RECOVERY

This piece of writing was written almost entirely by anonymous contributors. You know who you are. I can't thank you enough for sharing your experiences, I have learnt so much from every single one of you and I can't put into words how much I appreciate your help in creating this piece. 

Keep on keeping on xxx

This is my recovery; 3 pieces of cake down and ready for the fourth.

'Recovery is...'

There are two definitions in the oxford dictionary for recovery.

"The return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength"

Although I don't believe the concept of 'normal' is the same for everyone.

"The action or process of regaining possession of something that was stolen or lost"

But recovery isn't just about retrieving the little broken pieces of ourselves we thought were gone forever. It's about learning that it's okay to leave some of these pieces behind and discover new ones.

Now, here are some of my favourite definitions;

"Recovery is when I have a bad day, but know I can pick myself up again by tomorrow. That knowledge alone makes you stronger than ever before" 

- Anonymous; depression

"Recovery is the process of learning it's okay to not be okay. A rollercoaster of extreme highs and depth defying lows that make you question everything about yourself. It is reinventing your own reality until it feels right again, and until that day comes you will face battles that no one, not even yourself, will ever fully understand"  

- Anonymous; anorexia

"Recovery is honesty – the moment I decided to be honest about my recovery was the moment I was able to actually start recovering." 

- Anonymous; anorexia, depression, bulimia

"Recovery was one of the most valuable experiences of my life; learning to be authentically introspective. I discovered exactly who and what I was, I became so lucid, I saw through a new child's eyes the beauty of the world, and I found passion again. All this lovely jubbly gooey stuff. I sound like a monstrous hippy, but really, in being honest with myself entirely, I looked into the world and saw only what made me passionate" 

- Anonymous; borderline personality disorder, co-morbid anxiety, depression

"Recovery isn't complete, but I am on the road, and although I can't quite see the finish line I now know it's there. Recovery is hard, almost harder than some of the bad days, but instead of acting on my impulses, I'm fighting them." 

- Anonymous; bipolar, bulimia

"Sometimes recovery is worse, and sometimes it's better. Sometimes it's a bath, and sometimes it's curling up into a ball and crying until it hurts a bit less. One of the most valuable lessons I have learned is that it's okay to not be okay." 

- Anonymous; anxiety, panic attacks

Amongst these people are obvious differences in the experiences that they have suffered, yet each commonly believe in the importance of being honest, kind, and understanding of themselves in this process of recovery.

'I am...'

Living every single day of your life by the rules of your mental illness, you become programmed to think that this is how you have to exist, this is how you have to live, this is what you are. This is what defines you.

I am Sam bulimic. You are anorexic. You are depressed. You are bipolar. You are your mental illness.

When we recover, my therapist once told me it's like trying to teach a dog to stop chasing a ball. Let's call him Alfie. It goes against every instinct in Alfie's bones to let the ball roll away from him. He has an overwhelming urge, a desire, a need to sprint after the ball as fast as he can, because that's what he's been doing for years. But now he's being held back on a leash so tight it nearly chokes him. He's not allowed be himself anymore, he's not allowed to be Alfie. But what he doesn't realise just yet, is that he can be Alfie without the ball.

This is the same with recovery. I wasn't allowed to go for 9 mile runs after eating one piece of toast, nor eat past 11pm because that was when I was prone to binging. I wasn't allowed to use the toilet until an hour after a meal, or stare at my stomach in the mirror for 45 minutes waiting to make sure the bloating went down. I wasn't to weigh myself every morning, afternoon and evening, and I wasn't to write down how many grams of fat I'd consumed on the back of my hand as the day went along. And then the hardest thing; I wasn't allowed to purge my food. At the time I thought all these things were what made me me, and I was petrified of what would happen when I wasn't allowed to be me anymore. Would I disappear too? Where would Sam go? What would she do? How would she cope?

"After you experience a mental health ‘issue’, life suddenly becomes a process of not only ‘recovering’ your happiness, but also exploring and discovering ‘new’ happiness." 

- Anonymous

- This brings us back to Alfie. He is still on his leash, staring longingly at the ball in the grass. Until, he notices another dog further ahead dragging a giant stick across the ground. Alfie starts to wonder if playing with the stick would be more fun than the ball. And eventually this wonder turns into experimentation (which stick should I pick? This big one here or the one with all the leaves?) so the leash gets a little looser, which turns into exploration (maybe there's even more sticks in that corner of the park? Is that a pond over there?), until eventually he watches the ball roll away from him and does not flinch, instead he just lets it go. He doesn't need the ball to be happy anymore. He's still Alfie.

In the same way as Alfie, I realised that there was so much more to me than bulimia. I let bulimia go, and now I am Sam the one who paints, the one who runs, the one who goes to University in Sheffield, the one who always talks too much, the one who cries at TV adverts, the one who's South African. All of these are me now.

I was bulimic am Sam.

'I still...'

Because with every 'I still', there always comes a 'but'...

"I still have days where I look in the mirror and all I can think is ‘You are disgusting’. But I am beginning to learn that this is just another part of my recovery. I have gone through the phase where I was dependent on others for support and help. Now I am learning to rely on myself for that love and comfort. I may not be able to stop these thoughts, but I can rationalise them more easily, and that is something I thought I would never be able to do!" 

- Anonymous

"I have ADHD, and like many other people with this disorder I suffer from depression and anxiety. Due to a late diagnosis I struggled to understand myself, but I am getting better at it everyday. Although I wish I wasn't, I am still very private concerning my mental health, but things like this remind me that I am not alone." 

- Anonymous 

"Yeah I still take meds, I still have mood swings, I still develop delusions and sometimes get drunk in the bath (what are weekends for amirite?) but through all the therapy, the hours spent talking to myself, or talking to my therapist with that infuriatingly understanding look on his face, I found an honesty that brought me peace from so many unexpected places. I know who I am. And with that I carry on, hoping I hold the courage to be able to act upon what I know my happiness is." 

- Anonymous

"Clearly I am still 'working on things', but isn't that how life works? To lead a fulfilling life is it not helpful to look back at past experiences and learn from them to promote new, positive experiences? I think so. Recovery is not about having to say 'god, I'm still so entangled in all these difficulties'; it is the decision to pursue your own happiness for the sake of your own happiness. It isn't neccesarily about having a plan, but nor is it living in the moment. There is no handbook to recovery. Your recovery is owned by you." 

- Anonymous

'And now...' 

 "And now I look back on the worst times, and I smile because what my friends did for me is something incredible, and made me realise that happiness and life IS worth fighting for. The relationships and bonds we build with people are too good to be taken for granted." 

- Anonymous

"And now I know why it hurt so damn much. It wasn't just me that my depression was breaking to bits, it was my family too. That's what gets me out of bed everyday. That's now all the motivation I need. I won't let it bleed out into the people I love most, because they're the reason I'm still here. They're why I would now consider myself 'in recovery'" 

- Anonymous  

"And now I eat Yorkie bars. I forgot how much I f*cking loved yorkie bars." 

- Anonymous 

"And now I can live." 

- Anonymous 

Exercise for the week: Be open minded

I received a message from someone who suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and it broke my heart. CFS is considered both a medical and psychological condition, as there is no known cause or treatment but has been associated with occurring after a viral infection.

"The stigma that comes with it makes it worse. So many people say to me 'Have you tried this', or 'you're probably just tired', or 'it's just all in your head, be positive'. It's exhausting." 

- Anonymous 

Just tired? Just in your head? So 250,000 CFS sufferers in the United Kingdom alone just need a nap, or a little lie down? Their prolonged episode of depression is just because they're tired and haven't had enough sleep? Right.

Please, be open minded. Do a bit of reading on the internet about a mental health condition, or pick up a pamphlet if you're at the pharmacy, or watch a documentary on BBC iPlayer. Mental illnesses thrive on silence, so we have to be vocal, we have to be aware, we have to talk. 

0300 123 3393
info@mind.org.uk
Text: 86463

Eating Disorders Awareness Week

We are over halfway through an incredibly important time of the year for me and maybe for you reading this, as well as 1.6 million other men, women, boys, girls and transgender in the UK ALONE. It's Eating Disorders Awareness Week. I want to discuss two areas with you: 

1) The picture society has unintentionally created for eating disorders.

2) Functional or 'mainstream' disordered eating. 

https://www.b-eat.co.uk/

1. My Puzzle Theory

Firstly I HATE puzzles. Maybe this is why. 

This imaginary, very strict puzzle makes a picture of what an eating disorder looks like. The pieces have to fit exactly in order to use them.

What happens if one puzzle piece has the pattern on it that may match the picture, but one of the sides is broken and so it doesn't fit with any of the other pieces? You don't use it for your puzzle because then it ruins the picture you want to copy. What happens next? You just don't use the little broken piece. Instead there is a hole in your picture, because it might be too difficult to fix a broken piece or to try and understand why it was broken in the first place. 

I was a slightly broken puzzle piece. I didn't fit the exact social criteria for "bulimia", or some of the diagnostic criteria for that matter. Generally both of these have a picture of what an eating disorder should look like, and individuals are like puzzle pieces in that if you can't fit them to the other pieces of the puzzle, they won't make the picture. 

Problems with this

Aside from being a weird analogy (feel free to suggest alternatives, I was late to my lectures and had to come up with something quickly), one issue with this extremely simplistic, physical way of identifying these mental illnesses is simple; humans are complex as f***. We are the most complicated, confusing, intricate, irritating and most amazing creatures on the planet, but we break. And what we don't realize often enough is that people don't always break in the same place. Not all sufferers will look like the stereotypical example of what an eating disorder is. Some people do, but a lot of people don't.

The second issue with this theory is that an eating disorder isn't physical, we can't take a picture of it.

"But they don't look like they have an eating disorder?"

Because it's not an appearance.  

Chrissie Wellington- World Champion triathlete,
Anorexia and Bulimia

I didn't look like I forced myself to be sick after I ate, or that I'd woken up at 3am the night before to eat anything I could get my hands on just to then purge it all once I couldn't fit anymore in. I didn't lose 2 stone, I wasn't obsessed with the topic of body image, in fact I avoided it all together. I wasn't bullied, my parents weren't divorced and I wasn't particularly moody. I was athletic and sporty, I had good grades, I studied hard, I had the best friends anyone could ask for, I went on exotic holidays with my family, I'd had a boyfriend. I was normal. 

But I didn't wear bulimia on my body for the world to see, because it wore me. I was its host. Its puppet. Why do we focus so hard on what we can see physically in an illness that is entirely mental? I'll tell you. Because it's easier. It's easier to try look for cracks in the surface than to start chipping away underneath. I was so guilty of this. I thought that because I didn't 'look the part' for an eating disorder, that there was no way in hell I could have one. My pieces just didn't fit the puzzle.

Now what about men? Men are strong. Men don't stick their fingers down their throats whilst crying over the toilet bowl.  Men don't starve themselves or weigh themselves every morning, lunchtime and bedtime. Men don't take diuretics or laxatives to make the number on the scale smaller. Men don't cry. 

But if this were so then why are men doing it? There seems to be a whole other picture for men, and that picture doesn't include eating disorders. 

Freddie Flintoff- Cricket player, Bulimia

The National Eating Disorder Association has found that 800,000 men have suffered with bulimia at some point in their lives. Out of all eating disorders, men make up 20%. 

Dennis Quaid- Actor, Anorexia

Realistically this figure is a lot higher, however due to this picture we have unintentionally created for men to look like, the majority of male sufferers will hide their disorder. 

The anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder wear them as a disguise for years (and for some, forever).  

2. 'Functional' Eating Disorders

"Anorexia is without a doubt a serious eating eating disorder, but there is a hell of a lot of mainstream disordered eating going on out there."

- Emma Woolf, Ministry of Thin

Author of Apple a Day 

Social media is sprawled left right and center with people being 'healthy'. I'm currently taking a psychology module on Health Psychology, so this area is particularly interesting to me. What does healthy actually mean?

"A state of total physical, mental and social well-being, and NOT merely the absence of disease or infirmity."  

If your day-to-day life is preoccupied with...

• what time you're going to eat
• what you're going to eat
• where you're going to eat
• where you shouldn't eat
• what is safe to eat
• what is bad to eat
• what you can't eat later because of what you're about to eat now
• whether you're going to skip a meal because of what you've eaten
• how many grams of fat you're about to eat
• how many grams of protein you've eaten
• how many meals have had carbohydrates in them
• how many hours of exercise is going to burn off your meal last night
• how many calories you've eaten in the last week
• how many calories you've eaten this morning
• how many calories you're going to eat tomorrow

You get the idea. If these sound like you, you are engaging in disordered eating behaviours. You are overthinking and over-complicating such a simple, primal behaviour to the point at which it begins to dictate what you can and cannot do. Of course I fully appreciate that some individuals have medical conditions where they for instance cannot eat gluten, or are trying to gain or lose weight for medical reasons, or are simply trying to be a bit healthier. However the danger with any kind of extreme focus on food is that the control you exert over yourself becomes addictive and obsessive...

If you find yourself in a position where you are unable to function without engaging in these kinds of behaviours, please take a moment to think about the definition of 'healthy' I gave you earlier, and whether or not you can say with your hand on your heart that you are physically, mentally and socially healthy.

What I've learnt about eating

Over the past couple of years I have learnt lot about what a relationship with food should be. The most important thing for me has been that food should not be complicated. Eat when you're hungry, stop eating when you're full.

The second thing is to not do food maths. Or any kind of maths if you can avoid it (I just hate maths). What a lot of mainstream disordered eating and full blown eating disorders have in common is that they try and introduce maths into food. Maths is right or wrong.

2+2= 4. Correct.
2+2=8. Wrong.

eat clean cake

If you start using maths with your eating habits, such as calorie counting or grams counting, there becomes a right and wrong with food. And food isn't wrong. Ever. It doesn't matter what type of food it is (unless you're allergic or intolerant- sorry!). Food lets you run, explore, workout, create, write, photograph, indulge, treat and enjoy yourself.

I have removed numbers from my life entirely. I haven't weighed myself in over 2 years now, and I have absolutely no intention of doing so. I haven't calorie counted, I don't get my BMI checked, I don't keep a food diary, I just don't let myself be defined by a number on a scale or a packet anymore.

If you're struggling with separating your self-worth from calories and kilograms, try removing a number from your life. It doesn't have to be it all at once, maybe start with trying not to weigh your food, or to not look at calories on drinks. Small things first.

Take home message

I'll keep this short (apologies for the length of this- it's a lot longer than I intended, I get quite carried away, like I am right now)

Everyone is different. Try not to fit people to pictures. Don't do puzzles. Maths is for school not for food.

If you think your eating behaviour is affecting your day-to-day life, don't dismiss it because you don't think its 'serious' enough to be an eating disorder. Eating is our most basic human instinct, and it shouldn't be difficult and complicated. Talk to someone, write it down, call Beat's helpline 

0345 634 1414 or 0345 634 7650- they are incredible and they will not turn you away. 

LASTLY- as it's Eating Disorders Awareness Week, please be open minded. Do a little bit of reading about eating disorders, buy yourself a chocolate bar, treat yourself to a takeaway, and talk. 

Chips are potatoes. Potatoes are vegetables. Chips are salad.

Mind your mental health this Christmas

Typically, what should a Christmas be like?

LIKE THIS

Mulled wine, endless boxes of chocolate leaving only the coconut ones at the bottom (to my joy- LOVE coconut), and a house filled with the wild laughter of a million and one family members. Elf has been on repeat for the eleventh time since the 1st of December, and you're trying to nicely wrap the presents you spent 2 months trying to find for your incredibly hard-to-shop-for partner, but you end up with a papery mess of sellotape. 

But...

Some families this year will be sat watching Elf with an empty space on the sofa. For 20,000 families this year, the space will be filled in a hospital bed because of a mental health problem. 

It is so important for me to write about mental health particularly in December. I know previous Christmas' for me have been difficult to deal with, and I'm betting a couple of you reading this will resonate with that. I've had Decembers where I've not been counting down the days until it's Christmas, but rather until it's over. If you happen to be doing just that, then this might be good for you to read.

'How can you NOT be excited about Christmas?!'

The common response of utter shock if someone might not be looking forward to the Christmas holidays. I'm writing this so you can understand a little more about why for some people, this can be quite an unbearable time of year.

Depression

Work on yourself at your own pace x

Whether it's SAD, bipolar or unipolar depression it sucks the life and energy out of its hosts. When you've spent every day of the year trying to fight an uphill battle, one day surrounded by the expectation of happiness could be unbearable. There is a pressure to be 'on' all day which is totally exhausting, and someone with depression may feel ashamed and disappointed in themselves if they are unable to fabricate this norm of 'Christmas spirit'. For those who might feel lonely enough in the world as it is, this pressure can be detrimental and result in social isolation from family, potentially inducing a depressive episode. Here are a few things to try and help cope with feelings of depression:

1. A Time Out- Set yourself timings. Spend half an hour helping your dad chop the vegetables and season the turkey, and then allow yourself a half an hour 'break' to yourself. This will help break up the day, and prevent the feeling of exhaustion from trying to be 'on' all day. 
2. Exercise- this is known to be therapeutic for depression. Go for a Christmas morning walk with your family, or a light jog alone if you want some time to yourself.
3. Avoid alcohol- alcohol is a depressant, and if you are on antidepressants their effect may be diminished by the influence of alcohol. Think carefully about whether you feel like you're in a good place before having a glass or two of wine. 

Grief

Christmas can be a trigger for those of us who have lost something special. It make the holidays a time for bereavement rather than celebration. It might be that someone you love is spending their Christmas in hospital, or maybe there is an extra place mat for your dinner table that won't be used. Perhaps there's an empty dog basket by the fireplace where your best friend in the world should be. 

"The absence of a loved one is noted and emphasized by what is supposed to be a time of celebration"

 I wish more than anything there was a pill you could take, or potion to drink, but the truth is everyone responds differently to grief. The main emotions are denial, anger, regret and sadness, people will experience these at different times and intensities. Unfortunately there is no prescription for coping with a loss, however here are few things that could help with your grief:

1. A Stocking- hang a stocking up in honor of your loss. Throughout the holiday, little gifts or items can be put in, and at some point in your Christmas day as a family you each take it in turns to take a gift out and talk about what memory it brings. This generates sentimental, comfortable, reminiscent conversation about their wonderful existence.
2. A Ritual- Is there something your sister, cousin, grandad, dog or friend loved to do at Christmas? Play their favourite Christmas song, go on a Christmas Eve walk past the pond where it once took an hour to convince the dog to come out. Doing something like this can be very healing.
3. Cry- if you need to cry, cry. You won't ruin Christmas by crying, it is an honest expression of emotion that might pave the way for other family members who are struggling to cope with their own emotions. 

Eating disorders

Christmas comes with a focus on indulging. For people with eating disorders, the prospect of Christmas dinner is absolutely terrifying. Not just because of the bottomless dish of roast potatoes and boxes of chocolate, but because of the fear of failing your family. Your eating behaviour dictates whether everyone else will enjoy the rest of the day. Christmas for me felt like an exam I would either pass or fail, and going to the toilet during the meal was cheating.

A wonderfully accurate sign I saw in a Christmas market

 I sometimes felt as if everyone's eyes were burning holes in my back as I left the table. There's the sadness in your grandma's eyes when you politely say no to her Christmas Pudding, and there are deep frown lines indented on dad's forehead when your plate has two carrots, a piece of turkey and a roast potato that he'll inevitably be eating himself. I'm going to give you a few things to have a go at doing if you or a family member are struggling to cope with your eating disorder on Christmas: 

1. Christmas is NOT about food- take the focus away from food. Emphasize to yourself or to the individual suffering the importance of other aspects of Christmas: meeting up with friends at the pub after Church, catching up with your brother who's come back from university and hearing about his endless drunken escapades. Focusing on these positive aspects make the negative thoughts associated with food less central and less stressful.
2. Use a small plate- Use a smaller plate and try to fill it. This helps you to put enough on your plate to keep dad's frown lines at bay, but also allows you to go at your own pace comfortably and either leave a little if you're getting full, or have second portions if you are still hungry! 
3. Don't be alone- When alone, you isolate yourself from your family and rely on your disordered behaviours to get you through the day. I know this is the easiest and most painless thing to do, but your family will be trying very hard with you so try and reciprocate that and join in. Ask your cousin to come for a walk with you, or play a game of pictionary (and WIN) or watch the Grinch for the eighth time!

Elves have got it right

You're not being a scrooge

Hopefully you can see that your anxieties and worries about Christmas day don't make you an awful person, they are understandable, natural, but most importantly relievable. I know the tips I have given won't work for everyone, and I'm not saying that there is a quick fix or a miraculous trick to turn off your struggles for one day.

I am also aware that there are people who will be suffering with anxiety, substance abuse, OCD, work stress, break-ups, but I hope you find that you can use or adapt a couple of the tips I have suggested to look after your mental health this Christmas.

You're not alone in your struggle at this time of year, I'm nervous about Christmas because of bulimic tendencies that try to elbow their way into my day, you might be nervous about resisting alcohol or experiencing a panic attack. Have a go with me at using a couple of the tips above, or if they don't appeal to you and your coping mechanisms then do a little research and explore other ways of looking after yourself. 

Thinking of the 20,000 families who will be missing a brother, sister, or parent on December the 25th, please mind your mental health this Christmas to make sure it isn't your sofa that's left with an empty you-sized space xxx

Let's all be a bit more Buddy this Christmas

Rainy Days and Relapse

I've had a lot of good days in my recovery, some absolutely amazing days, weeks, MONTHS even. But it's very unusual to have a rainbow without the rain.

Addiction relapse is common. Studies imply roughly half of all individuals who try to get sober- be that with eating, drinking, drug abuse, sex - will return to a period of relapse, with 70-90% experiencing at least one mild-moderate episode. So basically, it's the detoxing from your object of addiction which is the easiest part, however to try and change behaviours which drive an addict to use is much harder.

The Rainbow- A 'good' day

Donut's for breakfast at 11am in
Brighton- just because

Whether you're recovering mentally from depression, anxiety, OCD, an eating disorder, a break up or a divorce, alcoholism, the loss of someone dear to you, bipolar disorder, self-harm, you will have days where the black hole in your mind that once consumed your every cell occupies nothing more than a little dusty corner of your brain. You can roll out of bed in the morning without wanting, or even thinking, to crawl straight back into it. You can have leftover pizza for breakfast and have 3 sugars in your tea and smile whilst you do so, without the sudden paralyzing panic of how you're going to get rid of those calories. You can walk past the coffee shop he used to take you to on Sunday mornings without your heart beating so hard it could crack your ribs, and you can go to the pub with the 'lads' and order a pint of coke without even thinking about the froth of a beer or the lemon with a tequila shot. 

The point is, a good day in recovery isn't always getting a bonus at work or winning the lottery, it's something as simple as finding the motivation to move, or eating chips for the first time, or washing your hands only 3 times instead of 48. It's the feeling of normality. 

The Rain- A 'bad' day

Acknowledge your bad day's-
suppressing them only prolongs them.

Contrary to conventional ideas, it is not one single event that triggers a relapse, but a series of progressive events. Everyone experiences relapse differently, for example a relapse for me is like a water balloon; you can fill the balloon up with stress, arguments, work, an injury, an illness, an irrational panic at dinner, but it takes one tiny needle in the balloon to trigger my relapse. It can be something as small as not being able to find a shoe, or misreading a text, thinking someone is annoyed at me, or my laptop not working, or getting my statistics question wrong. This balloon just gets fuller and fuller until the needle comes, and in that instant I can find myself standing in the bathroom staring at the toilet for half an hour trying desperately to crawl out of the black hole that has come out from it's dusty corner in my brain. This is my bad day. 

People suffering with forms of addiction such as substance abuse or alcoholism or smoking typically experience relapse a little differently. This is an anonymous person we'll name Mitch:

"I'll be pushing myself. I'll be going to work functions, out for dinner with my wife, not once having a drop of alcohol on my tongue. And I'll keep pushing. And pushing. And nothing bad happens to me. Why does nothing bad happen? I'm doing all these things I found impossible to do 9 months ago, why am I still alright?"

THAT is where relapse often begins to evolve. Because Mitch has been steadily improving, bettering himself and his relationship with his wife, he subconsciously sabotages his progress and his achievements because it is a new, uncomfortable feeling of normality that he is not used to, and may not think he deserves.

He begins to distrust how far he's realistically come, catastrophising events in his head relating to his marriage or family or work, refusing to believe that his new lifestyle can really be so simple and so easy to maintain. He drives past places he used to go drinking alone, feeling an invisible rope pulling him into the car park. He's spent years living and breathing an addiction to alcohol, and as they say old habits do die hard. The intentionally sweet comments such as "You're doing so well, keep it up" become a boulder on his back to carry. This boulder gets heavier and heavier until it crushes him, and he finds himself standing at a bar with a tenner in his hand about to ask the barman for a whiskey. This is his bad day. 

Why relapse does NOT make you a failure- Because it's biological

Relapse often occurs in response to cues related to your object of addiction, so for Mitch it would be pubs, parties, bars where he's previously carried out his addictive behaviours. An addiction has a two-stage formation process, and these cues or 'triggers' are the products. Stage 1 is where there is hyperstimulation in the reward functions of the brain; drinking alcohol makes Mitch feel good, which in turn encourages him to do it again. Stage 2 involves repeated overstimulation within these reward functions, resulting in long term changes to how surrounding areas of the brain controlling memory, judgement and impulsivity, function. I've read a very helpful analogy to understand this:

You leave the upstairs bathtub running and depart for the weekend. The water overflows and runs into the hall. Like a waterfall it splashes down the stairs and into the living room. When you return, you find that the walls are soaked, mold is forming, and the wood floors are warped and peeling. Your original problem was that the water wasn’t turned off, but now the floor needs to be ripped up and the walls torn out. Turning off the faucet (detoxing) doesn’t undo the damage caused by the water (alcohol) to the rest of your house (brain).

 

The rain is coming...

Numerous studies illustrate that the first 90 days of recovery are when the largest number of relapses occur, due to the rewiring of the brain from e.g drug abuse. The urge to drink, or use will worsen before the wiring of the brain can be overcome, therefore unfortunately the longer the duration of being 'clean', the higher the receptiveness to cues in the environment associated with the addiction.

I want to emphasise here how important it is that if you are recovering from some form of addiction, be it medically diagnosed or not, recognize your triggers. This is because you'll have to overcome them more than once, twice, twenty-five times. I know my triggers, such as certain places I've been, certain foods, certain people even, being full, conversations concerning restrictive diets. 

It is 10x harder to prevent a relapse if it's coming from a trigger you're not aware of. Once you're aware of your major triggers, you can work on reducing their impact on your life. For example when I would unintentionally notice the calorie content on the box of something I've eaten I would become extremely panicky, so for the first couple of months or so I would use scissors to cut out the nutrition content on boxes of food. Then, if I ever had a burning desire to know how many calories was in 70grams of cereal, I would know there was a problem and would in turn be able to actively deal with this. 

So just make sure you use your umbrella

When recovering from mental illness, yes there are triggers for relapse, but it is also possible to have triggers for recovery. I wear a key round my neck with the word 'HOPE' written on it; I got it for my birthday from a company supporting a charity that fights eating disorders. This key is now a trigger for my recovery, if I get to the point at which I'm standing staring at the toilet or I'm feeling unbearably full after a meal or if I'm crying over an assignment mark, I can feel the weight of the key round my neck and it helps to remind me what I've worked so hard for. 

In the same way some people in recovery have a person they will call, talk to, text, visit if they feel a craving or an urge. This person dissipates the anxiety and the stress over a trigger for a relapse by rationalising your thoughts for you, explaining an alternative solution logically, they are your umbrella in the rain, they lift the boulder off your back. They become a trigger for recovery. I was lucky enough that before my boyfriend was actually my boyfriend, he was that person for me whilst I was struggling with my recovery at the start of university, picking me up when I couldn't do it myself, which I will be forever grateful to him for. Eventually, subconsciously the trigger for relapse is dissociated with the feeling of reward and instead it becomes associated with a new reward: recovery. 

Many of us like to believe we are strong, independent, capable of dealing with our own problems. But PLEASE, if there is someone there who can help you, even if it's just to go and sit in their room on the floor so you're not alone, use them. They're there because they want to help you recover. 

People don't walk in the pouring rain dragging their umbrella on the floor, so why should you?

Food is not a 'Treat'

 I'm going to talk about something that is very close to my heart.

Children in primary school should be worrying about what game to play at breaktimes. They should be thinking about what they want to dress up as for Halloween, or what kind of hair style they want their Mom to do for them for their school photo. At most, their biggest concern should be whether or not they have filled in their Reading Diary for the week. 

But that's not what's happening anymore. Between 2010-11 over 6,500 children and teenagers were treated by hospitals (this excludes the hundreds that will still be suffering silently- these figures are cases where their illnesses were so severe that hospitalization was the only option) for eating disorders. In 2007-08, there were 1,718. According to the Health and Social Care Information Centre, the annual figures of children who were able to receive treatment showed 79 children were below the age of 10, 56 being 5 or under. Now these data are only from 2013; as you can see number of cases tripled from 2007-2011, so it is devastating to think what the statistics would illustrate to us now.

I was around 14/15 years old when I started developing patterns of disordered eating behaviour. I don't know why it was food, I don't know why it was my body, but I found a way to feel in control of a world that was throwing every rock and boulder it had at me. Some of us keep a diary, others will go for a walk, a few people will call a friend, maybe you sit and pummel a pillow until you're exhumed of all emotional turmoil; but I punished my body. And that was, and is still, the thing that frightens me the most. Now imagine just how frightening that would be for a child in primary school.

I know because of an extreme increase in media exposure over the past several years, children who perhaps might have a biological susceptibility to mental illness are suffering at younger and younger ages. So I am writing this post to tell you how we need to help children develop and grow up having a healthy relationship with food and their bodies.

Food should NEVER be called a 'Treat'

If you tell a child that they can have fish fingers and chips as a 'special treat' then you are essentially telling them that some food is forbidden. By telling them this, when they eat in the context outside of 'special treat' they feel guilt, and guilt is a huge part of the cognitive processing in eating disorders. Don't tell a child they can only have chocolate 'if they've been good'; because if they develop confidence issues, they will inevitably struggle to see themselves as a good person, and in turn something as simple as chocolate becomes impossible to them. They don't believe they deserve it. Encourage children to try new things. Ensure that they know they are allowed to eat and that nothing is restricted.

I understand that on the other end of the scale is the problem of obesity, and I am not telling you to feed your child burgers, sweets and chinese takeaways everyday, I am simply telling you not to restrict nor forbid them of any type of food. My Mom swears by the rule of everything in moderation; you wouldn't eat 20 apples in a day just as you would not eat 20 chocolate bars in a day. Moderation provides you with all and every type of food,whereas restriction provides you with a limited number of perceived 'good' foods. I believe in moderation, and I believe in not applying rules or regulations when it comes to food. If I want a packet of crisps, I'll have one. If I want two, I'll have two. And I won't hurt myself for that because that's what my body wanted. A good relationship with food comes without rules. Just ensure that your child enjoys a range of food, so that nothing is forbidden.

Exercise is fun, not forced

Children love to run around, play games, eat sand (well I did anyway), and ride their bikes up and down the lane. They exercise without even regarding it as exercising; because they are having fun. Don't make your child think that exercising is a neccessity, because otherwise they'll develop a relationship with exercise based on 'need to' rather than 'love to'. The fun of learning how to ride a bike will become lost. Emphasise non-body related benefits of exercise or afterschool sports clubs, such as making new friends, Mom having to buy you a new pair of neon trainers, taking part in competitions, getting fresh air, sleeping better. 

Monitor the media

Demi Lovato's documentary 'Stay Strong
is incredible- 100% recommend!

It is impossible nowadays to shelter children from the demons of the internet. Magazines are sprawled with models portraying an unattainable body image, whether it be a size 00 woman or a man with muscles buldging out uncomfortably from beneath his skin. Whilst you should not encourage deep analysis of these kinds of photographs to your child, it is important to help them recognize the process of air-brushing and retouching that creates them. Introduce your child, your little brother or sister, to real, honest role models such as Demi Lovato, who herself suffered with eating disorders and bipolar disorder, as these are the people that will show children it's beautiful to be completely, totally and utterly naturally yourself.

(In case you are interested, she recently did a nude photoshoot without airbrushing or retouching: http://uk.eonline.com/news/706687/demi-lovato-explains-her-nude-photo-shoot-i-wouldn-t-have-done-that-6-months-ago-watch-now) 

Freddie Flintoff is a man I particularly look up to because of his honesty about suffering from bulimia whilst playing cricket. It is good, honest people we should be trying to expose our children to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIcV8VX_K1w Here you can watch his interview with Piers Morgan about his battles with depression and his eating disorder.

Be the person you'd want your child to learn from

Your child, little brother or sister, absolutely adores you. They look to you to decide how they should behave, dress, eat, act. Children learn by modelling; a strand of behavioural reciprocation where learning occurs via observation of a model (you). In turn, it is also a form of vicarious learning, and the child will attempt to copy the behaviour without any reinforcement of the action. So, eat 3 slices of cake for pudding, have a takeaway once a week, talk about how much fun your spin class was, tell your child they look absolutely beautiful once in a while. Show your child how much you can love yourself, because they'll try with all their might to love themselves just like you do. 

If you are concerned about your child, or someone elses, please don't overlook it. Visit Beat's website for information about how to approach the situation if you believe someone to be symptomatic of an eating disorder. 

http://www.b-eat.co.uk/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwtaexBRCohZOAoOPL88oBEiQAr96eSJfUAIjRhhbP1-51YSlwIOLZuMPspKwupCYQJ8yBQzEaAu078P8HAQ

Eating is our most basic human behaviour. If a child is not eating, they are denying themselves the most basic human instinct: to survive. 

Be kind to yourself, because if you have a little boy or girl in the house, they'll be watching, learning, and reciprocating. Now, go and make them a sandwich x

Creating insanity...or is it the other way round?

Firstly, because schizophrenia will be mentioned frequently throughout this post: SCHIZOPHRENIA IS NOT A SPLIT PERSONALITY

In fact if you want a definition, here you go: "a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behaviour, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation." Pretty wordy. I know.

Guess who's the artist...

Secondly, you may or may not be aware of the notion that creativity is thought by some people to be akin for insanity. If you happen to be a very creative individual by no means am I calling you insane. I promise. My boyfriend is an artist and he's perfectly sane (well...I'll let you make of that what you will from the picture of him here. And yes, those are suit pyjamas) I am simply interested in a connection between the brain chemistry of individuals who happen to be gifted with a creative mind, and individuals affected by mental illness

Now let me explain.

Vincent van Gogh- Starry Night

Insanely artistic, or artistically insane?

Whilst Vincent van Gogh was creating some of the most brilliant paintings of all time, (unfortunately his brilliance was only recognized after he had died), he was consumed by mental illness. Plagued with depression, anxiety disorder at a paralyzing level and displaying symptoms of bipolar disorder, these illnesses eventually drove him to claim his own life in 1890.

Edvard Munch manifested the infamous "Scream" painting after one of his hallucinations had inspired him. He endured a life battling depression alongside agoraphobia (irrational fear of public places), and had reached the point of a mental breakdown. The Norwegian artist's family had a history with mental illness, which was most prevalent in his sister. 

However the interesting thing about Munch, is the intricate relationship he describes between his insanity and his creativity:

"My fear of life is neccessary to me, as is my illness. Without (...) I am a ship without a rudder."

(...) Their destruction would destroy my art."

Edvard Munch- Scream

Was Munch's creativity a product of his ill mental health, or was his mental health compromised by his creative ability? Would it have been possible for Gogh and Munch's creativity to excel if their mental illness's were non-existent? Are these men insane because they are artistic or is it their artistic ability that drives their insanity?

If you're wondering what my thoughts on this are, then I'll briefly tell you. My experiences with my own mental health have changed me as a person. I am far more compassionate and observant than I used to be, and I can say whilst I truly resent what mental illness is capable of destroying, I appreciate what it has made me capable of becoming. This is what I believe Munch was in some way describing too.

Research

Kari Stefansson, the founder and CEO of deCODE (a genetics company based in Reykjavik) conducted a study using the medical information from 86,000 Icelanders to identify genetic variants that doubled the average risk of schizophrenia as well as increasing the risk of bipolar disorder by over a third. After looking for how common these genetic variants were in individuals of art societies, there was a 17% increase (!!!!!!!!!!!) compared to the rest of the population. THERE'S MORE! So because this was a pretty incredible finding, these guys checked their findings in medical databases in the whole of the Netherlands and Sweden. In 35,000 people, "creative" people were nearly 25% more likely to carry the variants! So just imagine if we analysed this across the Globe...

These findings support the idea of the concept 'Mad Genius'- creativity has given the world Mozart's, van Gogh's, Nash's. It is an extremely important quality within society, it just comes at a price to the extraordinary 1% of the population.

Creativity does not always mean paintbrushes and pencils

1928-2015

John Nash who inspired the film 'A Beautiful Mind' (a must watch by the way, but make sure you're not wearing mascara) was an American Mathematician of whom suffered with schizophrenia. He believed all men in red ties were participating in a communist conspiracy against him, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1959. Interestingly, he also describes his contributions to mathematic science as related to his mental illness. He was very worried about losing his recognition if he could not produce new ideas and new theories, and he attributed his motivation to excel to his disorder:

"I wouldn't have had good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally."

1946-2006

1950-1983

Then we have Syd Barett, who suffered from drug addiction and reportedly schizophrenia, yet he was the driving force for the formation of Pink Floyd. Ludwig van Beethovan produced beautiful music of which is still celebrated today, however in the process of creating these masterpieces he was living with mood disorders. Karen Carpenter was part of the Carpenters, creating well known songs like 'Top of the World'; although beneath the creation of such music was anorexia and mood disorders.

1942-2008

David Forster Wallace wrote a novel called "Infinite Jest" and he was considered to be one of the most astounding literary talents of his generation; with great sadness he actually committed suicide in 2008. Wallace was swamped by depression of which he was first diagnosed with whilst at college. Three years prior to his death, he spoke of suicide in a speech at Kenyon College, and one particular line pulls at every string and fibre in my heart:

"And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger." 

But so we see that it is not always about our conventional ideas of creativity, but of scientific, theoretic, mathematic, musical creativity too that has some form of a relationship to mental health.

I want you to understand how exceptional these individuals are. Most people who suffer with disorders such as schizophrenia are unable to engage in any kind of normal day-to-day functions, let alone excel in their own creative domains like these incredible minds were able to.

There's a hell of a lot going on in our brains

Creativity and insanity share traces of similarity, such as "thinking outside the box", processing thoughts and ideas very quickly, a heightened perception of visual, auditory and somatic stimuli. Think about what I have just told you. Where is all this occurring? Yep...say it...you're right...in our brains.

It is an intriguing idea that people who are living with mental illness themselves or with a family member who is suffering, have a higher chance of being creatively intelligent. 

Research

Professor Fredik Ullen has looked at the human brain chemistry and his findings illustrate a possibile explanation for these trends. He checked out dopamine (D2) receptor genes believed to be responsible mood and divergent thought. Of those studied who did well on tests of divergent thought (a thought process used to generate creative ideas by exploring as many solutions as possible) it was found that highly creative people had a significantly lower than expected density of D2 receptors in the thalamus; which is notable in diagnoses of schizophrenia too. The thalamus is basically like a filter for information heading on its way towards the cortex (which sorts out our cognition and reasoning). 

There are less of these little receptors in
people with schizophrenia!

The less D2 receptors here, the less filtering, thus there is a sh*t load more information flowing to the cortex. SO this kind of clues us in about the "thinking outside the box" concept: creative individuals see a connection between a break and a fix that most of us wouldn't know existed. 

Another thing that is important to highlight is that Mark Millard (member of the BPS) has stated that the overlap between mental health could explain why creative people have an astonishing amount of motivation. This is shown in e.g Nash's sheer determination to continually produce mathematic phenomena, and it is because of this: Creativity is uncomfortable for the individual. It is the dissatisfaction they feel with the present that motivates them to make changes.

"Creative people, like those with psychotic illnesses, tend to see the world differently to most. It's like looking at a shattered mirror. They see the world in a fractured way."