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.
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