In Control for a Day

As I’ve written about in previous posts, I’ve been working through a difficult bout of emotional/stress binge eating.

For the first time in weeks, today I felt in control. It was odd but also great! My mind partially wanted to dive into my bingey habits but I was able to resist them and focus on other tasks at work.

I ate a large soft pretzel as a mid-morning snack which held me over for hours. It seems that if I have something hearty and sustaining the urge to binge isn’t nearly as strong.My body and mind recognize that I’m full and I don’t need anything more.

I feel proud of myself for being in control today! I got a little snackish (a term meaning you want to eat a lot of snacks) once I got home from work. I had some control over myself so I didn’t go crazy.

Keeping up the control is going to be challenging but I hope that I can do it!

Leave me a comment about the best part of your week! I would love to hear how you all are doing 🙂

P.S. — The photo is Animal in “The Muppets Movie” from a few years ago when he’s in anger management and says, “In control.”  Here’s a video clip for reference.

Turning to Food for Comfort

For most of my life I’ve struggled with my weight. For years I took comfort in food which naturally resulted in weight gain.

I’ve hit this point in my life again.

For years if I was struggling with depression or anxiety I couldn’t eat. My stomach would be in knots or I wouldn’t be hungry. Now it’s the total opposite, like I’ve gone back to old habits.

I’m trying to lose weight for my brother’s wedding but my issue with food is very much getting in the way of that. I also am still recovering from a lower back issue so I can only exercise at a very low intensity with breaks between workouts.

Imagine if your 90 year-old grammy was exercising. It’s like that. (I love my 90 year-old grammy just for the record!)

I’m going through a period of depression and anxiety so I know why I’m comfort eating, but I don’t know why my body has switched from under eating to overeating.

What about you? Do you have a challenging relationship with food?

 

 

Feeling Insecure

Maybe it’s just me but seeing perfect celebrities makes me feel like shit. I look at these women who are totally perfect (whether they are naturally that way, have a whole team putting them together or they had surgery to get there) I feel so much less than.

If somebody talks about how attractive and sexy a superstar like Beyonce or Nicki Minaj are I think to myself, “I’ll never look like that. What can I offer the world if I don’t look like her?”

I shouldn’t compare myself to these superstars but sometimes I do.

For most of my life I have compared myself to my peers in school and university. I would usually envy how thin they were compared to me, how they dress better than me or how naturally beautiful they were without the need for makeup. It was pretty difficult because I didn’t feel beautiful until my early 20s.

It also goes beyond just celebrities. Instagram can be a positive place but also one where perfect people go to show the world how perfect they are. I scroll through on the discover page and see women that I will never ever look like.

It makes me jealous, insecure and feel like a frumpy slug.

I asked myself, “Why can’t I look like that?” too often. It’s really not great for my mental health.

I sometimes think that if I looked more like some of the girls on Instagram that people would like me more. That my boyfriend would love me more if I looked that way. That he is settling for a frumpy slug when out there I’m sure is an Instagram model looking woman that he could be with.

I even consider deleting my makeup Instagram that I have put so much time and money into because I don’t think I’m pretty or talented enough compared to the others out there.

How does the Internet and social media apps like Insta effect your mental health? Does it ever make you feel insecure about yourself?

Next post is going to be more positive! I’ll write a positive rebuttal to this post so keep your eyes peeled for that soon!

A Burden

I don’t know if I will ever feel like an important person. Not important as in somebody with influence or fame. I mean someone whose purpose is a meaningful one, someone who matters.

I have felt this way for most of my life so it’s ingrained in my mind.

Other people I can see are important. Others do good in the world and make things better whether for people, animals or the environment. I see people make an impact that I don’t think I ever will be able to do.

I bring down the mood. I make those closest to me sad. I only add problems and hurdles into the lives of those around me.

I feel like a prickly sea urchin that nobody wants to touch. That my mental illness makes me undesirable. That it creates more issues than anything else. That it has made me rotten from the inside out.

I am a burden.

I take up space.

I don’t think anybody likes me.

The only person who actually loves me is my mom. Which of course she does, she’s my mom! She has to love me.

I think about myself in all aspects of life and how if I wasn’t there, there would be room for somebody better.

Like at work, if I quit that would make room for somebody with much more talent than me. In my relationship, he could find somebody 100 times better than me in an instant. It wouldn’t take much looking to do either of those tasks.

Same goes for being a daughter, friend and sister too.

I’m not perfect at all but I wish that I was. I wish I could write beautiful words and create stunning graphics at work. I wish I had no issues, triggers or problems to put on the shoulders of my boyfriend and family.

I’m not considering ending my life so don’t worry about that. I have that sorted out for the most part (thank you therapy and medicine!).

Is this a big shit session directed at myself? Absolutely.

Sorry this was so long and incredibly negative. I really needed to get this off my chest. I don’t have therapy until Thursday so I decided to toss my thoughts up on here.

Self-Harm by Restricting Food

Self-harm is not limited to cutting, burning, biting, scratching, etc. your skin. In a recent post I saw on The Mighty (a great community for people with mental illness, disabilities and chronic health issues) about how self-harm goes beyond those things.

After reading that (which now I can’t find it anywhere so I can’t even link it for you guys), I realized how many of the things I was doing the author classified as self-harm. Two that I think off the top of my head were restricting food and not acclimating to temperature changes.

Food Restriction

This has been a struggle for me for a few years now. Especially when I’m anxious my stomach gets so tense that I feel like I can’t eat. When I’m like that I can only eat a very small amount of food or I will feel sick.

And even if my anxiety isn’t making my stomach tense but I’m still anxious, sometimes I just don’t want to eat despite my stomach growling. This is happening today. I am feeling anxious and depressed today so I don’t want to have anything to eat. I’m quite hungry but I don’t want to take a single bite.

Am I punishing myself? Sort of.

Is this a healthy thing? Not really.

Being Too Cold

I really didn’t realize that this was a form of self-harm. So what I mean is that if I’m cold, I won’t do anything about it as a sort of punishment to myself. I don’t usually do this as often with being hot because I hate being too hot.

In the winter my office is usually quite cold (the building was built in 1929 what can you do?) and I have a space heater to help but I don’t often use it. Instead I’ll just be cold. I’ll suffer through it just because I can.

This is a strange one to explain because I don’t entirely understand my reasoning for it.

Do you have any trouble with restricting food or letting yourself suffer by being too cold/hot?

I am experiencing PMDD right now which makes me feel every emotion all at the same time. So there’s a lot going on in my head right now so it’s very hard to get through this time of the month. Right now it feels like my swimming upstream in a river of peanut butter.

Telling Depression to Piss Off

This morning I was almost out the door for work when I got the empty pain of depression. It sits in my chest making me feel hollow inside.

As I got in my car and began to drive to the office the feeling was still very present. Nothing had happened this morning or last night to make me depressed but sometimes we don’t get to choose when we are depressed. Depression can engulf me anytime it feels like it.

Nagging thoughts kept pushing on my mind about how my boyfriend doesn’t love me and that I’m a worthless human. These thoughts were quiet but I wanted to confront them before they got louder.

I said aloud, “Hey depression, piss off!”

I rarely verbally confront my mental illness like this but I had been feeling good for the past 12 hours and I want to keep it going for longer.

I continued to tell my depression that what it was telling me isn’t true. I know that my boyfriend loves me even when my brain tells me it’s not true. I see his actions and I hear his words that contradict my depression and anxiety.

Instead of letting my depression kick me down to the ground, I am fighting back today.

So to help me keep fighting today, I’m going to do a little list of things that are going well and what I’m looking forward to.

Things going well:

1. My boyfriend and I are doing very well
2. I’ve been keeping up with doing my nails (having my nails painted makes me feel better about myself)
3. I’ve been feeling close with my mom lately

Looking forward to:

1. Therapy on Thursday
2. Getting my windshield replaced today (it has like a foot long crack in it for some reason)
3. Doing yoga after work

I hope that this inspired somebody on this Earth to stand up to their mental illness!

Perfection

Something I’ve struggled with for a long time is wanting to be perfect.

I think a lot of us think that wanting to be perfect is the same as a perfectionist but it’s not in my case. I’m definitely not a perfectionist in most aspects of my life.

In school I never tried to be the best at everything or even to get straight As. It goes the same for any activity I’ve ever done, like music or sports, I knew being perfect in those areas wasn’t attainable and I was fine with it.

In every day life is where I struggle with the fact that I am not perfect.

When I make a mistake or say the wrong thing, I beat the shit out of myself for it. I ruminate on whatever error I made, replaying it over until it makes me sick. I ask myself why I did whatever I did and why I wasn’t smart/good enough to evade this error in the first place. It makes me ask myself why I was even put on this planet if I’m going to be such a failure.

Today I’m struggling because I’m not perfect. So often I wish that I was so I wouldn’t go through this process of being sad and mad at myself.

Failure makes me want to hide from the world and from myself. Sadly, it’s really hard to escape yourself. I can’t leave my body or my brain!

Do you ever struggle with the fact that nobody is perfect?

A Lull of Positivity

As I’ve written about in my last post, I have been nervous about falling into a deep depression because of severe PMS.

So far I’m doing really well! I have been really careful will myself, like I’m cradling a porcelain doll. I am having a 3-day work week because I took off Friday and yesterday it was snowing and freezing rain all day.

Having a day off yesterday seriously reset me. I had a great balance of self care and getting shit done that I had been putting off for ages. I cleaned out my clothing, cleaned my shower and cleaned up under my bed which I hadn’t done in a very long time.

I am feeling like myself unlike how I was around this time last month. I’m really going to keep trying to enjoy this lull of positivity. To soak up as much of it as I can!

I wanted to give you guys an update in case you are struggling yourself right now.

Sometimes are worries never come to fruition, sometimes they never materialize into reality. Not every thought we have is true, they are not all accurate predictions because we with anxiety are clairvoyant.  I would say a good bit of us are not psychic even though we think we are.

If you’re having a difficult time, I really hope that this passes for you soon. You are strong, you are worthy, you are valued and you matter. You are alive for a reason, we are all glad that you exist.

Stay strong everyone!!

Worries Ahead

This is another post about PMDD and periods so if that doesn’t interest you, check out a different post of mine! There are some other good ones 🙂

Today begins the week before my period which can be just as miserable as actually having my period. Last month, I was living a nightmare with how bad my mental health was.

Last month I was constantly on the verge of tears, I couldn’t shower or get out of bed and I honestly felt that I was not worthy to be on this planet. It was such a difficult time that I am afraid of it happening again this week or next week.

Somebody left me a comment last month about how I should prepare for this time of the month. That I should create a plan to catch myself before I fall too deep into my own darkness. And if I collapse and hit the bottom, I can have soft pillows there to cushion my fall.

I’m already a highly sensitive person so I feel that I have to tread even lighter than normal when I’m PMSing or on my period. I’m going to care for myself as if I am a fragile butterfly.

So here’s my plan:

1. Do not push myself beyond my limits: I have a fine line to walk when it comes to pushing myself beyond my limits. Sometimes I can handle taking on more while other times I crumble inside. My mental wellbeing needs to be a priority so I plan to gauge what I am up to from situation to situation.
2. Exercise: Sometimes it takes a lot of energy to get me to exercise even though I actually enjoy exercising. I think I categorize it in my mind as a task and not as something fun. I almost always feel better afterwards so it’s worth doing!
3. Eating actual food: Getting nutrients in my body instead of solely eating garbage is always a good idea.
4. Take time to find reality: I will go into my head and got lost in there. I totally lose all sense of reality. Using a stress ball, smelling essential oils or taking a moment to breathe can sometimes bring me back to Earth.

Guys, let’s cross our fingers that I can survive this week and next week!

I’m Back

Guys, I am terribly sorry that I haven’t been keeping up with my posts! I have been going through a rocky spot in my relationship which affected my mental health. But I think things are going to smooth out so I am starting to feel a lot better.

Whenever there is turmoil in my relationship I take it all very personally and seriously. I am a highly sensitive person so once one thing upsets me, everything that follows makes it all worse.

In this mental state I worry about everything and ruminate on the same thoughts over and over again. It is exhausting. I have been having low quality sleep, little interest in anything and had trouble eating. When I was eating, it was total garbage.

Luckily we saw each other last night, he took me out to dinner which was very nice. Then we relaxed and watched “Drake and Josh” on Hulu.

I brought up our drama as calmly as I could. He apologized for the way he acted! I was freaking shook and knew that he truly meant it.

During this difficult time I found some solace in the music of Queen and watched My Roommate is a Cat (which I love).

I hope things are better in your world! Stay strong, everyone!