Failures and Finding The Positives

 I didn't intend on ever posting this photo as I look terrible, but it does clealy show just how unwell I have been of late.

Let me start by saying that I'm currently still processing the events I'm about to describe as for me they have just happened, although this post will probably go out a few weeks later. Way back in February this year I saw a post pop up on Instagram, it was of two lovely beaming ladies announcing their collaboration on their first ever fitness and yoga retreat. I've been a long time follower of the personal trainer, blogger and Youtuber Carly Rowena. I absolutely adore her approach of loving the body you have and learning to make it stronger, she also posts lots of content featuring her beautiful French Bulldog which helps too! I knew little about her friend Cat Meffan at the time but I now have much love and appreciation for her too.

I'd been considering signing up for some sort of a retreat for a while. Mostly because I've been more and more resentful of the body I have in recent years, I want to become physically fitter and stronger and of course lose a bit of weight in the process so I don't exude a sigh every time I catch a glimpse of my body in the mirror. Last year I resolved a major 'problem' with the relationship I had with my body. I had a breast reduction and finally felt some confidence in the way I looked. I felt feminine but not enormously busty and attracting unwanted attention. However, resolving one problem revealed another one, or at least allowed another one to resurface. Body dysmorphia. I've had it in varying degrees since I was a teenager. I used to be a whisp of a thing, although fairly well proportioned for my height and weight. Upon reflection I realised that I was dieting and exercising from a young age, I was obsessive with the amount I exercised at home. I was convinced I was fat, but looking back at those photos I can see how slim I really was, almost too slim. What I was really facing was puberty. We lack the proper information when it comes to learning about how our female forms change. Boobs, hips and bums pop out for most of us to accommodate for future child bearing. All I could see was what trash magazines had labelled as 'saddle bags' for thighs, 'love handles' for hips and a bum that didn't like to fit in the single figure size jeans that my friends claimed they slipped on.

Flash forward to today and I still experience body dysmorphia but in reverse. I look in the mirror and think OK, not great but not fat, right? Not overweight surely. The scales were telling me differently, clothes that fitted last summer were now not an option and I was having to buy size 14 jeans and shorts for the first time ever. Was I just not seeing things that everyone else could see? Were my hips really that wide? Possibly. I know that I need to face these issues in two ways. I need to address my mental and emotional feelings towards my looks and I also need to educate myself on what to eat, how much of it I should have and I need to find forms of exercise that I enjoy rather than dread.

So back in February when I saw that one of these lovely ladies I followed was heading up a fitness retreat, I was on board! I was also on a high dose of anti-depressants back then, feeling OK but still not quite right. In April Carly released her own fitness guide which was perfect! I started exercising three times a week and slowly started feeling the benefits, I felt firmer and had a satisfied albeit exhausted feeling after I exercised. After following the guide for 6 weeks I took my body measurements and weight again...nothing had changed. NOTHING! No inches lost, no pounds dropped and if anything my clothes were tighter than ever. I could have blamed it on the washing machine but I knew something wasn't right. That's when I realised my anti-depressants were causing weight gain.

As the date of the retreat approached (30th September) I was becoming increasingly anxious. I hadn't been exercising as my energy levels were depleted from battling with the withdrawal effects of coming off my anti-depressants slowly. I was still feeling incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin and I was shit scared of what was going to be my first ever solo trip on a plane and abroad. I was going to be surrounded by (hopefully) like-minded ladies that were either wanting to kick start their fitness journey or learn how to improve it, but I was still incredibly anxious about being abroad with a load of people I didn't know for a week. All of this anxiety combined with a terrible head cold left me in a fragile state as I set off.

Making my way through the airport alone wasn't too bad besides a steady trickle of sweat down my back and a fire alarm going off with a false alarm to evacuate right before my gate number was being announced. My anxiety was back in a BIG way. Every move I made, every word I spoke was analysed over and over again even long after they'd transpired. Fortunately I'd told those in charge of the retreat about my situation before I arrived. They were incredibly supportive and friendly towards me. We had a lovely welcome session and dinner but the idle time in between just felt wrong to me. I felt out of place and the whole thing had similarities to my first week of university. A timetable that I looked over and was thinking of ways to approach it or get out of, staying in the biggest room on my own out of the way whilst the other girls were sharing or in close proximity to each other and I was very unwell (just like I was during my freshers week) which isolated me further. I tried, I really tried. I engaged in conversations when I could but I always managed to be positioned in an awkward spot, slightly on the edge or blocked from view when groups spilt off into chatter.

After the first night there I woke up terrified. I'd been waking up in the night and having panic attacks and was due to go for our first workout session at 8:30 am. I struggle with sleeping and early starts as it is never mind getting up to do a HIIT workout that early! I went, I did my best but struggled at the back trying to do advanced moves, sweating bucket loads and feeling my body shaking violently the entire time. Once it was over I joined in the high fives over the first workout and left calmly but as I walked to my room, the closer I got the more I lost control over how I really felt. As soon as I closed my bedroom door behind me I was having a full blown panic attack, the biggest I've had since my first one ever. I felt sick, I was sick. My legs fell out from underneath me, I was sweating, hyperventilating, crying silently and felt my heart hammering against my chest as if it was about to burst out and land on the wooden floor in front of me. 'I shouldn't be here'. Is all I could think, 'I've made a HUGE mistake and I feel stuck'. It lasted half an hour and I then started packing my bags, texting my family and the owner of the place we were staying in, I booked onto a flight back to London for 4pm that afternoon.

I did everything I could, I'd just reached my limit. Before the trip I had managed to supress a certain amount of anxiety but as every unravelled I was shaken up like a Coke bottle and my top had come bursting off as it all bubbled out of me. It was a risk to book onto something like this in the first place and an even bigger one to go ahead as planned despite being in withdrawl from anti-depressants. I am disppointed that I didn't manage to stay but leaving was absolutely the right thing for me. I felt like I couldn't be myself, all the anxiety I felt back in my school days had returned, I could feel my voice being supressed back down into my voice box and my body shrinked a little as my confidence disappeared.

It would be easy to only see the negatives in what happened, but I can see what I did achieve.

The positives:

• getting through airport security alone, something which fills me with dread even when we go on a family holiday
• finding somewhere to sit amongst the huge crowds of people waiting for our gate numbers
• boarding the plane alone, lifting my suitcase up to stow away and flying along...all of which usually fills me with paralysing anxiety when I'm with someone never mind doing it on my own!
• introducing myself to strangers
• joining in the welcome games 
• talking to strangers about what I do, what I'm trying to accomplish (writing a book) and telling them about my anxiety and depression
• eating in front of others, I've had problems with this for years and struggled to do so in front of Robbie when we first started dating
• got up early
• completed a hardcore workout in the morning
• talked to two awesome (and well known) Youtubers one on one 

It might not have gone as I'd hoped it would but I'm still glad that I went and gave it a go. I tried and have no regrets. If I'd never headed to the airport, boarded the plane, met all of those people and done a workout...I would have been wondering 'what if?' that and I would have been stalking their Instrgaram stories and posts for the entire week. Things might not always go as we plan but try not to mark them up as FAILURES entirely. Take a moment and think through what you did do, see the positives in what you did achieve. 

Anti-depressants and Weight Gain

Screen print 'Happy Pills' by Chris James

It's a cracking post title, right? Just what you want when you're feel downtrodden already, you've finally managed to talk things through with a doctor, you've got through the period of adjusting to being on anti-depressants with their lovely side effects and to top it off...weight gain. That's just splendid. Not all of them cause weight gain, in some cases they can cause weight loss due to a decreased appetite. Frankly I'd be game to get on those ones!

I first started taking anti-depressants in September 2013. After hiding my illness for 5 years things had become so bad that I barely had the energy to keep up the facade. My mum woke me up one day and just said that she knew something wasn't right and outright asked if I thought I was depressed. I started crying and could barely stop myself. I knew it was bad and it had slowly been chipping away at the person I was until very little of that fun loving personality remained. That same day I walked into my GP's office and told them everything I'd been trying and failing to say for years. The most I'd managed to say to them before was that I'd been having panic attacks but they didn't prescribe anything or refer me to a counsellor. This time she pushed a box of tissues towards me and said "oh it can be all that bad surely" somehow in that moment I managed to fight my corner, I told her of my self harming and suicidal thoughts, of how I barely lived these days and spent the end of my summer term at uni locked away in my room. Reluctantly she prescribed me my first dose of anti-depressants. Her hesitance was due to me being a temporary patient back in Ipswich as I was then registered with a doctor up in Durham whilst I was at uni and they might have had a different opinion on how my depression should be treated. I was prescribed what is generally prescribed in the first instance providing that you aren't pregnant or experiencing a serious health condition such as heart problems or diabetes. I was initially given a small dose of Sertraline as my score on the multi choice test for depression was pretty high and rated me as having severe major depression with social anxiety.

Unfortunately medications don't work straight away, they can actually cause the depression to worsen over the initial two weeks of taking them and even after they kick in they don't always agree with you. I experienced some pretty bad side effects and the Sertraline didn't seem to be improving my mood, so it was decided that I was be put on Venlafaxine. Bad luck for me as I had a GP that whipped me off Sertraline in a week, not recommended! Usually you will be phased off anti-depressants slowly so you're body can adapt without going into withdrawal. I went straight into withdrawal, was extremely emotional and a danger to myself. If I'd had been in a better state of mind I might have been able to give that GP a well deserved telling off, but I was barely able to speak up loud enough to check into the doctors surgery let alone give the doctor a good telling off.

I've been on Venlafaxine (also known as Effexor) for about four years now. I've experienced some side effects but nothing bad enough to prompt me to change again. Even though I knew my current GP would carefully remove it from my system, I was still scared of having another horrendous experience of withdrawal and a major depressive episode without any anti-depressants in my system. That was until I realised something recently. When I was at uni I kept track of my weight. At the time I was experiencing body dysmorphia, I still do but in different ways now, I believed that I was fat when I was actually around the perfect weight for my frame (just under 9 stone). Flash forward to today and I'm 11st 6lbs. The most commonly used anti-depressants such as Prozac and Zoloft can cause weight gain of at least 10lbs! Nightmare! The cause of this weight gain isn't known for certain, it can be because of an improved mood and the ability to find pleasure in things again such as food. It has also been shown to cause a change in metabolism (making it slower) causing patients to gain weight despite maintaining normal eating habits.

Depression did cause a major change in my diet and activity levels, for the worse. However, since January I have been moving more than I had in the past couple of years, eating significantly better, upping my daily step count and really pushing with the exercise. Imagine my horror when I put a dress on a couple of months ago that was tight when a few months prior it had been loose! I know that weight loss takes time but this was devastating. I checked out the side effects of Venlafaxine and yipeee weight gain is one of them. I discovered forums full of people experiencing the same problem. Enough is enough for me, my anxiety and depression is closely linked to my body image and self confidence. If the thing that's supposed to be helping my mood is causing weight gain and destroying my confidence, it will inevitably reignite the depression. Awesome.

I decided to head to my GP to discuss coming off Venlafaxine. He was incredibly relieved. In the years since I'd been taking it, more and more tests on the drug and those taking it had revealed that it can have major effects on the cardiac system. Anti-depressants often affect more than one nervous system i.e. the brain and something else, in this case it is the heart. With his assistance I've been slowly withdrawing from Venlafaxine since April. It has to be a gradual process as my body has become so used to it's presence after relying upon it for so many years. The body and mind goes into shock as it realises this thing it has clung to for so long is suddenly being taken away from it. My dosage was adjusted every two weeks and with it came a variety of side effects which I've listed below:

• Weeks 1 + 2: alternating days of 225mg and 150 mg, high levels of anxiety, shakes, sweating
• Weeks 3 + 4: 150mg each day, dramatic mood swings, tearful, low mood, upset stomach, fatigue and insomnia 
• Weeks 5 + 6: alternating days of 150mg and 112/5mg, sensation of chickenpox on the skin feeling itchy but no visible cause, hot flushes, nausea, fatigue, sickness, insomnia 
• Weeks 7 + 8: 112.5mg each day, less nausea, appetite returned, loss of concentration, increased sensitivity to sudden noises and movements, very dry mouth
• Weeks 9 + 10: alternating days of 112.5mg and 75mg, very low moods, low self esteem, high anxiety, poor sleep pattern
• Weeks 11 until present day: 75mg every day, very low mood, crying over nothing, very sensitive, tired, headaches, anxious, low self esteem, lack of concentration, lack of enjoyment

I've been taking 75mg each day for a number of weeks now due to difficulties getting a follow up appointment with my GP. When I did get an appointment we discussed remaining at this dosage until I returned from a planned trip abroad as we agreed it could disturb my mood further. The plan is to then alternate with 75mg and 37.5mg, followed by two weeks of taking 37.5mg daily and then being free of anti-depressants for a while. At the beginning of this process if it had been suggested that I'd be taking no medication at all at some point I might have had concern. Whereas I now can see how much of an impact it was having on my body. I also have less nerves about this as the process has been undertaken in a very controlled manner. Once my body has adjusted to being drug free and free of any withdrawal affects we will then introduce a new drug and be able to see if there are any obvious side effects from it. Hopefully I'll be able to find something that helps rather than hinders the recovery process!