Andie Mitchell TED Tak, BED & Recovery

https://youtu.be/U-q7SVJYaO0
A great talk with a great message.

Body Positive Holiday!

My recent holiday was the opposite of what I anticipated…

I chose comfort over other peoples opinions. I ate 3+3 every day to fuel my body and felt great. I chose balanced meals over a day and felt more confident in my own ability to look after myself. I had space and time out when I needed to and relaxed because of it. Ultimately I took control of what happened to me and took care of myself. The anxieties were left behind and squashed down, rather than the other way round. 

Now, I’m home and keeping these efforts going. I decided: I don’t want to be a version of someone else, I don’t even want to be thin any more. I want to be a stronger version of me!

June, What A Crappy Month That Was!

Sometimes you just can’t wait to see that back of certain time periods, June 2016 can be dumped on that list!

At the start of the month I was 2 months off medication and doing great.My key moment was doing a long journey and only realised on the way home that anxiety hadn’t interviened at all. Life felt rather good!

 Fast forward a month and I’m back to feeling like hiding from the world with my hands over my ears to block out the noise.

Between looking after the kids and working every spare minute I had for 3 weeks straight my stress levels were permnantly raised, that is one of my worst triggers for anxiety, which is now firmly wedged in my daily life again.

It’s taken a long time to accept but I can’t do it all, not that I’ve ever wanted to but that’s not the same as pressure to be able to do it all. I can either focus on full time work or full time mum. When both are combined I crack and can’t give focus to either. This manifests as irritability and very little patience and the most simple tasks are too much for me to cope with. I can’t even decide which dog food to buy, the choices on the shelves overwhelm me.

I was already struggling with bad memories resurfacing but I didn’t have time (or more to the point didn’t give myself time) to think about why they were coming up. It made sense when I realised a particular day was the anniversary of a difficult event for me.
This year has to be the first time I’ve ever acknowledged the pain and emotions I have attached to that day. Its knocked me quite badly. Combined with the stress my eating has been gradually getting worse.

I’m aware that I have to look at my emotions and work through them. It won’t be over night but I wish it was. My bad side has taken over somewhat, I stay up late, eat too much (a lot of it crap) plus doing very little for myself. A reset button would be handy right now.

I’m trying to make small changes to help myself. I’ve reduced my social commitments, I’m trying to fight the voices that tell me ‘I’m no good, I look hideous and need to diet to make it all better’….even after all this time those demons are always ready to strike when I’m down. I just have to choose not to give in.

One area I can’t change is the decision from Weight Management Services on whether I’m an elligible candidate for them. I hate things being out of my control but I think the true feelings run deepet than that. It will have contributed to my ready long list of shitty things to deal with in June.
 Part of me is rebelling against making food a focus again and making changes to what I eat. The other issue is what happens if I’m not accepted, how do I move forward with weight loss, without relapsing?

This isn’t a focus like restrictions of the past. Its about re-educating myself on how to eat without the mentality of diets and instant expectations. I need to lose weight to be comfortable, not ache all the time and generally nimprove my health. Doing that alone makes me quite scared and the pressure would be immense. I can’t make alternative plans until I hear from them, its not a good place for me to be in.

So all in, June can do one and I’m trying to make July a more positive month. I fear it may take longer than that to be back in a good place again.

Back After A Long Absence….

Back to blogging regularly after a long time away. Initially I was doing really well and simply didn’t have the time spare to post anything new. My social life has taken off after some effort and it was all happy and great fun. I guess you could say the high has gone and inevitably I have hit a rough patch. The binges have returned and my eating is pretty horrendous in general, skipping meals, over eating and then the out of control shoveling food.

Shit At The End Of The Tunnel

We all aim for a particular with our mental health, the light at the end of the tunnel, if you like. Only sometimes when we get there it isn’t all its cracked up to be!

I Made It Out!

Over my 19 months of tackling this demon of BED I have either been in a state of anxiety or depression. Occasionally they decide the tag team system isn’t enough and make a simultaneous assault. It is what it is and we keep going, until one day you realise something else entirely is going on!

Venturing Out Alone, It’s Been A While

I struggle to remember, was I always confident in my younger years or had I simply perfected the art of running away?

BED Is Calling

My name Fighting BED seems quite apt today.

Expectations v Reality

For the last few weeks I have been feeling the pressure of summer arriving. Sure it’s warmer and we can get out more, if we want to but what about those of us who don’t want to?!

Carry Something Long Enough, You Forget It’s There

Over the last couple of months I have confronted my biggest trigger. It has sent me backwards to a darker place and given me days where the simplest of tasks has been too much. This confrontation process came to a head recently.

I made a decision to go ahead and say all that I had held in over the years, not just some but absolutely everything, all that I had wanted to have aknowledged and the crushing pain it had caused me. Whether or not I received any validation for my emotions was irrelevant and I said it all to the person involved. Of course my emotions were met with the anticipated brick wall (almost comical in it’s absolute denial) and life carried on…only with a difference I hadn’t anticipated.