I was recently tagged in a blog post (from someone I don’t know – not sure if it was an accident!) about IVF and how she felt like it was a dark, dirty word. Like she had failed herself and her family and society in being unable to do what we are placed here on earth to do: reproduce.
I have to say, although it is a living hell finding out that it just isn’t going to happen without some help, and I wish upon anything we had been able to conceive naturally and just been able to start our family 3 years ago as per my ideal. I have never, ever, been ashamed of IVF. Quite the opposite – I am proud of it. Fascinated. I could talk about it all day and I LOVE when people have a million questions for me about it! I think it is incredible what the powers that be of science and medicine can achieve. That without their little bit of help we wouldn’t be able to have the family we so desired. That the words “Baron Karen” that always echo around my head, are a thing of the past thanks to science. I forget if it is 1 in 4 or 1 in 8 couples trying to conceive struggle to do so, and do need some help. So those that do need help are far from alone.
A card which my husband received for his birthday that we found funny… and which won’t be true for our children! Another woman knocked me up! 🤣
And I guess – alongside the fact that I appear to be quite the “oversharer”! That this is why I share about it, talk about it, and write about it openly. Because we aren’t alone. When I first started blogging about IVF I had two old friends inform me they too had struggled and had IVF. They are two pregnancies I remember distinctly being announced and thinking that it wasn’t fair – “when is it our turn?” So sometimes not everything is as plain as the eye can see – others struggle too, and knowing we weren’t alone suddenly made me feel better – and bad; for making the assumption!
There isn’t a day goes by when other pregnancy announcements hit me hard – when it appears that everyone else conceives so easily, which is why it was/is important for me to share that for some – it just isn’t so easy, and that really, if we don’t laugh about it, it just makes it all harder.
Throughout our IUI/IVF TTC/Fertility journey, we (in particular, me) were encouraged several times – well meaningly – by some of our lovely nurses to see the therapist. And every time I refused. I just do not see the point.
Yes, I was often a crying mess. Frankly, I’m not sure I know many couples where at least one of them is not a crying mess to have gone through/be going through the hell that is infertility. But;
No therapist in the world was going to make me pregnant.
No therapist in the world is going to change my mindset. In my opinion, therapists help but no one can change you.
At the points in which I underwent counselling, CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and CAT (Cognitive Analytical Therapy), I was just learning to talk about these things. These feelings and emotions and behaviours that had essentially been locked up for most of my life – ALL of my adult life! I had bottled them all up for so long that they caused huge breakdowns in me, and so talking to a therapist felt like the only option. At that point I couldn’t have discussed some of those things with anyone, and the leading questions you are offered from a mental-health trained therapist to get you talking are next to nothing expert level! At that point in my life, that’s what I needed. But now I’ve learnt to talk, and write openly. To not be ashamed or scared of what my mind is telling me. It’s still not always easy but I can discuss things far easier now with those around me, than ever before. But often because, everything I’ve been through is quite open, so everyone knows. Everyone else is now almost-expert at leading questions/being open and accepting of discussing subjects that may not have been discussed before! I’m definitely a pretty open book now – nothing is off limits for discussion here!
Don’t get me wrong, my therapists were great. And some time in the future I may need therapy again. But I’m quite picky about what I need from a therapist and wouldn’t just stick with anyone if it wasn’t right for me. But right now, I’m back to Karen. I’m pretty good at talking to anyone and everyone about anything and everything, so therapy is just not needed here. The question of “will our baby have a severely mentally ill mum?” Has crossed my mind. But for now, I’m good. I’m not worried about post-natal depression, but I know if it happens that support is out there.
A favourite extract from Matt Haig’s “How to Stop Time”. ❤️
I was riled, a few months ago, watching a couple of programmes regarding eating disorders – something I always watch if I know it’s on, because I am simply fascinated, still. The first, was the “Wasting Away: The Truth About Anorexia.” And another with Louis Theroux. I remember, whilst watching, that both James and I were gobsmacked – and I have, from experience, a lot more understanding and knowledge of Anorexia.
What I will say from the offset, is that anyone that can be considered a role model should think very carefully about what they are saying/posting, although I believe if you are going to suffer with an eating disorder (or any other mental health issue), you will probably do so regardless of what you see/hear etc. I think you are pre-disposed within your genetic makeup in the same way some people get Cancer, and others don’t. However, I don’t believe the likes of Kim Kardashian (pains me to even write her name in one of my blogs 😫!) and the idiotic things she – or other similar individuals – say/do/post are going to cause eating disorders in young men/women, but I do think at times they are selling utter shite. If you are hungry, food or drink (not booze people🥂🍾!) will suppress your appetite, not a lollipop 🍭, ladies and gentlemen. In fact, I am currently eating a Chupa-Chups lollipop and am quite sure that once I’ve finished it, my appetite will no longer be suppressed and I’ll simply move onto another snack..
I seem to have this inbuilt part of me that has this need/want to help and support others, hence why I continue to write this blog.
Mark Austin and his daughter Maddy gave an incredibly open, and honest account of life with anorexia (Wasting Away: The Truth About Anorexia). Everything they both said is the exact kind of situation that happens with mental health illness and destroying families. The exact same happened in mine: anorexia isolates you, it makes you cunning and kuniving and it destroys relationships. Parents – or those that have no chance to understand – are angry, frustrated, exasperated. I hope history doesn’t repeat itself, and when I first started writing this – I was also still hoping anorexia hadn’t entirely destroyed my ability to have an embryo/blastocyst implant and carry a healthy pregnancy/birth/child. Thankfully, I have made it 25 weeks in and everything is healthy so far.
But it still hasn’t been easy. Whilst I am beyond in love with the ever-growing bump attached to the front of me, I am not thrilled with how I currently look overall. I stopped running in order to conceive – and anxiety meant I didn’t try again until we were 13 weeks, by which point, all fitness was lost and I was not in a position to push myself for fear of hurting our much-longed-for, unborn baby. Whilst I don’t doubt from other people’s comments that I perhaps still see myself as larger than I actually am (although believe me, I am heavy now!) my thighs, therefore {to me} are enormous. I have craved, and thus eaten non-stop carbs for the past 25 weeks; foods which I would normally reserve for never due to their ability to make me gain weight just thinking about them. I still live with mental health issues that I fight against daily, that no one can ever fully understand, and thus no one can ever fully have an input – especially if it is unasked for – thank you very much!
Recently, I’ve found people telling me what I should and shouldn’t be eating. People that will never be pregnant are included in this (aka men, or those older who have never wanted children) and I spent a drive home from an anxious hospital appointment a few weeks ago in tears, fuming and thinking about it, and the things I’ve done to my body over the years:
When I was 16, upon waking and realising no-one else was home, I leapt out of bed and ran through to my parents ensuite to weigh myself and see if the scales were acceptable to me yet.
I knocked myself out on a door frame/TV cabinet on the way through because I was so dizzy and fainting. In the 5 days prior to that morning, I had eaten just one apple. Nothing suppressed my appetite, I tried everything to be constantly thinner, and as a result of hunger, passed out.
In 2015, over ten years later, aged 26/27 I spent a month barely eating, and sneaking off to throw up everything I did consume. I taunted and teased myself by joining in with others and accepting free hot chocolate the work canteen was offering at the time – throwing it all up as soon as it was finished. Months later at 27/28 I struggled to push myself – desperately – through a 5 mile run because all I’d allowed myself for three days prior was “juice diet”. “Healthy” green liquid or water only. Less than a mile in I could feel my kidneys in pain, my muscles physically unable to run through a full 5 miles from lack of fuel. And yet mentally, I was livid with myself still. Angry at my body at having to run-walk-run as someone who knew they could usually run for miles on end and love it. You cannot function on nothing. Food, is fuel.
I remember lying to my friends that I’d already had dinner/was eating dinner at home later. Lying to my parents that I’d eaten out with my friends. I remember trying to throw up the smallest bit of cheese I’d sucumbed (BECAUSE SUPPRESSING YOUR APPETITE DOESN’T EXIST!!) to eating off my friends pizza, in the Pizza Hut toilets aged 15. I remember flushing food down the toilet or chucking it in the bin whilst exercising for a minimum of an hour every single day. I remember asking my parents for school dinner money rather than food so that at least I wouldn’t waste the food; because, whilst adamant I didn’t deserve food, I still felt a resounding guilt that I was simply throwing food away when there were – are – thousands of starving people in the world. I remember that I wasn’t kidding anyone. I remember it all too well, for someone who’s memory is largely shot to pieces. How can you forget such hideous self punishment?
Having been diagnosed “Anxiety with depression” aged 26, in 2015, I also honestly believe anorexia/eating disorders are a side effect, a symptom, a coping mechanism for wider issues. When I had my first mental health breakdown in March 2015 I had spent the previous 6+ weeks over exercising, marginally under eating and regularly throwing up everything I did eat. It was something I could control. It was a coping mechanism to deal with my heightened anxiety, my low self confidence and self esteem, it was an outlet, but it kills.
So what I don’t understand now, is how anyone thinks they have the right to tell someone – anyone – let alone someone who has been through what I have – what they should and shouldn’t be eating, when they’ve not asked, but particularly through pregnancy. I believe after all these years I am more than aware of what I should/should not eat in order to achieve weight gain/loss. I also instinctively believe I (we: baby and I!) will crave what we need. This pregnancy, that has NOT been salad. And I do love me a good salad. Maybe, if I’m lucky enough for a future pregnancy(/pregnancies?!) perhaps salad will be craved.
Yes – I am eating a lot of (ok ONLY!) carbs. Just because that isn’t considered an “odd” craving to many doesn’t mean it isn’t a craving, and is just an “excuse” to eat them. I have never eaten carbs like this before – I used to avoid them like the plague. I have never wanted or apparently needed carbs like this before. I can’t remember the last time I allowed myself a jacket potato (rather than sweet potato), or white pasta (rather than spelt). Crisps used to make me feel uncomfortably bloated and thus I would still avoid them even at parties when they were laid out as nibbles. The last time I actually ATE a regular breakfast, rather than drinking a protein shake, or smoothie only, (and after running 3/5/7 miles), I was about 10 years old.
So yes, it’s a lot of carbs. Yes, I’ve gained a lot of weight, no, I am not thrilled about it: in fact if I could take scissors to my thighs to cut off the extra chub, I would. But I don’t think I am massively complaining about it – yes I’m calling myself “fat”, a “beached whale”; that’s how I feel right now, but I say it in jest! I am not going to do anything about it whilst I am carrying our miracle baby. I am not entirely stupid – enough so to think for a second all of this weight will just “fall off” the second the baby pops out. I will have to work at it, hard – but does anyone honestly think this is something I’m not prepared to do? Someone who, when working full time would get up at 5/5.30/6am to run, and spent most days ensuring she exercised twice? Someone who is known to have got up during worst bouts of insomnia and run for 5+ miles at 1am?? I am not prepared to risk something we have wanted, and tried for, for so long. I tried to run to keep off some weight, but it’s not for me – not this time, this pregnancy anyway; it’s too late, too hard and therefore too much of a worry to me to keep trying until the baby has arrived. I have never craved, or eaten, carbs like I am doing now, and so, I believe there must be a reason for this, and for once in my life, I am not going to deny what my body – our baby – is asking for.
I have said time and time again that unless you have physically experienced a mental health issue, you will never fully understand – no matter how much training you have had. I had two incredible (NHS) therapists providing me CBT and CAT over the last few years but for both of them I always felt (particularly the first) that you just don’t really get it until you’ve had it – and I wouldn’t wish anyone to have mental health illness. We all have mental health – some of us are just lucky enough not to have mental health illness.
HOW is it, that 23 years ago – yes, you read that right, TWENTY THREE – the incredible Princess Diana opened up and spoke about her mental health – her eating disorder, and yet here we still are in 2018 with still so much stigma, a distinct lack of understanding, and with idiotic products on the market promising suppressed appetites and “miracle” weight loss to those vulnerable and desperate enough to believe them?
Bigger arms, bigger thighs, bigger bum and bigger boobs. But a beautiful, beautiful, healthy baby bump. Oh, and my “appetite suppressant” lollipop.. which as it happens I’ve just finished… time for crisps!
ALSO:
Rufus
My husband
My health
My friends and family
xxx
EDIT – to add the below screen grabs that I’ve had saved on my phone since forever, because they make such valid points!Thanks to AliceLiveing for the words!
I was faced today, with a question I think about quite a lot. As usual, it (along with most subjects!!) peaked some emotion… and got me thinking. Got me thinking because the answer I gave, didn’t entirely match with the zillions of thoughts flying around in my head when asked the question (and still now, several hours and distractions later);
Do I miss work?
Yes, is the short answer. But I never do short answers, do I?! I think that would surprise some, given the black hole of a person that I was at the time I finally quit. Given the seemingly careless “life of Riley” I mostly get to lead now (☺️😉😂)!
Yes, I miss work. Despite the nightmares and agony, I was faced with for [almost] a year whilst in my final job pre “retirement”, I still miss it. I had multiple daily panic attacks, I couldn’t think, eat, exercise or function straight. I was constantly terrified, increasingly isolated and always self-punishing, one hideous way or another… one of the final straws saw me collapse – and I am forever grateful to the GP that essentially saved my life and got me out of there as early as he could…
But, I still miss work.
I miss the routine. I miss the fast pace where I seemingly (used to) function at my best (Ok, this came more with Primark than Clarks!!) and the fashion, the retail and the numbers, the analysing and the forecasting and the sense of achievement when you cracked it. I miss the conversations with like-minded adults (even if we ever have kids, I had hoped to return part time). I miss the banter that at one point I had with my colleagues; the brother/sisterly relationship I had with a previous line manager, and I miss that if I needed a hug, one desk away was a so-called “best friend”… I miss being the heart, life and soul of the team {that’s not me being big-headed – far from it, (I don’t have that kind of self-confidence or belief) I was actually told this by my boss… as an almost-but-not-quite 🙄-sandwich style “compliment”; that ended with essentially the statement that my mental health was also now ripping the entire team apart (yeah, I know.. he was never a great people person!). At 25, when I’d joined a team that had been in existence for who-knows-how long, I was the one that brought it together. And at 27/28 when I was crippled with anxiety and depression, I alone “ripped” it apart}.
I miss the confidence I had – the knowledge that I knew what I was doing and that I was good at it. I was once good at my job. I fell into my career knowing I’d love it – and I did. I miss that I was “sparkly” karen. I had independence, a decent salary and didn’t constantly rely heavily on my husband – for everything. For money, for the mortgage, some days just for a conversation, for help to answer questions because I can’t just be asked a straight question anymore without often looking to him when I answer, rather than looking the person who asked straight in the eye (including today’s question). I don’t trust myself still to get the words out that I mean [largely why I write this blog!] without jumbling them up and making little to no sense (which often happens; I confuse myself!) Don’t get me wrong – James doesn’t begrudge me a single thing, he never has and never would, he’s happy I’m happy, and alive, and almost ~ sometimes ~ back to normal.
I miss it – I often wonder, if I could turn back the clock, could I have changed things? Could I have fought harder, persevered? Continued to make myself more and more ill? After all – who knows if the infertility is something I was born with, or due to the 20 odd years of on/off ongoing anorexia, or, simply, due to that one nightmare year when I crumbled into barely even a shell of my former self? And the struggles I still face with that now.
I thought leaving was my choice, finally, after several months of encouragement from my husband, my family, friends, and even my GP, I thought I had finally made my mind up… but just over a year on, I looked back and realised I was bullied out; rumours rife about me started by the most-evil of line managers I was unfortunately dumped with at a critical time, meant no one talked to me. I drove in, alone, often having panic attacks and our-of-body experiences whilst driving, unable for weeks to even walk into the building without her (line manager) walking me. I did what I could manage to focus on, keeping quiet and hidden, and forgotten. And I drove home again, with more panic attacks ensuing. I couldn’t eat at work, I couldn’t/didn’t before work, and I ran through my lunch breaks as well as before/after work.
Could I have remained bleak, despondent and that ill – with the occasional “I like it when you laugh again” comment from my long-suffering husband, who tried so, so hard, and yet those comments were so, so rare, and incredibly devastating to hear – all he wanted – all we all wanted and needed – was the “old” karen back. The one who “shone” and sparkled and who was constantly organising fun and keeping busy. The one who never missed out on trying anything once, who lived hard, because life is all too short.
So yes. I miss work. And I guess I miss it more because it wasn’t, really, entirely my choice to leave. Yes, I was the one that quietly went in as late as possible one day to hand in my notice and accompanying sick note for the notice period (to minimise the amount of people that would be around), wordlessly emptying my draws of personal belongings two nights before, so no-one would know, or suspect or be around; but I was left with no choice – I didn’t have another job to move into, and I still can’t now imagine going through an interview process ever again. I can barely focus enough some days to watch a TV programme that I WANT to watch, or read a book, let alone seriously considering the further studying (in almost literally EVERYTHING) I’d love to do, because I don’t have the concentration span, memory or functionality anymore… my previous employer stripped me of that, and I can’t ever see myself getting it back.
I still miss work, but I also know how incredibly fortunate I am that I could leave – that financially we could remain stable and not *need* my income. There aren’t many people lucky enough to be in that situation, and who have to battle through – and I guess I’m sorry to my family that I didn’t take it up sooner, instead leaving them crushed and completely at a loss as to how to help. Not a day goes by where I don’t feel lazy. Particularly with all the fertility hell – I wonder what on earth I can possibly be here, on this earth for? I don’t work and I’m not a Mother..
Clarks stripped me of my confidence that even the mere thought of a job interview fills me with dread. In the midst of my second breakdown I was attending job interviews left, right and centre but absolutely making myself look like an idiot that had never done the job before – I struggled to understand or answer questions or even think straight. My concentration remains poor at times. My vocabulary regressed and I find myself convinced I am stupid on many days. But, there are glimmers – we’ve shedded the friends-who-aren’t-really-friends, made new ones, and we help and support each other as much as possible.. I never thought we’d see the “old karen” again, but occasionally, I realise.. she’s right here.
Today I had my last therapy with my current therapist. I won’t say what kind of therapy it is I’ve had – as knowing this would have put me off at the start and I wouldn’t want to do that to anyone, because it is worth it – but you are asked to write a letter to your therapist in the final session – and they write one to you too.. you can write anything – even just one line – but we all know I’m a writer…!
I was scared because you read the letters to each other (unless you really just can’t, somehow, through tears I managed it!) the writing wasn’t an issue, as usual.
As I was writing it though, I thought about how it wasn’t necessarily just personal to him. A lot of it just makes sense. The Time to Change campaign are running a “what do you wish people knew about your mental health problem?” And whilst writing, re-writing, reading, and re-reading what I’d written to my therapist, I thought it fit in quite well.. so here it is.. my own words, to my therapist (with a couple of little bits just added)… but what I want you all to know..
Dear Richard,
Well, as per, I have no idea where to start, or end, or what to say full stop! If I’d have known this was coming I probably would have run a mile (or 26… did I mention I ran a marathon?!) 7 sessions ago! Even my husband came out with the understatement of the year in saying it sounded “scary”!
Writing isn’t really a problem for me… I can – and do – go on for hours! It’s more the speaking/saying it out loud. I don’t know if it’s even that I’m just scared/don’t want to/don’t like to – I just feel quite terrified.. but also perplexed – because at school I quite often wrote and did readings – sometimes with a friend, but also sometimes alone. I had forgotten I had ever even done this until going through boxes of my old school “stuff” recently. It highlighted to me, that at some point I must have had an element of self confidence within me, I guess, to have been able to do that.
I have enjoyed our sessions – and this therapy process in itself.
I don’t know whether “you therapists” (Rachael was the same!) “mimic” your patients – as such – but I always found it amusing/calming/warming how we would find the same things funny and despite my crazy mind we could still share a giggle over how much constant holiday you {never me 😉😂!} get!! It’s the daft little things I guess!!
I am surprised at myself too, because as I got utterly desperate for help in the months prior to me being offered therapy with you – I eliminated male therapists from my search. I am a real girly, girl’s girl and I was convinced I needed a female therapist again. They didn’t tell me when I was initially offered the appointment over the phone that my therapist would be male – it was only when I got the letter that I realised (panicked!) but I then figured that I may as well give you a chance! I am glad I did – proud of myself, if you like! – you gave me an unexpected, different and somewhat calming approach.. despite being male!! However, you, or I, should really write down my “homework” as I often forgot on my return home!
I like {this} therapy. I think it makes sense – I just think the time isn’t enough (or maybe I am just extra complex – I suspect so!) especially just 8 sessions on the NHS, although I appreciate the constraints! I kept meaning to ask you if you worked privately so I could at least get the longer (infinite!!) time I felt/feel I need(ed), but, I don’t think you do. I feel, perhaps, like I have wasted our sessions: they’ve gone so fast and yet I don’t feel like I’ve progressed. That’s not through fault of you though! I don’t know if it’s my “never good enough” talking, or because time has gone so fast, or even just from where I don’t feel as “high” at the moment. I seem to struggle to concentrate, take things in and remember anything whatsoever when my mind strays into that black hole of… literal emptiness!! I’ve felt the same from my CBT sessions – again, not through therapist fault, but just because my mind is a mess, I guess.
I wasn’t consciously aware of being upset in our second to last session because I knew therapy was coming to an end – but perhaps subconsciously it was playing on my mind more than I realised. I’ve found myself thinking in the last couple of weeks that I just can’t do this “on my own” despite being surrounded by family and friends who love me unconditionally and just wish they could wave a magic wand to “fix” me.
I write down a tonne of thoughts and head to bed, yet everytime I put my head on the pillow, my mind starts spinning with more. It is never ending. How do I break that cycle? I can, sometimes – or at least “after” – identify rational and irrational thoughts. What is ridiculous and what is stupid. I know hurting myself in any way won’t help, and that, despite the feeling of being in control from doing so, that that couldn’t actually be any further from the truth: that by doing so I am letting my negative, irrational mind win. But I just can’t stop the thoughts or stop myself from “playing up to them”.
It feels impossible to change those age old habits – they are older than I am an adult. They feel like me – even though I am also conscious – to an extent – of not wanting to be like this. I feel like a child. I feel constantly like I have regressed. I feel like I need regular (an improvement from constant!) support and help to crack this. I guess I just feel I need a bit of aid and encouragement to get the old brain cogs working!
And I am scared, but, I think, most of all I am scared of how much this all, still, controls me – what I do and who I am, yet I cannot give it up. It is obsessive and a compulsion, and I am petrified of the “what if’s”!! After all – who am I outside of this crazy mind? Who is Karen underneath all these many years and layers of anxiety with depression? Without compulsively under-eating and overexercising, without having something I can “control”? I know what my friends and family – particularly my Mum and Dad – will say. They will say I am kind and caring, loving and loveable, a worshipper of the sun and warmer weather, a girl who lives and loves to travel and explore the world! They’d say I am a fighter and have been since day 1; be it fighting for myself, or for others who I feel have been subject to injustice.
But what if I am not? What if this kindness and caring and excessive love I give off is actually a result of anxiety and depression? Of how I have been treated? A result of my many layers; because I know. I know what it feels to not be treated kindly, or be cared about or loved; even if my experience of that has come from someone (some people) who really, is (are) nothing to me. And what if I can’t keep fighting?
I feel like a hypocrite, as, just the other week, in light of all the terror attacks, I wrote a brief post about how we cannot and will not lock ourselves away “just in case” of the “what if’s” – and yet, really, here I am, locked away inside my own compulsive little (nasty!) habits, inside of my own head. Ruled by a negative mind.
I stole the quote “what if I fall? Oh my darling, but what if you fly?” yet, despite finding myself regularly suggesting/helping/being there for others struggling with their own [mental] health, I cannot completely help myself. And worst of all, I worry. I worry that what if I don’t really want to help myself? What if I don’t really – can’t – loose this controlled/controlling part of me? In which case, why am I even doing any of this?!
It’s *almost* funny- but if someone says something self depreciating/negative/I don’t like/feel is true about me, I won’t stand for it, I’ll fight it and be fuming – and yet I’m negative about and towards myself consistently! Nothing anyone ever says or does or writes to me resonates for long enough to remind myself that I am enough. And even as I read you this letter, and you waited for me to finish, you remembered – somehow – even what I had said right at the start in order to respond. Even I couldn’t have remembered what I had said – and I wrote it – yet I know you responded in a way in which to remind me once more that I am enough, but already I cannot remember how or what you said….
And now, I don’t know where, or how to end this. As appears to be my forte – I’ve gone on for quite a while. I’ve been writing this on and off for the last two weeks, the main bulk of it done immediately after our seventh session so I didn’t forget! I’m not sure if I have said everything I want or need to say, or, as usual, if it is “good enough”, but with less than an hour until our final session, I guess I need to end somewhere.. Although I do have a couple of unexpected pages left, so I expect I will have a “P.S” or two somewhere!!
I’m also unsure how to “sign off”. A “sincerely” feels too formal, and I am also used to signing cards and letters to friends and family with outpourings of “lots of love” etc, but that feels even weirder! So instead, the only option feels to me to be a great big thank you, for your understanding and help, and for making me less “wary” or whatever it is I’ve previously thought or felt towards male therapists.
Karen x
There was, in the end, no P.S. I think I said everything I had to say for now. The only thing I’d like to add to Richard now (though it unlikely he’d ever see it!), is how funny I found it when he accidentally let an “f-bomb” slip.. I can’t even remember what context he used it in – it was definitely appropriate, but beyond unexpected, but being that I constantly feel like I’m swearing unnecessarily (and I hate it!) it certainly made me feel better, and giggle. ☺️😂
We all individually think we are fat. Beyond Gordon hits the nail bang on the head with the hammer when I read ~ just yesterday ~ her words in “Mad Girl” {and oh, my, gosh do I resonate with SO MUCH of this book..!} of
“For young women, fat is more often a mental state rather than a physical one.”
We all individually think “others” are perfect.Why do we judge ourselves so harshly when we wouldn’t judge others this way? Alright, I know theres a few nasty bullies out there who judge others instantaneously – not gonna lie; I’ve probably definitely done it in the past… we all have… but I have noticed myself more and more following “kindness is magic” because you just don’t know what others have/been/are going through and thus don’t judge a book by its cover.. but by and large, we are extrodinarily self critical whilst viewing others in this positive glow of perfection that simply isn’t true.
Why do we see ourselves in one light and others in a more positive light?
We are 🦄.
I’m noticing this a lot recently. It’s good, because it’s what I’m meant to be doing as a result of therapy; catching myself thinking negatively about myself and really assessing, well, me. Not just in terms of “I’m fat” but generally under this all round umbrella of “not good enough” that I’ve placed upon myself; but there is no upper limit to what is “good enough” so I am constantly a failure to myself; because myself doesn’t even know what is good enough… genius, right?!
In a group conversation with two of my bestest 🦄 girlfriends the other day, we were all individually berating ourselves. Calling ourselves fat, or flabby, whilst the other two said “you’re not, but I…” etc, etc. We do it a lot – not just us 3; women in general. But we aren’t. We are all different and unique. I have bigger thighs. Francesca is just all round tiny [Well Rosie and I think so at least ☺️]; and we don’t know how because my-unicorn (don’t believe in god 😉) she is one hell of a baker, and if I baked like her I’d be absolutely enormous from taste testing the goods/licking ALL the bowls 👅🤣 . Rosie, on the other hand, is “top heavy”: she has bigger boobs (guess the guys/her bf are/is happy 👀😂), and she’s dubbed her “belly” “Krispy Kreme Castle” and butt 🍑 “Mars Bar Mount” which is so cute and funny, and made me laugh out loud that I can’t help but join in with her on it. She’s still tiny. Her legs are long and slim and her butt looks pretty good to me and not so Mars-Bar-Mounty… me? Well I have tiny hands and feet and I’m warming to the rest of me. My stomach often looks reasonably flat despite ALL the food, and I prefer my smaller boobs (although they never feel so small 😒).
So here we are. Krispy Kreme Castle bellies and all; terms of endearment. I don’t think we really care anymore though; this is just who we are. We exercise/don’t exercise as and when we want. I run; I love it. Francesca doesn’t; because her asthma is waaaay worse than mine and she doesn’t so much love it 🤣. Having said that; she was pretty good running in France this week and has seriously good form! Rosie does ALL the gym classes and has discovered that if we play the 90’s Christina Aquilera “Fighter” then she totes adores the boxing even more!! The funny thing is – we all wear pretty much the same size clothing..!
I’m Karen. I’m 29 [fighting 30 in a few months.. 😱] and I’m 5ft 5″-ish.. and I tend to sit at around 9 and a half stone. Sometimes just over (ugh) and sometimes just under (yay!). I’ve fought that for years, I’ve fought and continue to fight the anorexic thoughts that have been present within my mind for more or less 30 years. I’ve said before I don’t truly believe they will ever completely go away; they may come back stronger than ever, but right now I am learning to appreciate what I’ve got and live, love and laugh with it. Clearly 9 stone 7 pounds [ish] is where I’m meant to sit. And you know what? That sits right smack in the middle of “healthy” for my age/height/sex. That is, those magic words; “good enough”. As I’ve typed that I’ve realised it’s a classic time for me to “catch myself” again. That is good enough. I am good enough.
Obviously (“ugh”) I am not ok with the ‘slightly’ over 9.7 stone, and ideally I’d maintain the 8 stone I was at around 2-3 years ago, but I can’t. I can’t maintain 8 stone or just under. I can’t even seem to maintain just under 9 stone. And I think I’m learning to deal with it. If it’s unmaintanable then it can’t be right, right? I want to live and be happy: not fight myself day in day out. I’m not gonna lie – This isn’t easy for me to say or deal with, but I’m trying to for the sake of life and happiness which is super important. The most important. I am learning to be ok with it. I am living; eating and drinking and moving as others do. For the first time since I’ve had the t-shirt, my “running = more cake 🎂” tee is actually more truthful than laughable. Running used to equal more running.. running used to equal allowing myself dinner..
I have stretch marks too from puberty. I hate them – but actually they are mostly faded now and, you know what? I was so, so relieved when Francesca said to me the other day that she “hates these stretch marks on her thighs” because I’d never noticed hers. I’d have never said she had any until she told me. We home in on our own “faults” and fail to realise that actually they are just part of being human, they aren’t abnormal, we are NOT all perfect, photoshopped images, and they/we’re ok.
I’ve noticed this last week I’ve got the beginnings of some tiny varocous veins forming… not best pleased for not-even-30… but maybe, just maybe, by announcing this “out loud” will make someone else who is struggling with noticing this in themselves be ok with the fact that I too, am not yet 30, and not best pleased – but what am I to do?! They are forming. I don’t know much about them as they aren’t something I’ve spent years worrying and pouring my soul into researching like every other aspect of me – but I know my mum has them, and I’m sure the googling will soon ensue…
Something inside me is changing. Maybe its age/maturity. Maybe it’s the amount of beautiful weather we’ve been having (/I’ve taken myself to!). Maybe it’s the Cognitive Analytical Therapy [CAT]psychotherapy that I’ve been undergoing, or the citalopram I’ve been taking, or because I ran a marathon, or been talking to therapists/everyone and anyone who will listen about everything and anything. Or maybe even the amount of doctors/nurses that have had probes/cameras/catheters/speculum’s up my vagina in the last few years. Who knows – whatever it is [& I do suspect a strong element of maturity; perhaps induced by the citalopram] I’m changing. Topless in front of friends/my Mum? Don’t care. Or one of my besties, Rosie “I’m-not-going-to-walk-in-on-you-naked-in-the-shower-oops-I-just-did”… I just don’t seem to be fussed. I just don’t seem to care anymore: we are all human. We all have bodies. We are all different but we all have our pros and self-perceived “cons”. And more and more of us are realising this, and that life is just too short to not enjoy it…Man I wish I had felt this age … 0 onwards….
Poignant, I think, for the last day of mental health awareness week..
I think I scared a few people earlier this (last) week.. had a couple of calls (although I will say I’m not adverse to calls rather than the usual epic texts conversations I’m normally involved with!) and texts I wasn’t expexting, even James was worried I was having “naughty” thoughts… that’s what we call them.. the worst kind of thoughts.. no one can bring themselves to say THAT word, can they?
I won’t mention names, and I hope she’s ok with me referring to her, but I had a friend who took an overdose earlier this year.. in talking to each other now, the word “suicide” has never really been mentioned – it’s like the word depression [and anorexia]; for me it’s hard to say – I struggle to say them even now. Only in the last year have I ever referred to myself as actually having had/have anorexia and it still feels like the most impossible word to say. It sounds alien and wrong coming from my mouth.
But it also doesn’t quite fit for me: suicide. Just like the word depression doesn’t quite make sense. I – and my friend was the same – don’t want to die. I don’t want to kill myself and I don’t want to cut this already short life even shorter, but sometimes, the will to just stop having to think is super strong, and you will clutch at anything to make that stop. That’s what my friend said to me; “I just didn’t want to think anymore”. And I got her. I got her like I felt like I had never gotten anyone before. I’ve had suicidal thoughts when I was at my worst, but really, it’s just the desire to not have to think any longer.. that surging panic within you consuming every ounce of you that you just want – need – it to stop.
So, I’m ok. I am not suicidal. Obviously the early part of last week was a bit of a shocker. It was hugely disappointing, frustrating, upsetting and stressful to find out that [not only are we still not pregnant – but] we have yet another month where we don’t even get a chance to try to be. It did make me think “what is the point” again but – although it sounds it – not in a suicidal way.. the only thing I have ever known I always want to be was a Mother – so every set back along that way is literally like another giant step backwards, and leaves me seriously questioning yet again what I am here for.
It’s only now, in the last few weeks or months, for the first time in around 2 years that I have finally started to feel truly like the “old” Karen again. Even despite the days flying into weeks flying into months and the dreaded build up to my birthday rapidly approaching (getting older is a huge, huge anxiety for me, usually one of my lowest points in the last few years!!) The smiley karen that loves to be around people, always laughing and chatting, happy and just living; because life is too short as it is. The karen that craves the comfort of others, chatting and smiling to everyone and anyone. I’m chattier, eye contact and engaging is easier, conversation flowing easier, listening to others and taking in their lives and concentration (almost!) seems to be improving. Being kind and friendly and wanting – needing – to be around people and engage with them is returning. Because, while the general public can be full of idiots, I like to think I’m good at dwindling out the decent, like minded ones 😉 My love/hate relationship with people in general becoming funny again; because people are annoying but people are also brilliant and I love being around people!
I’m on meds. I’m back in therapy. Holidays and fun plans are on the horizon. The {standard British} weather is slowly starting to pick up to give us some kind of summertime and I’m running and moving reasonably well.. so it may be one, or a combination of all these things, but one way or another, I’m doing ok right now.
And so, I guess, I am a prime example of what mental health does to you. What it looks like and feels like. It’s dark. It’s horrid. It isolates you, without you even realising, and it will always be with you. Mental health illness isn’t just something you suffer with for 8 weeks or so and then you’re fine forever; throughout your life it will come and go. Sometimes you’ll be aware of what’s triggered you and others you’ll have no clue as to what’s going on or even why now? But there is light at the end of the tunnel. It might be just a pinprick to start. You probably won’t even be able to see it at first. But somehow, somewhere, you can and will get through it. There will be bad days, and there will be good days, and slowly the good will increase and the bad lessen. Always look up.
Last Sunday was one of the best days of my life – right up there with our wedding day [soz Dad, who’d have thought you could’ve saved A LOT of money by just getting me into a £39 marathon?! 😂 💸💸💸] From even before the moment the incredible Dame Kelly Holmes wished me Good Luck to even now, to still now, one week on my enthusiasm was through the roof to run this awesome event.
Once a crazed runner, always a crazed runner!
I have to say I disagreed slightly with the second episode of “Mind Over Marathon” – at the start of the episode they mention about mentally preparing for the marathon and the atmosphere… Absolutely nothing could have ever made me guess or understand what I would feel like at the start, end, and entirety of that marathon. It was 1 million, billion, zillion times better 😍 an experience I can barely even put into words (but clearly, here I am about to try!). I am still thinking about it and still talking about it; finding any opportunity to chat about it; I am still “riding high” and happy and as buzzing as ever at the mere thought of it.
The other day, my friend and neighbour, and now VLM17 running husband (!), Iain wrote his first ever blog; covering his VLM17 experience. Just reading the blog had me welling up in tears over the sheer overwhelming happiness that day was. Gosh it was so, so amazing 💖.
I have to say though; I just don’t think I can write anything like Iain did. But I’ll give it a try…
Firstly, let’s just rewind 7-ish months to a vague recollection I have of my (then) fertility nurse, Debbie, telling me to not go OTT with the running… and me assuring her that once I had run Cheltenham Half that September, James and I were jet setting off on holiday 👙, where I would begin a vast cut-back on the running. I was hopeful that somehow that treatment cycle would have meant we were pregnant, and James and I discussed whilst in Singapore (where we would find out if we were, or weren’t pregnant) naming the bump 🤰🏽 “Raffles” as a tribute to the famous hotel. (I feel the need to add that only whilst bump was a bump were we going to do this!). Almost 3 weeks on from this, we were on the last leg of our brilliant 3 week holiday – not pregnant – and woke up one morning in Kuala Lumpur to an email from the London Marathon Ballot team… I very nearly deleted this email 📧without even reading it, suspecting, as per the last few years, that I hadn’t gotten a place again; I had said to friends and family I wasn’t going to apply again as I needed to cut back on the running 🏃🏽♀️ for the sake of creating our family, but something made me open and read that email…. And my jaw hit the floor (or, my chest, because I was still lying in bed!) 😵 to discover I had finally won a ballot place! I hadn’t run in almost 3 weeks, having struggled round a 5k loop in the (beautiful) ☀️ 30+ degree heat of Singapore, and had gained about a stone eating EVERYTHING whilst moving barely anything while sunning ourselves in Indonesia…. Let’s just say we got up every morning we had left in Kuala Lumpur and attempted the 5k loop around the KLCC Park to begin my training! I have to say, whilst I didn’t think it would be easy, I just knew that I could do it; I love, love, love ❤️ running and have been doing it for years, so my plan was to keep up some “gentle” running until the New Year and then begin my training properly… So, of course, my body found this to be an ideal time to become so injured that I had to take over 2 months off – this is the first time I have ever had to take so long off, and I was getting more than a little concerned as every time I saw my sports therapist, he would say “don’t run on it just yet!” – yet by February I knew I had to ignore him and get going – I was now a month and a half behind my training plan, hadn’t run in over 2 months, with only about 9 weeks until the big day! 🗓
FYI, for anyone that thinks they can just “RUN a marathon” with no training; you are wrong… not unless you aren’t worried about being cut off by the 8 hour 15 minute time limit! I knew from my half marathon times that I could finish a marathon in around the 4 hour mark, and so that was always my aim; under four and a half hours. Thankfully, as I have been running for years, I listened to the warm up advice of my sports therapist and soon got back on top of my training plan; but I would never have been able to start from scratch with only 9 weeks to go!
Throughout all of this, I was still undergoing fertility treatment, and a somewhat hopeful part of my brain continued to tell me I wouldn’t actually be running this year because I would be pregnant and deferring until 2018. Even though I personally knew a few other people running or involved with the marathon in some way for once, which would make it nicer to run. Every month when another period arrived, so did the heartache and grief for another month lost with no baby 👼🏼. I avoided doing any longer training runs (over 13 miles) until as late as possible, desperately clinging to the thought that I wouldn’t be running this year, until I could avoid it no longer.
I ran my first long training run (16.6 miles) on one of the worst weathered days of the year. There were brief elements of sunshine, but mostly horrendous, battering wind, rain and even some hail ⛈. It was awful; but I did it, and even better, I could walk the next day, and run a day after that! And so the “highs” started. I knew I could do this. I still continued to undergo fertility treatment, and didn’t do my second (and last) long 20(.4) mile training run until I knew I wasn’t pregnant (and the weather couldn’t have been more opposite; the hottest day of the year so far!). Somehow, that month was the easiest month I have ever experienced knowing I wasn’t pregnant. I don’t know what on earth I was thinking previously, but it took Debbie saying it would be much better to run this year, than next year with a new-born; and it suddenly dawned on me that yes, trying to run 26.2 (or in my case 27.5) miles having had a baby just months before, inevitable gained baby weight, milk-leaking boobs and sleep deprivation 😴 that comes with a baby, would NOT be an ideal situation to run a marathon in..!
And so, it finally felt right for the first time in my life, to not yet be pregnant. To run my first marathon knowing I had another friend running it meaning the extra personalised support along the route, and, poignantly – given my own ongoing battle – to run the first Mental Health Marathon.
What now feels like a rapid fast forward; the big day arrived. Without realising it, I had subconsciously developed what our neighbourly “Wilstock Run Club” were dubbing “Maranoia” in the week preceding the marathon. I was super excited, but my calves were refusing to co-operate and were tight, heavy and painful for the four runs the week before the marathon. Fortunately, a massage the Friday night before the big day, alongside pure elation on the day, meant that maranoia had disappeared by the time I crossed the start line.
Almost crossing the start line!
Despite encouragement to enjoy and take in every step, I just don’t remember stuff [standard Karen 🙄]. I know from seeing the second part of the fab “Mind Over Marathon” programme that I managed to miss the brilliant Duke and Duchess of Cambridge alongside Prince Harry at not only my start zone/line, but also mile 6, as well as me failing once again to listen to my gut instincts to head left at the finish line to get a medal from them (Hence my picture is of the back of Harry’s head and the side of William’s, and NO Kate!)
Prince Harry’s head and Prince William…
Although there were some points when the weather felt insanely hot, it wasn’t any warmer than when I did my 20 mile training run, and as there was no evil rain and barely any wind/breeze, the weather conditions were more or less perfect by my own standards… I only have *slight* tan lines….😉 I discarded my orange long sleeved top base layer and pink fleece to Rosie and James at the start and donned what must be the thickest bin bag known to man which also got chucked mere metres after the start line. This is an oddity for me; I am normally found running in layers upon layers because I am ALWAYS cold and I do not like the wind and the rain! I think the sheer excitement, plus the absolute masses of people were surrounding me in a nice warm glow..
Spot me in the bin bag (Thanks Sally for this!)
Getting to my “Blue Start” was surprisingly easy thanks to my London-travel-expert Rosie 🦄, and, as someone who has run A LOT of half marathon’s, I can’t even describe how surprised I STILL am that I only needed one last pee on the walk up from the DLR, before I joined my zone… Usually I leave the toilets and re-join the queue immediately for several last emergency toilet stops (yep, maybe too much info, but normally several nervous number 1’s and 2’s!) I guess my body understood the sheer excitement my mind was in and hadn’t quite realised what was to come! 😄
App results
I was bouncing off the walls as I headed to the start line, seen off by my wonderful husband James and one of my besties Rosie. As I walked further forward I spotted another of my besties, Becky, alongside her sister Kate, Mum Sally, her two children (one of whom is my goddaughter Ellen 👧🏼, and the other my honorary godson Ollie 👦🏼!) and their cousins Charlie and Jake stood at the metal fence of their hot-air-balloon-area searching the crowds for me. I remember excitedly bounding up to them like an absolute maniac; jogging and jumping over already-discarded layers of clothing from other runners up the bank to try and kiss them all through the fence, before pouncing off back towards the start line. I think all of the kids, even the 2 I see fairly often, were slightly alarmed at who this bin-bag-wearing nutter was! As I approached the start line far quicker than I thought I would (crossing at just under 9 minutes after the “gun”) I remember looking up to see the start, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of runners and spectators, and felt myself welling up slightly at the pure size and unitedness of this event, before the excitement took over me again and I started my running properly some way before the actual start (all this adds up towards me running 1.3 miles OVER the 26.2!) – which is definitely how I didn’t notice the Royal’s 👑 as I crossed the start line….!
My awesome cheer squad! 🦄
I remember the happiness emanating from everyone more than the sights of London themselves. I remember how funny I found myself when we reached the first mile marker, announcing happily and still excitedly out loud “Only 25 miles to go!!”… 🤣 with a few others around me laughing. I counted down in my head like this most of the run, but I didn’t share the same kind of happy enthusiasm for it at miles 23, 24 or 25……! Those last 3 miles honestly felt like there was 26 miles between each one of them. I can clearly remember the voice in my head saying “WHERE THE FCUK IS MILE 23?!” and probably almost immediately thereafter (but it felt like forever) “WHERE THE FCUK IS MILE 24?!” etc! I remember – despite my time not actually being that fast – that the first 13 miles seemed to fly by; I didn’t even notice passing the O2, and I didn’t give the Cutty Sark much more of a glance either! I took in Tower Bridge a little more, purely because I had been specifically told by a friend to soak up that moment, but I couldn’t help but find myself thinking that the slight hill up to Tower Bridge wasn’t very nice!! For me, the landmark that I remember the most was the beautifully green, tree lined street which lead up to Canary Wharf; Canary Wharf rising proudly at the end of these beautiful green trees; I remember thinking I didn’t know that road up to Canary Wharf was so beautiful and how lucky those that work in “the city” are to have such beautiful, vibrant shades of green surrounding them! 🌳🌳
I also remember desperately trying to remember all the crazy-costumed people I saw. The one that sticks in my mind the most, I quite literally said out loud “JESUS CHRIST” when I saw him…. A guy running barefoot, carrying a cross on his naked back, wearing what appeared to be just a white cloth, dressed as, well, Jesus Christ himself. I laughed at myself when I realised, as it was seeing his bare feet that had made me say “Jesus Christ” before realising that’s who he was dressed as! I also saw the rhino 🦏, various dinosaurs 🐉, a postbox, a tree 🌳, a few people dressed in chainmail or as wonderwoman, a smurf, Batman & Robin 🦇 and the absolutely insane guy carrying a tumble dryer (I am glad he achieved his WR!)
There was not a single point along the entire route of the London Marathon (with the exception of an underground tunnel, which I think is acceptable and also didn’t feel particularly horrendous considering!) where the streets were not either lined with supporters, or absolutely rammed full with supporters! People with funny signs with messages of support – “This is Virgin on ridiculous!”, “Don’t shit 💩 yourself Abi!”, “Your feet are only aching because you’re kicking so much ass!”, “Shortcut ⬅️!!” are just some of the messages I can remember that I loved, but I know there are so many more I can’t quite put my finger on as I write this! People had cow bells, clappers and their own voices must have been practically non-existent by Monday. Pubs, pop-up’s and other venue’s along the route blared out 🎶 music, musicians clubbed together to play the drums (Caribbean drums are my FAVOURITE to run to!), the bagpipes, brass bands, etc; anything and everything and anyone and everyone was out supporting that day. It is what makes the atmosphere of an organised run so brilliant. Hundreds of thousands of people from all different backgrounds come together as one, big swell of happiness all cheering for the same goal, and boy, do I wish we could come together as a nation and live in happy harmony like that on a daily basis. You cannot help but smile; and I did; a grin from ear to ear the whole way through (the odd picture which suggests otherwise is a lie…!)
Thumbs are up still 👍🏾! Just a slightly more tired grin!
However, despite the amazing all round support from the general public, there is clearly nothing like being cheered on by your own friends/family. It was evident in Iain’s splits, and it is evident mine; minutes per mile for the times I saw friends were 8:53, 8:37, 8:28 (my fastest mile; AT MILE 20!!) and 9:33 (Mile 25!); they worked out as some of my fastest splits so it is clear seeing your own people makes a difference – I wonder what I could do if I had someone at every mile….!! James and Rosie (& eventually Jon, once his lazy ass was dragged out of bed 😜 !) managed to get round and cheer me on from no less than FOUR amazing points of the course; although I missed them once, because the third time I was too busy jumping (running) for joy at the sound of Iain’s wife Dasa screaming my name and cheering me on.
And finally, the “600 metres” sign came into view, swiftly followed by the footbridge announcing “385 yards to go!” I was almost there. Buck Pal looked gloriously inviting underneath the blue skies, and for once with no crowds specifically around it; instead, everyone was turned to face away from the palace, cheering on the 40k runners in their final 400 metres, and finally 200 metres. As I turned away from Buckingham Palace onto The Mall I heard the voiceover announce “If you are finishing around about now, you might well get someone very special handing you your medal!” and I glanced up to see the Duchess of Cambridge on the big screen handing out medals 🏅. Instinctively I felt like if I headed left, I could be one of those people; but in the last 200 metres a combination of self-doubt and memory failure meant I aimed for the middle, and then forgot completely that they were even there (hence photograph being the back of Harry’s head and the side of William’s before I was swiftly ushered away!) as I happily crossed the finish line, quickly calculating that I had managed a sub 04:30 time in a haze of pride and overpowering happiness.
So, so happy!
I was overwhelmed last week with the amazing support, messages of love and encouragement. I felt so, so loved, and I still cannot get over how fantastic the tracking part of the VLM app was; because within seconds of crossing that finish line, I had tonnes of congratulations texts, whatsapps, emails, messages on facebook, instagram and twitter from all of you fabulous friends and family that had been tracking me every step of the way.
Top right – just over the finish line!
One of the best things I saw were these words from my goddaughters mother “what an inspirational godmother”. As part of my ongoing mental-health crisis, I always worry that I’m not “good enough” – there is no limit to this enough. I’m just not ever good enough. It’s mostly subconscious, but I’ve promised to always be there and be the best for her and I wonder sometimes if I am a good enough role model now – now that I no longer work full time or have my career goal of power woman to lead her path. With all my crazy 🤕 mental health issues; and yet they still chose me. They still knew I was an absolute nightmare with food (& I distinctly remember holding her tiny days old body, clinging her into my arms whilst refusing to eat lunch) and yet they still believe in me to be her godmother. I love this little girl, (even if she’s still not so sure about me, even when I get her her one true love; food!) way too much. But can she STOP growing already?! I’m excited to see who and what you become in life – but it needs to happen slower baby girl….. (Tangent!)
And so, a week on. After 2 days and 2 sleepless nights of severe leg achiness, an over-optimistic failed run attempt on the 3rd day, I’ve now managed two 3 mile runs. I’ve had several alcoholic drinks 🥂🍹🍸 5 out of 7 night’s, eaten out three times, takeaway pizza 🍕once, demolished 15 hot cross buns, several bars of chocolate🍫, Haribo, skittles, protein flapjacks, energy/bounce balls, Lucozade sports and probably not enough water. My total distance that day was an insane 30.7 miles – I doubt I will ever top that “magic number”! I think, a week on, I have finally satisfied all my cravings and am ready to get back onto eating healthier! But I still find myself talking about it at any given opportunity… however, can someone tell me how on earth I have a fairly large graze on my right butt-cheek?!
Magic number..
VLM17 you were absolutely amazing, and despite hating being wrong, and constant promises I’ll never do another marathon – I have to admit my friends were right.. And if I can still run and love it as much as I do now after children… London, I’ll be back…! Even my insane husband is encouraging me to apply for next year, saying if I did somehow get in and was {finally} pregnant/just given birth, I could defer until 2019…. I am thinking about it…!!
Grinning as I reach the finish!
I know over the years I have inspired friends to run; it makes me so happy to feel like I am actually achieving something in this world; I am a typical millennial in that sense! And so, if you’d like to experience the absolute exhilarating and fantastic atmosphere of (a) marathon – VLM18 ballot opens tomorrow people! If you want an absolutely amazing day and experience of a lifetime – DO IT! I’ll come and cheer you on just to experience the day again! 🎉🎉🎉
I’ma just leave that ^ right here.. sometimes, I think, it can be even more important. I am physically fit, healthy and able (mostly), and yet, if my mental health isn’t up for it, then all of the physical health crumples too.
Today is #WorldHealthDay – with the focus on #depression – and so… time for another blog!
As always, depression never feels like the right word to describe that black cloud hanging over you for no reason. I’ve lost count of the amount of times people have said to me – or my husband – “Karen doesn’t look depressed” or “but you have SO much/you’re SO lucky” … you get the gist, right?!
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s because anxiety is my biggest problem, sitting alongside as depression’s BIGGER, brattier, harder-work sibling.. BUT, what exactly does depression look like?! Seriously! Before reading the rest of this blog, comment what you expect depression to look like in a person; I am honestly keen to know.
Do you expect me to turn up to a birthday/wedding/house warming/hen do/child’s christening dressed all in black with tears streaming down my face?! I cannot even begin to express how much I 100% HATE how often I do cry. I try my best to not, but it happens, a lot. (Although generally these days in the surroundings of Doctors/Nurses/Therapists.. at least they’re half expecting/trained for it..!) It washes over me like a tidal wave for absolutely no frigging reason whilst I’m in the middle of a conversation [with anyone] and suddenly there I am going beetroot red/purple, fighting and blinking back the tears welling up in my eyes, loosing my train of thought and ending up being handed a box of tissues, seemingly constantly. I feel like an over-sized baby. Generally, I seriously try to avoid this happening – particularly in public! How many people do you actually see, “depressed” and walking around in public in tears?? Not many, right? What about him? Or her? Or that child over there? Or that 90-year-old? Race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion; mental health illness doesn’t discriminate. Personally, I find it {my own crying} embarrassing. I sure-as-hell wouldn’t know what to do if I came across someone crying, or if someone broke down in front of me like I so often do to them.. And the worst part of those tears that are associated with “depression”? It’s normally anxiety that causes them in me..
And, I know. Believe me I know. I know how damn “lucky” I really am. I guess I wasn’t born into that surname for no reason, eh!! I have a generally all round brilliant life. The best, most supportive husband, family, friends (having dwindled out those who aren’t really..). I am {reasonably!} fit, and mostly {physically} healthy. I can see, speak, listen, smell, think, read, run, dance, learn, live, breathe, travel and do on a daily basis… if my mind allows.
All of this doesn’t make me feel any better. Telling someone how lucky they are or how they don’t “look” depressed simply adds this kind of “guilt” pressure and, for me, when I am left alone to think (often) then it gets to me and makes me feel worse and worse until in the end it’s spiraled out of control; and I end up at utter breaking point. And I do get to breaking point. I have, I really have. Several times. Almost 20 years of guilt carried around on my shoulders. Years of self-punishment; starving myself, making my self sick (even swallowing a small amount of bleach in a desperate bid to make myself sick; my crime? I ate an apple), over-exercising, over-dosing on laxatives, cutting myself, and all for what? For some brief relief and element of “control” over myself, but years of further pain; knee pain, neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain, insomnia. And the worst, the one I can’t just battle through and live with; infertility pain. I’ve asked it before, and I’ll ask it again, but for anyone that thinks this is a choice; why would you choose to suffer like this?
I am no longer “tiny”, and I miss it. Boy, do I miss it. I look over old photos of my tiny waist, tiny boobs, thinner, toned, legs and thigh-gap thighs, smaller bum, flat stomach, thin arms, prominent collarbones, hip bones and sometimes even rib bones and I miss looking like that. I miss the scales saying my “magic” number. I miss being told I have “no {brown} fat” by my [wedding] dressmaker. I miss being the smallest, tiny, invisible. Because that feeling of invisibility makes me feel better about how often I am overlooked/called the wrong name/forgotten about/left out/alone. I feel very much like I am only managing the (healthy, very healthy, “must stay at this weight” [thanks, doc]) weight that I am now just so that I can conceive, and yet, still not conceiving no matter what meds I seem to be given.. No matter if I run or don’t run, eat sensibly, R E L A X…
I now spend a lot of time alone. And on those days that are increasingly becoming more common – when I actually want to see and engage with people – it makes me miss Clarks and working full time like that. But deep down I know, I remember (because I was), that I was surrounded by people there yet feeling more alone than I do when I am physically alone now. And yet being alone is scary, it allows me time to think, which can be dangerous in plummeting myself back into that spiral of utter panic; anxiety with depression. And yet, on better days, even I wonder what all the fuss is/was about. Even now, I find this blog harder to write; the sun is shining, I’m on a small amount of medication for my mind, I am undergoing therapy, I am eating well and running really well; I am excited for events to come. I struggle now, to think back to those bleak days that I last fought only a few months ago. And it can be quite a scary place to reside; you feel fantastic, but after the first few times of it happening, you start to almost not be able to enjoy that feeling of happiness and feeling “high”, because you worry for when the negative thinking and behaviors will return, because they will, they always do. But I cling on to memories. I over-take photographs and I look back on them fondly; it makes me sad for life gone, but reminds me of life and more excitement to come… So sorry, not sorry for the oversharing/posting 😉
I really thought – I was convinced in fact – that at the ripe old age of 26/27 (when I was wedding planning/got married) that we had whittled out all the fake friends. People that wouldn’t be there for us but seemed to expect us to be there for them. I was wrong. Really wrong, and it will probably always annoy me that those people got to be guests at our beautiful wedding. The “best wedding ever” (& that quote is from a friend, not either of us, although we believe it to be true!)
I just don’t understand people. I will go out of my way to help, to be there, to do anything I can and fight your corner (unless you’re in the wrong, in which case, I’ll let you know). And I have never asked or expected anyone to give me the world. I’ve never asked anything of anyone, but I guess a tiny part of me thinks – hopes – that if I’m there for you, you’ll be there for me… I guess not.
Sometimes, I just don’t know what to think, or what to feel. People really mess with your emotions and it’s outrageous. A subject of being “overlooked” comes up consistently in my therapy sessions, and it is so, so true. For my entire life I am constantly overlooked. From doing readings at assemblies, for being picked in sports teams, from accidentally being called “Kate” or “Lucy” or anything other than my actual name. From sitting down with me as a child/teenager/adult with my teachers/colleagues/friends/family and getting to the real bottom of why I constantly resort to harming myself one way or another. To desperately reaching out to therapists only to be turned away, or worse; forgotten about once again. Blood tests missed. “Friends” letting me down or cancelling on me last minute or finding something better to do.
It all adds up, and meanwhile, that girl(/boy) that you think has everything, is surrounded by infinite walls of loneliness. All the love in the world to give, to be, to do, to make a difference, but no longer the energy to keep constantly getting rejected.
So, depression. This is my account. Everyone is different. We are all different; it is part of the beauty of the world in which we live. But depression is not a choice. It isn’t something that you “had once for 8 weeks”. It doesn’t go away. You learn to manage it. To live with it as best you can. As you start to understand your own experience, you begin to realise what works for you; you do what you can to make yourself feel happier, be it eating a certain way (3 decent meals/6 small meals/more vitamins/vegan/vegetarian/etc.) exercising a certain amount/at a certain time of day, or even just a certain exercise (guess what, mine’s running 😝🤣!!), taking medication, undergoing therapy. All of which I have done, and continue to do. It isn’t easy, but it appears to be an ever-increasing problem as we create more and more generations. We aren’t really sure why, but it is, but we can work with it, we can manage it, and we can live with it if we just take some time to understand, listen and, always; be kind. 💖
Every so often I come up with a new “biggest regret” but right now, it’s accidentally disengaging from mental health services help. This mental health services help that seemed to help me so much initially, that seemed to be so quickly received. Because now, there is none…
Somerset Partnership Talking Therapies Service has a seemingly endless waiting list, my cautious approaches to private counselling and therapy have been met with “fully booked”, “no longer working privately” or, even simpler – just no response at all. And all alongside this, I’m making myself physically sick due to the inability to sleep, eat properly, make sense of what is whizzing around and around in my mind and I do not know where to go next or what to do. I know this can’t continue but I really, honestly cannot see an end. Not now, not soon, not ever.
I’ll admit, that I have been judging a book by its cover in my approaches for private therapy. On the BABCP register I have looked only for female therapists ~ because right now this is what feels right for me. I’ve looked barely at any qualifications or experience and looked more at their pictures; if they have none, they are automatically out of the running, if I don’t judge them to look familiarly friendly then once more I’ve deemed them unsuitable for me. This obviously narrows down my options but it’s got to work for me, I’ve got to feel comfortable, safe and secure in who I seek help from. That’s important when dealing with mental health, for me anyway.
How have our services got this bad? How has our mental health become so out of control that there is quite literally no help left?
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