give yourself a chance to hear the world.



2. Colouring/Art

Choose a picture. Sit and colour.



3. Rocking Out 

Listen to something completely stupid and dance your socks off. Endorphins matter.

With hope and a Merry (almost) Christmas

Miss D
x

Monday 22 December 2014

Life and Death

Sometimes things on the cusp of mortality hurtle in, swift winds riling the world with a full kind of sorrow. This week has been one of those weeks. On Saturday I discovered someone I used to work with tragically passed away: he was the loveliest man. At the same time my best friend had a beautiful baby boy, eight weeks before he was due. On Sunday they thought they'd have to operate on his tiny tummy. Then today there was a terrible, freak accident in Glasgow. It easily could have been me, or anyone I know, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. A victim of circumstance. I can't imagine how those affected are coping, to me it still seems unreal. 

At times like this I have the same thoughts I always have - that I should be incredibly grateful to be living and to be safe. It's like I'm jolted out of things and my problems seem so minute, so trivial, that I become ashamed to think or speak about them. Then they lurk, at the back or me, growing slowly into darkness. This year I finally understood it. When you suffer from anxiety or depression it's all that exists. It's not trivial, because you can't see past it. It's also not a choice. 

That's why I know, perhaps today more than ever, how important it is to fight to make it better. Time, quality time, is up for grabs. 

Miss D x


Positive Vibes


Five things that help me stay positive 

1) Dancing in my flat 

2) Going for walks to get my daylight hours 

3) Positive, caring people

4) Listening to James Brown and Etta James 

5) Looking at this hat

When I'm not positive it's because I can't see anything in colour. Tiny things help. I like to know if I can stay positive I can help to other people. #happything


Saturday 20 December 2014

How To Cope: #happything

Last February was when I cracked. I couldn't keep it in any longer, when my little sister asked me how I was I squeaked out "Not good", heated and violent tears tumbling down my cheeks. The next day she suggested that maybe if we shared one thing every day that made us feel happy it would help. Not a solution, but something. I found it centred me, rooted me more firmly to the ground. I still try to do it - here are some of my happy things.

How the sky looks 


Loving yoga 


Being kinder to myself


Buying a sunflower for my sister


#happything 
#memories
#hope 






Friday 19 December 2014

Empty

Sometimes when I leave a conversation I feel empty

Like there's not enough of me, or them, to make it meaningful.

Like I'm touching just the top of it

Wanting it to be more than it is

Willing it into poignancy.

Thursday 18 December 2014

Time to Yourself

I don’t know why I have been struggling with this - being here, having time to myself. I thought it was what I had always wanted, to be able to write and read but there’s something about me - I don’t do well on my own. I mean I want to, I really, really do - but it’s like something’s blocking that; stopping it from being possible. 

Or is there nothing? I am creating a path, an expectation of a blockage, when it doesn’t really exist? I am my own limitation - I can achieve anything and yet I choose not to, to sit and feel completely lost and alone, to focus on that feeling and let it overwhelm me. I am not here to judge, only to observe my life patterns and how I let them coil around me.

26th September 2014

I want to be a writer

"I want to be a writer". This thought has been in my head since I started reading books. I loved reading, I loved writing. Then I got older. I started using words to hurt myself. To write about how much I wasn't. And I lost faith. 

It went something like this:

The world: Everyone wants to be a writer
Me: You're not special, you're not talented, you'll never make it.
The world: Filled with literary genius, people who can create 
Me: Still scrawling how much I hate myself on to a page 
The world: There will always been someone better
Me: You're not good enough. Never will be 

The thing that I have only just come to realise is this: I am a writer. I have written for as long as I can remember and no-one can take that away from me. Now those words, ones I wrote in the midst of an ill-understood pain, help me realise how much I hated myself, how not ok it was and how far I have come. The help me to understand I wasn't just a moody teenager. I didn't just eat too much or not eat at all. I wasn't unattractive and horrible. I was just extremely good at pushing everything good away. 

I am a writer. 


Wednesday 17 December 2014

Christmas is Cruel

This is the thought I had today - there's a cruelty in Christmas. 

Don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly love Christmas. Every year it's one of my favourite times. Just hours ago It's a Wonderful Life made me whimsical and weepy. I don't love it because I'm madly religious; I'm not all and that in itself is a topic for another time. I love it because I get to go home, see my family, dress up nice and go out. I get to play games and watch TV - to do all the things I never have time for usually. In short, I get, to be indulged. 

Therein lies the cruelty. Indulgence breeds a kind of guilt.  Or it does with me. 

If you're like me and you have (or have had a problem with food) it's can pull you apart. Like the rest of my family and friends I love food. I love eating.  Every Christmas I can remember I've felt guilty about doing it. Sometimes before, mostly during, always after. The first time I made myself sick on Christmas day I felt relieved. Like I could be unaffected by surging all of it out of me, straining my heart. There'd be an acidic taste on my tongue and I'd dispense of it with more chocolate. And the circle continued. 

I don't know if there is a kind of hope here - maybe if you recognise what you're doing it's easier to stop it? I'll speak more about triggers soon but Christmas is one. It's something that hugs you tight then pull you back fast into darkness. 

Miss D x 






Saturday 13 December 2014

Hello there

Hello reader, 

Welcome to my blog. It's about living with Mental Health problems. Sometimes ones you might not know you have. 

You need to know something about the name, I think, to start with. When I was a teenager I remember one birthday present in particular - a Mr Men door sign 'Little Miss Sunshine'. My friend said to me "it's because you're always so happy".  I thought: inside I'm screaming and you do not know me at all. 

I've been living with depression for as long as I can remember, although I only realised what depression was about a year ago. Before then I thought I had an eating disorder, or at times just a really moody temper. Sometimes I'd get anxious. I always seemed angry. Then I started to cry too much. The same questions tugged at me - Why am I not happy? What is wrong with me? 

Cliche? Cliches exist for a reason. We all think we are wildly original when actually we go through the same things, the same kind of pain. 

It took me a long time to answer those questions. In the end I only got there because I was tired. So tired of years of it, coming at me when I least expected it. In between I had good times and great times. So I knew that things could be better. 

I spent most of my younger years covering it up, blaming myself for the way I was feeling - tearing myself apart physically and mentally. 

The reason I'm here is to share what I've been through and what helped me get better. 

I always wanted to a be a writer, but for a long time everything I wrote was a reflection of what I didn't want to be - myself. 

Here's hoping.
x