We live in a society that argues that a persons weight doesn't matter at the same time where anyone who is every size under the sun gets mocked for either being too fat, too skinny or not being "perfect."
It's sad really.
It's sad how one minute you see photos and tweets about how every size is perfect then the next minute the person who commented about the fact that "weight doesn't matter" is now mocking you because you're a size 16 and proud of your body.
Society says to be proud of yourself but then mocks you for your so called imperfections.
The funny thing is society's construction of "perfection" quite literally doesn't exist, because you could be everything that people regard to be "perfect" but someone would still mock you because their standards seem to grow with every perfection you seem to have.
For me personally, I've always had an issue with my size.
My slow metabolism and love of food has meant that I'm a solid size 16 and am highly struggling now as an 18 year old to lose a few dress sizes. But even as a kid, I had the wonderful experiences of bullying because my stomach wasn't flat.
At 10 and 11 I was picked on at school because I wasn't thin.
Aged 10.
Any alarm bells ringing here?
You get laughed at and ridiculed for being a few sizes bigger than average but you get eyes rolled at and days of non top comments stating you for being a few sizes smaller than the average.
It's not even an issue you can avoid.
I login to twitter and see tweets like "If you're over 200lbs you shouldn't wear shorts or leggings" and "Size 8 is too skinny why don't you eat more?"
I walk into lessons where people talk about the person someone hates because they are "really skinny and just need to eat a pizza for a change."
I play sports and have to hear the endless comments about "fat people shouldn't play sport they're too unfit for that."
But people don't consider for one second the lasting impact these comments have on people.
They don't consider their comments about someone being "too fat" can lead to people stop eating all together to try and become "perfect."
They don't consider the harm that comments directed towards a person suffering with eating disorders can bring up in people who are battling with their minds and the food they put in their mouth.
The Costs of Eating Disorders - Social, Health and Economic Impacts report publisized that in the UK alone, 725,000 people suffer with eating disorders (most common in young women.) Eating disorders have the highest rates of death than any other mental illness, with 1 in 5 losing their lives due to the illness itself or the psychological impact (eventually leading to suicide).
And the comments about weight that society throws on people are a very real and very common trigger to not eating or purging everything you eat.
On the other side of the coin, 85% of people who suffer with Emotional Overeating said that they have a negative body image, with 79% of these saying it is also the impact of society's pressure to lose weight that led to their eating disorder.
One comment can have a long lasting impact on someones confidence and life..
Weight for many people, including myself, is a main factor in low levels of confidence. Looking in the mirror and hating what you see because your mind tells you that you're too fat or you aren't fat enough.
You see it all the time. Constantly reassuring your friends that they aren't fat and that they don't need to stop eating all together to lose weight. But they don't listen to you just as you don't listen to yourself as you try and stop the voice in your head from persuading you that you are everything you don't want to be.
It's funny how we use fat as an insult now though. Fat it just an adjective, a descriptive word but now society has twisted its meaning so much that being fat is instantly a bad thing and something that you don't want to be, instead of the simple descriptive word that the creators of the english language intended it to be.
So yeah, Hi, I'm fat.
And I find that it's so much easier to have confidence in the way you look when you take away all the negativity attatched to the simple fucking adjectives that people use to try and insult you when really they're just the same as saying that you have brown hair or you're tall or short.
And people in this world like Nicole fucking Arbour who thinks its bloody fantastic to make videos insulting people over their weight saying ridiculous things about the fact that all overweight people are just lazy (i'm 99% sure I do more exercise than her btw and I'm probably twice her size) oh and just denying fat shaming is even a thing (which is all she does in the insulting, crude and disgusting video btw.) Not fogetting my personal favourite comment that people that are obese deserve to be shamed until they stop 'bad habits.'
People like her need to stop being complete and utter twats who don't understand anything about a persons struggles with their weight and their ability to lose it (if they even want to.)
People make insulting comments without a second thought about the fact that people in this world wake up every day hating the way they look, shaming themselves for not having a flat stomach, refuse to eat in public because they believe that people judge them for eating. They don't have a second thought for the people who starve themselves to feel perfect, for the people who can't go a day without someone telling them to 'not eat that piece of cake you need to eat healthy to lose weight.' For the people who eat so much but can't put on any weight no matter how hard they try and all they hear is stick from their family and friends for being 'too thin.'
And when it comes to my weight it feels like a constant battle between society, what I see in the mirror and what my mind says to me.
I look at myself in an outfit and will change at least 10 times because I feel too fat in something and I get myself so worked up that people will laugh at me because of the way I look in a dress or in a top that isn't loose and long. I used to put on my football kit and then have to pick up the courage to actually put on my shorts and go out with my legs showing because I hate my thighs that much that it took me ages to put on a pair of shorts that I wore the week before.
That's not the way it should be, no one should have peoples words etched into their mind about how they "aren't skinny enough yet" because society tells us we can't be perfect until we have a "perfect" body.
But that's just it isn't it.
You don't need a "perfect" body to be "perfect"
You don't need a "perfect" flat stomach and thigh gap to be "perfect"
You don't need any specific thing to be "perfect" because there is no such thing as the "perfect" figure, the "perfect" size, the "perfect" weight.
You are perfect whether you're a size 2 or a size 22.
You are perfect whether you love your body or hate your body.
You are perfect whether you have a thigh gap or not.
And one day you're going to meet someone who will make you feel so beautiful no matter how much you weigh and a person who won't care that you have a little stomach and a person who won't care if you can eat 3 whole large pizzas and end up losing 4lbs.
You are perfect no matter your body shape.
Society doesn't emphasise it enough.
And it's so easy to forget that.
More Informtion and Support:
http://www.healthyweightnetwork.com/size1.htm
https://www.b-eat.co.uk
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/eating-disorders/pages/introduction.aspx
http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/eating-problems/#.Vz9eljZlnVo
http://eating-disorders.org.uk
Friday 20 May 2016
Thursday 12 May 2016
Life's Little Ways to Cope
Hello!!
Today I would like to talk about a broader part of mental health, that slightly follows from my post about depression.
With all mental health and any battle life throws at you, everyone will have a way of dealing with the emotions that are thrown on them.
Coping Mechanisms are defined as ways to deal with stress either internally or externally which can be done consciously or unconsciously. There are so many different ways people use to cope with unwanted feelings, ranging from listening to music, playing sports, screaming the house down. You name it and someone probably uses it.
The work of the psychologist Freud in the late 1800's partly looked at the use of a variety of defense mechanisms to protect our ego (our reality principle in making choices) from harm. Yeah okay, Freud was on drugs when he was doing his work, and there is sooo much wrong with him and his theory into behaviour, but so many people look straight over the many aspects of his work that you actually see in real life. Defense Mechanisms are one of them.
When you feel stressed do you do some exercise? Play your favourite video game?
When you go through something traumatise it, do you try pretend it never happened?
When you do something stupid, do you try to pretend it never happened?
All of these are forms of defense mechanism we use to try keep us from harm. We as humans try to make us feel better by letting out our anger, our stress, our frustration and our sadness onto something else or by trying to pretend that whatever event that triggered these feelings never happened. But as well as this, coping mechanisms can link to the fact that these feelings for a prolonged amount of time aren't normal. For example, stress is a feeling that if there to create the flight/fight response in our body to prepare us for action, so our body physically has to rid these symptoms after a certain amount of time for it to function. Once again, a coping mechanism is often used to reduce this.
But away from the psychology aspect, coping mechanisms in my opinion need to be made more known.
Because if we can understand why a person uses a coping mechanism, it'll be so much easier for people to talk about ways of dealing with problems that could be harmful to themselves or others.
There are many safe ways to deal with overwhelming emotions. As I stated earlier, many people sublimate their feelings through sports, drawing, painting, dancing, writing etc. Many people act like an event never even happened.
But there are so many dangerous and potentially lethal coping mechanisms that no one will ever want to talk about because they find it embarrassing.
For example, someone with depression may use drugs to relieve any ill feelings and make them feel happy through a high or drunked state. A person with depression or anxiety may smoke cigerettes due to the calming and relieving feeling you get from the cigerette. A person with any mental illness may abuse any substance to try and feel normal, relieved or be able to cope with their symptoms.
Did you know that 50% of people diagnosed with mental health disorders are affected by some form of substance abuse?
Did you know that 37% of alcohol abusers and 53% of drug users have at least one mental health illness?
Did you know that people with severe mental illnesses are 4.6 times more likely to abuse drugs at least 10 times in their lives?
Doesn't that scare you?
Doesn't it scare you how closely mental health and substance abuse are linked? You often hear people say that they need a drink to forget everything, especially in a hard or stressful point at their life.
But isn't that it? Don't we all at points just need something to relieve the pain?
The concept of the use of drugs as a coping mechanisms is the exact same principle of self harm to cope.
Because it doesn't matter what we do to cope, as long as we are getting some relief. The relief acts as a positive reinforcer, which then strengthens this behaviour and makes us more likely to carry out the action again. Whether that be drinking until we can't remember the night, hurting yourself intentionally or simply playing a video game involving violence. Does it not give the same effect?
It gives the same effect, but it doesn't make it okay.
Because alcohol abuse can lead to bigger consequences than simply kicking a football around.
Self harm can lead to more lethal consequences than simply drawing some pictures.
If the statistics related to substance abuse weren't scary enough, you are 20 times more likely to revert to any form of self harm if you have a mental illness. In recent years there has been a 70% increase in A&E visits in self harm related issues (and this is just in young people.) Every 1/12 children have deliberatly self harmed in their lifetime.
Doesn't it scare you?
We revert to extremes to cope with life but we are so afraid to talk about it because of the stigma related to mental health and the ways of coping with tough situations.
How do you admit to yourself that you have a problem, let alone to someone else?
And you wonder why people get pissed off at your ""jokes"" about these kinda things. How issues that are effecting their everyday lives and cannot tell anyone about in fear they'll be ridiculed and judged or treated differently by everyone they love, you make fun of like its nothing.
People just have different ways to cope thats all.
It's not a laughing matter.
But it doesn't matter how you cope, as long as you try and refrain from resorting to things that can end up really hurting you.
Because once you start something you can't stop.
Trust me.
Even so, it will get better.
Soon you'll get to a point where you don't need to use anything but deep breathing to be able to cope with problems in life.
You can do it.
It'll all be okay.
More Information // Support:
https://www.childline.org.uk/Explore/Self-harm/Pages/Self-harm.aspx
http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/coping.htm
https://explorable.com/stress-and-coping-mechanisms
https://www.promises.com/articles/addiction-recovery/coping-mechanisms-to-aid-your-recovery/
Today I would like to talk about a broader part of mental health, that slightly follows from my post about depression.
With all mental health and any battle life throws at you, everyone will have a way of dealing with the emotions that are thrown on them.
Coping Mechanisms are defined as ways to deal with stress either internally or externally which can be done consciously or unconsciously. There are so many different ways people use to cope with unwanted feelings, ranging from listening to music, playing sports, screaming the house down. You name it and someone probably uses it.
The work of the psychologist Freud in the late 1800's partly looked at the use of a variety of defense mechanisms to protect our ego (our reality principle in making choices) from harm. Yeah okay, Freud was on drugs when he was doing his work, and there is sooo much wrong with him and his theory into behaviour, but so many people look straight over the many aspects of his work that you actually see in real life. Defense Mechanisms are one of them.
When you feel stressed do you do some exercise? Play your favourite video game?
When you go through something traumatise it, do you try pretend it never happened?
When you do something stupid, do you try to pretend it never happened?
All of these are forms of defense mechanism we use to try keep us from harm. We as humans try to make us feel better by letting out our anger, our stress, our frustration and our sadness onto something else or by trying to pretend that whatever event that triggered these feelings never happened. But as well as this, coping mechanisms can link to the fact that these feelings for a prolonged amount of time aren't normal. For example, stress is a feeling that if there to create the flight/fight response in our body to prepare us for action, so our body physically has to rid these symptoms after a certain amount of time for it to function. Once again, a coping mechanism is often used to reduce this.
But away from the psychology aspect, coping mechanisms in my opinion need to be made more known.
Because if we can understand why a person uses a coping mechanism, it'll be so much easier for people to talk about ways of dealing with problems that could be harmful to themselves or others.
There are many safe ways to deal with overwhelming emotions. As I stated earlier, many people sublimate their feelings through sports, drawing, painting, dancing, writing etc. Many people act like an event never even happened.
But there are so many dangerous and potentially lethal coping mechanisms that no one will ever want to talk about because they find it embarrassing.
For example, someone with depression may use drugs to relieve any ill feelings and make them feel happy through a high or drunked state. A person with depression or anxiety may smoke cigerettes due to the calming and relieving feeling you get from the cigerette. A person with any mental illness may abuse any substance to try and feel normal, relieved or be able to cope with their symptoms.
Did you know that 50% of people diagnosed with mental health disorders are affected by some form of substance abuse?
Did you know that 37% of alcohol abusers and 53% of drug users have at least one mental health illness?
Did you know that people with severe mental illnesses are 4.6 times more likely to abuse drugs at least 10 times in their lives?
Doesn't that scare you?
Doesn't it scare you how closely mental health and substance abuse are linked? You often hear people say that they need a drink to forget everything, especially in a hard or stressful point at their life.
But isn't that it? Don't we all at points just need something to relieve the pain?
The concept of the use of drugs as a coping mechanisms is the exact same principle of self harm to cope.
Because it doesn't matter what we do to cope, as long as we are getting some relief. The relief acts as a positive reinforcer, which then strengthens this behaviour and makes us more likely to carry out the action again. Whether that be drinking until we can't remember the night, hurting yourself intentionally or simply playing a video game involving violence. Does it not give the same effect?
It gives the same effect, but it doesn't make it okay.
Because alcohol abuse can lead to bigger consequences than simply kicking a football around.
Self harm can lead to more lethal consequences than simply drawing some pictures.
If the statistics related to substance abuse weren't scary enough, you are 20 times more likely to revert to any form of self harm if you have a mental illness. In recent years there has been a 70% increase in A&E visits in self harm related issues (and this is just in young people.) Every 1/12 children have deliberatly self harmed in their lifetime.
Doesn't it scare you?
We revert to extremes to cope with life but we are so afraid to talk about it because of the stigma related to mental health and the ways of coping with tough situations.
How do you admit to yourself that you have a problem, let alone to someone else?
And you wonder why people get pissed off at your ""jokes"" about these kinda things. How issues that are effecting their everyday lives and cannot tell anyone about in fear they'll be ridiculed and judged or treated differently by everyone they love, you make fun of like its nothing.
People just have different ways to cope thats all.
It's not a laughing matter.
But it doesn't matter how you cope, as long as you try and refrain from resorting to things that can end up really hurting you.
Because once you start something you can't stop.
Trust me.
Even so, it will get better.
Soon you'll get to a point where you don't need to use anything but deep breathing to be able to cope with problems in life.
You can do it.
It'll all be okay.
More Information // Support:
https://www.childline.org.uk/Explore/Self-harm/Pages/Self-harm.aspx
http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/coping.htm
https://explorable.com/stress-and-coping-mechanisms
https://www.promises.com/articles/addiction-recovery/coping-mechanisms-to-aid-your-recovery/
Monday 2 May 2016
Realities of Living With Mental Health
Hello!!
Today I'm going to do a more generic post, maybe something a little bit different from my published posts and the many many drafts sat waiting for completion.
But, this is something that I strongly feel and want to say more than anything I will write, because its one thing understanding all about these parts of life, but its a different thing understanding the impact on what you say and what its like to live with it.
I get it, occasionally a "hilarious" comment just happens to 'slip out' about issues that people face everyday.
Like when I hear family say things like "Thats such a gay thing to do why would you want to do that"
Or my personal favourite, hearing the classic "oh i should just go kill myself" from friends in a jokey and apparently harmless way.
But you dont get it do you??
Because people, including myself, have to live with homophobia, suicidal thoughts etc every day of our lives and you think its oKAY to make jokes??
News flash, it wasn't okay the first time, it wasn't okay the 30th time and it won't be okay on the 100th time.
But you got a few laughs out of it, so its alright isn't it? You got some laughs from more inconsiderate air heads that don't seem to realise that the things you're crapping out of your mouth may actually feel like stabs in the heart to a few people you're sat with.
The stabs in the heart that continue to bleed and bleed and make you feel like your lungs want to collapse and when you sit in bed overthinking and persuading yourself to stay strong and stay clean whilst battling in your mind between them not meaning a word of what they said and them wanting you to do something stupid. Whilst they still think it's alright.
But isn't that what mental health is about? Battling between yourself and your demons?
The battle that becoming a war you possibly cannot win with all the jokes and the comments making you think that happiness and recovery and normality it something that you don't deserve and will never have.
I wish people understood it more, what it's like.
What it's like to have to have mulitple days off college or work because you're so sad or anxious or drained at the moment that you physically can't move and you've made yourself so ill stressing about everything.
What it's like to be constantly battling in your mind that the people you don't know on a table near you aren't laughing at you (just to conclude that they are even though theres no chance in hell they are)
What it's like to have to talk yourself out of doing stupid things and hoping you collapse from tiredness any minute because you know you don't have the will to stop yourself.
What it's like to hear your closest friends and family members joke about mental health like its nothing.
But you don't really understand these kinda things unless you've gone through it.
My issue is that it's more than just jokes like these in conversation. It's peoples moaning at you directly or indirectly to be happier, to be more optimistic about life, to stop being so negative.
Don't you see?
I can't.
I can't be happier, I can't be more positive and optimistic. I try. Trust me theres nothing i want more in my life to be happy!! But my brain is sick, I've almost been socialised or conditioned into being sad no matter the happiness that life throws at me. I find the sadness in all happiness, the bad in all the good. I moan alot and rant alot because I'm so unhappy and think that everythings shitty in this godforsaken world. I don't try to make you sad by telling you sad things but I have no one else to turn to to try and help me feel better about myself. I want to be happy.
I can't.
I'm sorry if the mental illness i've had to live with for 8 years is making you upset, it's not like I mean to cause any problems. But I'll try and tell my brain to stop being sad to make you happy, is that what you want?
I can't.
Living with mental health problems is something awful. It's something that completely changes you and ruins the person you've always wanted to be and turns you into a shell of yourself who you absolutely dispise every living day.
And you're jokes and comments just make everything feel just that bit more painful. That bit harder to cope with.
Are they still funny now?
Today I'm going to do a more generic post, maybe something a little bit different from my published posts and the many many drafts sat waiting for completion.
But, this is something that I strongly feel and want to say more than anything I will write, because its one thing understanding all about these parts of life, but its a different thing understanding the impact on what you say and what its like to live with it.
I get it, occasionally a "hilarious" comment just happens to 'slip out' about issues that people face everyday.
Like when I hear family say things like "Thats such a gay thing to do why would you want to do that"
Or my personal favourite, hearing the classic "oh i should just go kill myself" from friends in a jokey and apparently harmless way.
But you dont get it do you??
Because people, including myself, have to live with homophobia, suicidal thoughts etc every day of our lives and you think its oKAY to make jokes??
News flash, it wasn't okay the first time, it wasn't okay the 30th time and it won't be okay on the 100th time.
But you got a few laughs out of it, so its alright isn't it? You got some laughs from more inconsiderate air heads that don't seem to realise that the things you're crapping out of your mouth may actually feel like stabs in the heart to a few people you're sat with.
The stabs in the heart that continue to bleed and bleed and make you feel like your lungs want to collapse and when you sit in bed overthinking and persuading yourself to stay strong and stay clean whilst battling in your mind between them not meaning a word of what they said and them wanting you to do something stupid. Whilst they still think it's alright.
But isn't that what mental health is about? Battling between yourself and your demons?
The battle that becoming a war you possibly cannot win with all the jokes and the comments making you think that happiness and recovery and normality it something that you don't deserve and will never have.
I wish people understood it more, what it's like.
What it's like to have to have mulitple days off college or work because you're so sad or anxious or drained at the moment that you physically can't move and you've made yourself so ill stressing about everything.
What it's like to be constantly battling in your mind that the people you don't know on a table near you aren't laughing at you (just to conclude that they are even though theres no chance in hell they are)
What it's like to have to talk yourself out of doing stupid things and hoping you collapse from tiredness any minute because you know you don't have the will to stop yourself.
What it's like to hear your closest friends and family members joke about mental health like its nothing.
But you don't really understand these kinda things unless you've gone through it.
My issue is that it's more than just jokes like these in conversation. It's peoples moaning at you directly or indirectly to be happier, to be more optimistic about life, to stop being so negative.
Don't you see?
I can't.
I can't be happier, I can't be more positive and optimistic. I try. Trust me theres nothing i want more in my life to be happy!! But my brain is sick, I've almost been socialised or conditioned into being sad no matter the happiness that life throws at me. I find the sadness in all happiness, the bad in all the good. I moan alot and rant alot because I'm so unhappy and think that everythings shitty in this godforsaken world. I don't try to make you sad by telling you sad things but I have no one else to turn to to try and help me feel better about myself. I want to be happy.
I can't.
I'm sorry if the mental illness i've had to live with for 8 years is making you upset, it's not like I mean to cause any problems. But I'll try and tell my brain to stop being sad to make you happy, is that what you want?
I can't.
Living with mental health problems is something awful. It's something that completely changes you and ruins the person you've always wanted to be and turns you into a shell of yourself who you absolutely dispise every living day.
And you're jokes and comments just make everything feel just that bit more painful. That bit harder to cope with.
Are they still funny now?
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