Tag: Mental Health

OCD – The thief

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So I’ve recently realised that I haven’t really posted anything OCD based for a little while and this is because I haven’t really had much to write.  My OCD recovery is going well within it’s ‘safe limits’ – and by this I mean that day to day I’m pretty good but if you were to take me way out of my comfort zone and plonk me in the middle of a very crowded London underground train or something similar well then I could quite easily  end up in a ball on the floor having a panic attack – I know of course that recovery comes in stages and if you’d told me three years ago that I’d be able to drive to the local supermarket or a friends house and then not obsess about the journey for the rest of the day, maybe week, sometimes month or even years (yes years!) after, then I probably wouldn’t have believed you so it’s all about perspective.

I have found more recently that because I have been so insular over so many years that I’ve missed quite a lot of personal growth which most other people my age will have done organically over time.  I haven’t travelled that much, gone on trips away with friends, I don’t have close friends who I tell everything too and can rely on for anything etc etc.  I notice that people talk to me about things – local shops, bars, news and I don’t have any opinion because I’ve been so unable to function outside of my bubble for so long that I’m not even aware of these things, I feel that people must find me really quite boring.  It really is remarkable how much OCD has stolen from me over the years and actually is still stealing.

‘A life lived in fear is a life half lived’

A famous quote from strictly ballroom but it rings very true for me, OCD has held me back a lot along the way and ultimately it does all come down to me being scared of what might happen if I step out of my comfort zone too much.  I have known this for a while now and I do try to my best to push myself to do things that in the past I would of avoided, once again it’s a marathon not a sprint and I must remember this and not give myself too hard a time, we must always remember to be kind to ourselves and of course as always,

Stay Strong xxx

 

 

Breathing

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So I’ve done Yoga for many years and for anyone who’s done Yoga at all you’ll be aware that there’s normally a bit of meditation involved and some deep breathing and to be honest I normally find this part a bit dull.  I’ve also been on courses where I’ve learnt about the importance of breathing to get through fight or flight and all about the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system and how to balance them, I’ve learnt about heart math and it’s benefits and I’ve even blogged on here for over two years about how important breathing and mindfulness is but it wasn’t until today whilst listening to a Happy Place podcast with Rebecca Dennis that the impact of my breath on my entire life really hit me.

A good few years ago when I first met my husband he used to say to me quite often:

‘You’re holding your breath again’

Now, I just used to find this ‘pointless’ information annoying but today it REALLY hit me that this is actually the root of all my issues.  This is why yoga and meditation when I do them actually help me A LOT.  I hold my breath literally all the time, I’m doing it NOW, whilst writing this post, I can feel myself doing it!

I honestly think this is going to change my life.  I have been doing my meditations more (admittedly not everyday) but even that is starting to help and I am definitely going to continue with it.

Just stopping now and listening to my breath, its not smooth its not even, I’m surprised I’ve lasted this long to be honest!

I am sure I will need to do some work on what has caused me to hold my breath in this way but at least now I am aware of it and I can move forward.

Hopefully this will help someone else too,

Stay Strong xxx

 

Mindfulness

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So what feels like years ago I said something along the lines of,

‘I’m going to give mindfulness a go because I’ve dabbled in it and it seems to work’. 

So it was actually Oct 2017 and to be honest I haven’t really got any further along my mindfulness journey which is incredibly disappointing.

Recently I’ve been feeling incredibly stressed and anxious, my stomach problems have been getting worse and I’ve felt quite out of control – which I HATE – I don’t seem to be able to find a diet which suits me and I am struggling to think clearly as my mind fog comes and goes.  Even sitting myself down to write this blog post has been a challenge but I know it is important that I do.

So also about a year ago I downloaded a mindfulness app, it has a feature that lets you put in an alert so that every day you get a reminder to do just 5 minutes (initially) of mindfulness meditation, should be easy right?  Every evening I see it pop up on my phone and every evening I just ignore it and carry on with whatever I am doing – I obviously have no time for that.  Writing this now I know my husband is going to give me a hard time about this, I know alright, insert rolling eyes emoji here.  I also know he only does it because he loves me.

We are very self destructive as humans, we almost rebel against the things we know do us good.  We know we should eat well, exercise, drink in moderation, not smoke or do drugs, we should meditate and sleep for 8 hours each night etc etc.  So why don’t we do these things?  Is it because we think it makes us boring?  I know personally when I start  trying to do all these things I feel very overwhelmed and you have to be very determined as no one else seems to be doing them so there’s very little support.

I went round a friends house yesterday and out on the floor were two cakes and a bag of cookies and then the conversation was all about trying to loose weight.  What is wrong with us?  Does it just take a bit more effort and therefore we can’t be bothered?

Anyway I digress, this post was supposed to be about mindfulness meditation.  So this week when that notification on my phone pops up, an much as I know I’m not going to want to I’m going to try and take that five minutes and tune in with my body because I owe it to myself.

I will let you know how it goes, stay tuned and of course as always,

Stay Strong xxx

 

Hangry

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So the definition of Hangry for those who aren’t sure is:

‘bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger’.

Now this is definitely something I’ve been ‘suffering’ from over the last fortnight.  As a result of some intolerance testing I had done (because of my Ulcerative colitis) I was advised to eliminate dairy, wheat, gluten and reduce my intake of some other foods like oats and soya, honestly the list was pretty substantial and very overwhelming.

I hadn’t really expected there to be a mental backlash from these tests, in fact I was expecting to feel quite positive about the outcome, maybe there would be something I could work on to improve my health?

However what I actually experienced was:

  1. The initial depression which hit straight away from having to eliminate so many foods.
  2. Having not seen a dramatic improvement, there’s an element of feeling like I’m making huge sacrifices for very small benefits, very discouraging.
  3. It’s super disheartening when you go out as you can’t find anything to eat and the thing you normally end up having is something you don’t even want just so you can eat something!
  4. but the one that has hit me this last week is the anxiety.  I believe this has come as a result of constantly feeling hungry and unsatisfied and therefore too much adrenaline being released into my body.

When your body feels hungry your adrenal glands release adrenaline to keep you going until you can eat again.  It boosts heart rate, blood pressure and energy levels which is great in an emergency situation but if this is happening constantly throughout the day you’re body doesn’t know what to do and you are just in a constant state of anxiety.  

My anxiety hadn’t been up at that level for a long time, I had no patience, I was teary, snappy, feeling overwhelmed constantly and like I couldn’t cope, getting out was really stressful and to be honest I was feeling like I needed to go to the doctors and get myself on some medication as I couldn’t seem to get my head sorted.

I hadn’t felt like that for years and so I went and ordered myself a big meal full of all the things I shouldn’t eat as a last attempt to feel better and you know what almost instantly my head felt clearer, my stomach not so much unfortunately but yesterday I had to prioritise my mental health and as a result today I actually feel human again today.

It has been incredibly scary for me to feel so out of control after having a good handle on my mental health for a good few years now, I really need to be more careful before making big changes and just removing things from my diet, I have definitely learnt my lesson.

Mental and physical health is such a balancing act, food and eating well is a huge part of this, the last fortnight has been a scary reminder of this.

Stay Strong xxx

It’s all about balance

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So I’ve chatted about my UC (ulcerative colitis) a few times on this blog, I’ve suffered with it for most of my life along with my OCD.  My diet has always been a bit of a balancing act for me and like probably with most people if I eat a lot of ‘junky’ type foods I know I’m going to suffer the next day.

For a while now I’ve removed lactose from my diet which has helped but more recently I’ve been advised to remove all dairy, wheat, egg and gluten, wow!  This really hit me hard, I already knew how hard just removing lactose was but I had found ways to make it work but then to have to remove two entire food groups and lots of foods I really enjoy – like cheese – was a real blow. It took me about two weeks to actually start to get my head around it, I really thought before the tests that I would feel positive afterwards and that they would give me something to work towards but actually surprisingly that isn’t how I felt at all.

So over the last month I’ve bumbled through at home and I do think I feel slightly better HOWEVER there has to be a balance for me because of my mental health.  One of the hardest things about cutting out lots of food groups is that it makes going out for lunch, dinner etc incredibly difficult, in fact I find most of the time there is only one thing I can actually have on the menu and even then I normally have to remove the sauce (the nice bit) to make it work.  It makes me not want to go to restaurants, to eat food that I don’t even want.  I know how important getting out and socialising is for my mental health so where does this leave me?  Well to be honest currently I’m not sure, this is the conversation I’m having in my head today.

Do I go and meet my friends for lunch and eat something I’m not going to enjoy or stay in and have a more enjoyable lunch but not see my friends?  This dilemma is coming up more and more for me and it’s tough.

So do I put my mental health or physical health first?  Of course we know that neither can work without the other and so I need to find a balance, not sure where that is yet but I’m working on it.

life is all about balance, anything done to the extreme is normally unsustainable and life isn’t black and white.  We’re all looking for that quick fix but unfortunately life doesn’t work like that.

If anyone else is experiencing anything similar and has any advice then please comment and let me know and as always,

Stay Strong xxx

Yoga

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I cannot speak highly enough about yoga, I flipping love it!  I have done it for years just as a hobby really but it’s benefits for me are huge.  It relaxes me, improves my mental head space, it gets me more in tune with my body, it also helps with my Ulcerative Colitis, it strengthens my body and improves my flexibility, the benefits are endless.  If you’re struggling mentally for whatever reason or actually even if you’re not and you’ve never given yoga a go then you should really try it.

More recently I haven’t been doing as much exercise in general (this includes yoga) mainly because of a lack of time and energy (having just had a baby recently) but I am just starting to feel like I can get my head back into it and I have been bringing myself right back to the basics.  It’s amazing how much you can forget, even the small things like how to breath properly and hold your core muscles. The foundations are so important – in everything not just yoga – you have to put in the time and effort at the start to make sure you reap the benefits at the end.  Like with mental health recovery it is a marathon not a sprint but boy is it worth it in the end.

Mental health week 2019 – body image

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So in the UK this week it’s mental health week and this year it’s focused on body image.  Such a humongous topic and something that I think probably effects everyone of us in some way shape or form (no pun intended).

I have had my own journey with body image along the way, if you’ve read anymore of my blog you may have read about my low moments when I tried to make myself sick, this makes me so sad when I look back now.  Our bodies are so amazing after all and yet we can treat them so badly at times.

I am once again on my own journey with my body having just had two babies in three years it has changed somewhat but I have a new found respect for how amazing it is and I will never hate my body in the way I have previously.  I also have an autoimmune disease (ulcerative colitis) which demands I respect my body to feel well so I have no choice really, I have to take good care of myself.

I feel like the media has a lot to be accountable for for the unrealistic and unachievable goals it sets us, who are they to say what the most desirable body image is anyway?  I look around my local high street and how many people do I see who look like someone from a magazine, zero, that’s right ZERO!  Perhaps the people in the magazines are the unusual looking ones and not us?

Anyway I digress a little from OCD and I do have one incident from my past which I can remember quite vividly which involves eating and my OCD.

So when I was younger and my compulsions were really bad I had to do everything four times and I mean literally everything!  I remember standing in a local shop wanting to buy a bag of chocolate – like a selection pack with multiple bars in – now this is the sort of thing you would normally only want one of.  I stood there trying to decided which one to buy for what seemed like ages, every time I made a decision – I’ll buy this one – an OCD intrusive thought would come into my head and be associated with it – magical thinking OCD.  Long story short I ended up buying four of these bags of sweets – and probably spending most of my pocket money at the time on them – and then of course I had to eat them all too – so bingeing as a result of my OCD – the result of which, predictably was that I felt full, sick, guilty, ashamed and all the other rubbish that comes with eating too much and did it help relieve my intrusive thoughts, of course not!

This happened a lot to me over the years and so not only was my mind out of my control but also my body and it did take an awfully long time for me to stop eating in this way, my poor body.

Learning to love yourself is I think a life long journey but we must focus on the things which are amazing about ourselves and not the things which aren’t our best features.  If you’re someone who loves every part of yourself then you’re a very lucky person.  I think when you can realise that no matter what you do you’re never, EVER going to look like someone in a magazine then you can start to move on and accept who you are and how beautiful you are because no matter how much you diet or work out it is completely unachievable because:

  1. They’ve been airbrushed – they don’t even look like that!
  2. They spent like 3 hours in make up as well!
  3. They had someone come and do their hair and make up for them – I’d look amazing if I had that too.
  4. All models are different too, there’s no way you can be, white and Asian and Mediterranean and 6 foot tall and petite and have blue eyes and brown eyes and blonde hair and brown hair – no one can have all those things.
  5. No one gets it all, I promise.
  6. We are beautiful because we are unique, if we all looked the same life would be dull, dull, DULL!

Mental wellbeing is essential for your body and body image to be positive too, if you can get your head in the right place then the rest will follow.  On those days when you’re feeling low just take little steps towards making yourself feel calm, right down to the basics of breathing if necessary and don’t beat yourself up for the odd off day, we all have those I promise.

Stay Strong xxx

My own company

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Now this is something I’ve struggled with for as long as I can remember, I really do dislike being on my own and having to sit with my own thoughts, eeek!  In fact I’ve realised recently that I talk out loud to myself all the time and I think it’s partly so I don’t have to listen to my own thoughts and partly so I can separate the important thoughts from the jumble that is my own brain.

I find everything feels a bit more scary when I’m on my own, my anxiety is heightened and I catastrophize constantly, it’s also much harder to just dismiss negative thoughts.  For me this is a working progress and I do believe I’m better at it then I used to be but man I’ve got a long way to go.

So once again I don’t have a nice quick fix for this either, hummm.  I expect if I asked an expert they’d tell me I have to face it and just sit with the thoughts, feelings and inner ramblings.  Maybe eventually something more positive would start to come out?

I think when you have OCD intrusive thoughts it’s incredibly difficult to like yourself and therefore your thoughts, I think the version of yourself you see is completely different to the one everyone else sees and so you can’t understand why other people like you at all and you actually have no idea what they think of you.  Maybe they see more of the real you then you do, the you without OCD – if like me you have Pure O – now that’s a mind blowing thought!

So of course I must work harder on my self love and try to see all of the positives instead of the negatives.  I must push myself to do the things I know make me feel well mentally:

  • Get enough sleep
  • Do exercise
  • Eat well
  • Remove caffeine and alcohol
  • Remove any negative people who make me question my self worth from my social circle
  • Write a list of positives to read when struggling
  • Continue to write my blog
  • Appreciate all the beautiful things I have in my life
  • Live mindfully

So this is my little lecture to myself today to give myself that extra push that I know sometimes we all need.  Recovery is a marathon and not a sprint and boy don’t I know it, so until next time

Stay Strong xxx

 

 

Talking is only the beginning

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I’ve been quite open about my OCD for a few years now and it is definitely a nice feeling to know I don’t have to hide it anymore, it’s also given friends an opportunity to come to me if they’re struggling as they know I won’t judge them and I’ll understand which is nice.

I do find however that talking and understanding are two completely different things, maybe I’m expecting too much from people who sometimes have never even heard of OCD?  I think I hoped once people knew, they would then understand why say sometimes it’s hard for me to go places, drive long distances and generally be out of my comfort zone however peoples expectations of me are still as high as ever and when I remind them of my OCD there’s almost a bit of pressure for me to ‘just get over it already’.

This has just been my experience of late and I don’t suppose it applies everywhere but in general I have found if something doesn’t effect someone directly then they tend to forget about it pretty quickly and I suppose that’s human natures way of coping with the information overload we get on a daily basis, the brain just can’t hold it all in.

So I suppose it’s down to me to keep the conversation going and to try and educate the people close to me as best I can.  OCD in particular I think is very hard for anyone who isn’t suffering with it to try to understand.  Superstitions has always been the nearest I’ve been able to get, you don’t really know why you do them but if you don’t that ‘Oh my god is something bad going to happen to me’ feeling doesn’t leave you for a good while.  Randomly I don’t do any superstitions, I see them as OCD intrusive thoughts and therefore I have treated them in the same way and ignored them.

I really feel it is so important to keep the OCD conversation going, awareness is so important, especially for young people who may not of heard of OCD and won’t understand what is happening to them – this was me for 7 years!!  My OCD has shaped my entire life and when I look back at the 11 year old me I feel quite sad as I know she has such a long and pretty dark journey ahead of her.

I realise this has been a bit of a mind dump but I hope it has made some sense and will give anyone struggling with OCD a really good reason to keep talking about it.

Stay Strong xxx

Mental Health after pregnancy

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So I’ve just checked and it’s been a fair old while since I’ve posted on here.  I’m disappointed because this blog is really important to me but I’ve decided to be kind and forgive myself as the reason is I’ve just had no time to focus on it.  I have a newborn who seems to be allergic to sleep and therefore I’m trying to catch up with that in any free time I get!  My sleep is really important to my mental well being and therefore it comes first.

So shes currently having nap so I thought I’d go for it and see if I can manage to get to the end of a post.

So newborns and mental health, where to start?  This is my second child and so I knew a little of what to expect this time around but it still takes a massive toll on your mental and physical health no matter who you are and so if you’re someone already suffering from a mental health issue then it can really throw you off track.

I’ve found control and structure to be so important in my mental health recovery, things such as: eating well, getting enough sleep, socialising, exercise and routine are so important to incorporate into my daily life and when you have a newborn (and in my case a toddler as well) your self care can really go out of the window.  Some things for me have slipped this time around (this blog included) and at times it has been tough.  She still wakes up 3/4 times a night (at 7 months!) and an extended period of time with broken sleep can really takes it’s toll on, well, pretty much everything.  I am lucky that I have a lot of support from family but even so there have been days where I’ve just had to push myself through with will power.

There is a good side to all the madness though (and this is something I would never have believed prior to having children) and that is that I’m so busy that I don’t have time to dwell on OCD thoughts at all.  They come into my head and I honestly don’t think of them again, there just isn’t time.  I have never known anything better at grounding me then my children.  Yes there are other mental issues I am processing such as my anxiety and worry but I almost feel like they are slightly more ‘normal’, everyone seems to have some sort of worry/anxiety and so I don’t feel quite as abnormal for having them.  They’re still completely rubbish but I find other people are able to relate more easily to them and so when you’re chatting about them you don’t get the blank faces where someone is trying to understand why you think you ran over something on the way to meet them and have then completely forgotten about it, stupid intrusive thoughts!

Anyway, I have still been noting a few ideas down over the last few months so hopefully I can manage to write a bit more regularly now.  If anyone has any requests for information on coping strategies or OCD topics or pregnancy or post natal related OCD then I am more then happy to share my experiences so just say in the comments.

but for now,

Stay Strong xxx