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So it’s been 11 months and 9 days since I was first signed off sick from work. And what a roller coaster of (mainly negative) emotions it has been. I have never before realised the importance of my mental health, the lack of connection and awareness of my own body, and by being bed-ridden for most of 2021, I have had to face all of the demons that have been buried deep for 31 years.

This is not a ‘woe is me’ story, but rather, what I hope, to be a somewhat helpful story to someone out there, who may be struggling with the very things I have had to encounter this year.

To give you some context, I have always lived a fast-paced life, and am part of the generation that was constantly told to ‘power through’, combined with the ‘stiff upper lip’ mentality of us British, this meant throughout this non-stop life I was leading, not once did I stop to check in with myself. This inevitably led to the ultimate burn-out at the beginning of 2021, shortly followed by diagnosis after diagnosis of serious illnesses that will take months, if not years, to recover from. And I was advised that if I didn’t stop these toxic habits of constantly striving for more, I could end up with a life-long illness.

So I started seeing a therapist (in the UK this is seen as almost taboo, as we like to keep all things mental health hush-hush), I started writing in a journal, I began meditating, and all of those things you are supposed to do to improve your mental well-being.

Whilst all these things are now a staple part of my daily routine, this alone was not helping shake the demons from clawing back into my mind through the long isolated days. I discovered the only thing that (temporarily) helped me feel slightly normal again, was to drink. And the slightest hangover even seemed to mask the daily symptoms my illness has given me. Bonus, right?

Well, as you can imagine, it was a slippery slope. When there is nothing else to look forward to, and your days are drawn out with no purpose but to ‘get better’ and ‘rest’, what else is a girl to do? One glass could easily turn into a bottle, and one day a week easily multiplied into seven. But it was getting me through, and it was helping me survive the ultimately loneliest and toughest year of my life.

When the medication finally started to kick in, I was determined to get back to my ‘normal life’ as quickly as possible. For a couple of weeks, I was running every day again, forcing myself into work and dragging myself into the gym in the evenings. I was adamant not to go back to the long days of lying in a dark room wishing for a miracle. Whilst the endorphins were now the new mask where my symptoms could hide behind, it didn’t last long. As you can imagine, my body pretty quickly just took one look at what I was trying to do, and went ‘oh hell no!’ and there I was, no lessons learnt, back to being bed-ridden and cursing myself for pushing it all too quickly.

This has happened a couple more times since then — ‘why would you keep up this toxic pattern?’ I hear you cry. My answer is this: because I was just so desperate to get back to my ‘normal’ life, that at the first glimpse of normality I grabbed it with both hands, determined to ‘power through’ and to no longer be trapped in Groundhog Day.

I can’t tell you how many times it all felt hopeless, and more often than not, I didn’t think I’d ever feel like myself again. I was lost in a spiral of depression and anxiety, I became a recluse and shut myself away so I no longer had to be disappointed by the inadequate feelings my illness left me with.

This story isn’t over, in fact my recovery is only really just beginning. I am still on medication, I am still seeing specialists, and I am still working hard on my mental and physical health. I am nowhere near back to my ‘normal’ life, and instead I am realising what I want my ‘normal’ to look like. If anything, this horrendous experience has made me reassess my life and my priorities. I have had to truly look inside myself and ask myself ‘what do I want from this life?’.

Whilst I appreciate that everyone is different, I do find writing everything down really helps: how I’m feeling, all the good stuff, all the bad stuff, what I’m grateful for, what my goals are etc. And the one thing that managed to pull me out of the personal hell I was living in: what do I want my life to look like in 5 years — and from this, what can I do every day to make sure I am one step closer to this vision. This was a point where I was finally able to see the forest through the trees, I could see that there is life after this illness, and that there are things to look forward to.

I had disappeared into a shell of a person I didn’t recognise, but since then I have come to make friends with myself, to make peace with myself, to stare those terrifying demons in the face and say ‘No. You are not part of me anymore’.

A book I would highly recommend, is The Power of Now — Eckhart Tolle, digest it slowly and really give yourself space to commit to it and I promise you, it will change your life.

For those of you suffering with your mental health, and let’s be really honest, we all have at some point haven’t we? Let me tell you: hang the f*** in there, do whatever you need to do to survive, because you will survive. And you will be all the more stronger for it when you get to the other side.

Are you even fat, though? – Blog post

Last week

I had a conversation with one of my closest friends about looking back at ‘throwback’ photos of ourselves from years ago.

“I was so bloody skinny,” she said, “but all I remember thinking at that time in my life was how fat I was.”

We were both in shock as we looked at these photos we had posted from our early twenties, showing us with slim waists and big grins on our faces, when all we had thought at the time was how big our bellies/thighs/arms were.

“Would you actually want to look like that again though?” I asked her.

“Yeah of course, I look great!” she replied, an obvious no-brainer.

I paused for a minute and then asked, “but do you remember being happy?”

That evening,

I looked at photos of myself from only a couple of years ago. And at this time, I was in the best (physical) shape of my life. I was running half marathons every weekend (21km) in under two hours each time. I could rep 270kg on the leg press machine at the gym. My body fat percentage had never been lower.

And yet, I never once celebrated these amazing physical goals, as all I was focused on was my belly that wasn’t flat, or my squidgy back fat when I caught a glimpse of my reflection over my shoulder.

I looked back even further…

to photos of myself when I was in school. I hit puberty early, and was always referred to as the girl with the ‘womanly figure’. I remember always feeling embarrassed of my curves, as I looked so much older than all my 12-year-old friends. And I always remember thinking that I was fat.

And yet, when I look back on those photos now, all I see is an innocent child. A child who is going through puberty and had developed early, nonetheless, but still a child.

So I spoke to my same friend about this,

and we discussed why every time we looked back at old photos of ourselves, we always think how good we look, but at the time these photos are taken, we can only remember thinking of how much weight we had to lose, or how little we should be eating.

And I’m pretty sure we can’t be the only women going through this.

So what is it, that makes us now realise that we weren’t fat?!

Having the time and distance from the person we were at the time taken of that photo means that we are looking back at these photos as a still-image taken at face value. We are now looking at some version of ourselves a bit earlier in our lives, as an impartial.

And the person we are years later has had enough time and distance from those thoughts and feelings that were spinning through our heads when those photos were taken, to look at this version of ourselves logically, and see how great we actually looked.

So then, why the hell do we think we are fat when we are not?!

And this is the deeply saddening thing: it’s because of what people tell us.

It doesn’t matter what we see in the mirror; it could be the most beautiful, perfect image staring back at us. But, if we hear it enough times from partners, peers, adults, and of course society, then of course our vision will be tainted by the poison that others are feeding us.

When someone you know loses a bunch of weight, we always congratulate them — but actually what if they lost weight because of an eating disorder, or a drug addiction? We are then just reinforcing that no matter how you get there, thinness trumps health. Why not congratulate someone on how healthy they look, how radiant their skin looks, how happy they are?

Why, when someone orders a salad at a pizza restaurant, do we all say how ‘good’ they are? What, in this gesture, makes them a good person? Are they donating their salad to a homeless person later?

This then brings me to the question,

if we are fat — why the f**k does that even matter?!

Because society has taught us that thin equals reward. Thin equals beauty. Thin equals healthy. Thin equals motivated. Thin equals hardworking.

But thin is never quite thin enough.

And in the same breath, society has taught us that fat equals lazy. Fat equals lack of willpower. Fat equals unhealthy.

But really, what the hell does fat actually mean?

I have met plenty of beautiful people in my life. Some who would be described as thin and barely exercise, drink every day of the week and seem to be eating anything they like. Some who would be described as fat or overweight and eat their 5-a-day everyday, exercise regularly and live a very balanced and healthy lifestyle.

When I think back to that time a couple of years ago, I barely drank alcohol, burned up to 2,000 calories a day, was eating purely to fuel my body to reach my next fitness goal, and I was still a UK size 14.

My main take-away from this

(because you should always treat yourself to a take-away!):

1. To remind you that our society is completely warped with it’s attitude towards women’s size, where we reward female thinness over health, which only teaches bad habits and toxic attitudes.

2. That every time you think you look fat — ask yourself why you think that, where that thought came from, and what you would say to your beautiful self a few years ago who thought she, also, was too fat.

3. Whenever you find yourself judging someone else because of their size, just remember that you know absolutely f**k all about their life and how they live it.

4. Please remember the influence your words have on those around you. By succumbing to society’s ‘rules’ for what is thin/fat or good/bad, you are only playing a part in the toxic pattern of rewarding thinness over health.

What matters the most is that you are healthy and happy. Order the pizza, step off those scales, order your dress the next size up, be healthy and happy and don’t give a sh*t about what society says.