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. 

Self Destruction

I was supposed to start this year by going to the Harry Potter Warner Studio tour. We received two gift tickets from my parents last Christmas, as in 2015. Initially our tour was booked in for October as I'd heard that death eaters roam the Diagon Alley set. Unfortunately I got super anxious in the weeks leading up to it. Fortunately the tours can be rebooked up until the evening before in case of sickness etc.

Sometimes I set myself up for setbacks and failure. Whenever we're expecting guests at the house, I either go into hibernation mode with intervals to dash to the kitchen for food in stealth mode OR I throw myself into baking in batch mode, cooking up a storm and generally exhausting myself right up until they're on the doorstep. Neither are ideal. Baking is usually a good coping mechanism for me. However, it's not wise to do so when I do it to the point when I've been on my feet for hours without a break, my body is trembling and I've managed to work through all meals of the day. That right there is setting myself up to fail. Of course I'll be more prone to anxiety and dips in my mood if I haven't eaten, my body is already trembling and I haven't taken a second to breath and prepare myself for a wave of people coming into the house.

When I rebooked the studio tour I set myself up once again. I reschueduled for another early morning Saturday tour. That's red flag number 1. First thing after I wake up, I'm more likely to be convinced that the day ahead will be a diaster and that I am already a failure. Also, Saturdays will be SUPER busy with families that can't go during the week. Combine that with the Halloween season and we have a potential meltdown scenario. I was also going to be driving solo to Watford for the first time so we could stay there the night before to avoid having to get up super early to drive. So that would be a solo drive, a brand new route, Friday evening rush hour traffic and picking up Robbie from a busy train station. Of course all of this produced the same amount of anxiety I felt the first time around. Fortunately we were able to ammend the booking once again. That alone is progress as before I would have eaten the cost of the tickets and purchased new ones just to avoid the high level of anxiety I often feel when I have to make a phone call.


The evening before I was due to post this, I very nearly set myself up for a setback again. Some of you will know that I am a creative person. After burning myself out over the years of art exams I wasn't certain that I'd find that desire to create again. Over the past couple of years I've dabbled with small projects and started creating on my face (!) I've really enjoyed it but there have been times when I will go months between creating anything. Yesterday one of my favourite makeup brands announced the opening of their annual competition, the NYX Face Awards. For years I watched the American competition and hoped that it would happen here too. In the midst of depression I completely missed the first one, nothing was on my radar at that time. Last year I decided to create my entry, I was excited initially but I realised that something wasn't quite right. I wasn't enjoying the process of creating something exciting. It was causing sleepless nights as I attempted to squeeze out some creativity, something original. I ended up working throughout the nights whilst everyone else was soundly asleep. It simply wasn't doing me any good, my health was in decline again as were my spirits as I doubted my skills. I wish that I had been working on developing my skills over the past year, gaining confidence ready for this years competition. Perhaps if I didn't have a mind fogged up by depression I could have figured out when the competition would fall this year. This time last year we were on holiday in Switzerland. I can recall furiously checking and refreshing the Instagram post of my video entry to see how many views and likes I was receiving. Part of me wanted some kind of recognition, a vote of confidence to say that I had some talent worth honing. The other part of me was in sheer bloody panic at the thought of getting through to the first round only to realise I'd exhausted my ideas already. Last night was a restless night as I saw the announcement, submissions for the competition are now being accepted. My mind was a flash of colours and shapes as I closed my eyes ready for sleep. Rest did not come until the early hours of this morning when everyone else was getting up to start their day. I came up with some options for my plan of action. Either I accept this challenge and do my very best BUT risk the progress I've made in the improvements to my lifestyle including exercise, healthy eating at 'normal' times of the day and getting restful nights sleep. OR I watch as others enter, take inspiration from that and attempt to use this year to hone my skills at my pace whilst maintaining the progress in other areas of my life. I think the choice is obvious. The competition will be there next year and perhaps I might be more prepared for it when it does come.

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Bitten In the Butt

It's scary how quickly things can turn around with depression. Despite having to take care of things by myself for a week, I'd been doing pretty well. Ever since we've had Toby (our pup) I've been getting out of the house more than ever before. However, I find it really challenging to take him for a walk by myself. I like to have a route in mind, somewhere with lots of space where I can see if other dog walkers are coming up ahead so I can try to avoid them. I did a few practise runs with Robbie before my solo walks. They went fairly well, one major challenge was driving as I hadn't done any for a while, since my operation at the beginning of October actually.

Surprisingly I didn't have too many blunders during that week. The unexpected trip up came when everyone returned home and we had a full house again. I know that I get anxious during transitions from being alone after being surrounded by people, and also when returning to a full house again. I finally get used to enjoying the space rather than fearing it, then it all returns to a busy chaotic minefield again.

I'd been printing off all of my old blog posts, which turned out to be quite the stack of paper! I'm currently working through them for something I'm working on at the moment. For me it's a strange process, blogging has always been fairly strange for me. I'll write about things that have happened recently and events that happened a long time ago but I've only just processed them. Some posts might have been written weeks ago, others perhaps the day of publishing them. I always check through them one last time before making them 'live'. However, even if I've just read through them all of 30 minutes ago, I couldn't tell you what they say. My short term memory has been shot to pieces by this illness. During some of my lowest times I can recall watching an entire season of a TV programme, but I have no recollection of what happened. I can remember rough plot lines of books I read, but I have no idea who the characters were, what the book cover looked like or even what the title was. I think this is the process of my brain trying to protect itself (bare with me). There are so many 'stressors' (traumatic events, memories, people etc.) that can build up to cause a breakdown or a period of depression. I believe that those 'stressors' take up so much space in my head, so there is little or no room for trivial information to be stored during those times. Even if one of those trivial things is something I have written, something I really ought to be able to remember but I just can't.

As I said, I was reading through old posts I'd written. I felt sad for the person that had been through these things. And I realised it was me! People often tell me that they find it difficult to read some of my posts, that they make them teary eyed at times. For me, I've lived through those moments already, they were hell to experience when they happened and in some cases it has taken me years to be able to even recall all the details of those events. In my mind I've already experienced that trauma, patched myself up and moved on. Imagine my shock when I sunk into a depressed mood over reading about something I've actually experienced, yet the words made me so sad and suddenly re-live it. My movements became very slow, I lost my appetite after being ravenous moments before, all I wanted to do was sleep. I trudged upstairs ready to fall into bed, but I'd misplaced my phone. And somehow I was suddenly losing my breath, feeling flustered, leaning into the door frame of our bathroom clutching at my chest that felt like it was on fire. I was having a HUGE panic attack, over a bloody phone! I know now that it wasn't just over a phone, it was a number of factors. It was not being prepared to feel this saddened and low over something I've already lived through, written about and moved on from. I was being attacked by my past. I was crying on the floor curled up into a ball clutching at my chest. It was all too familiar to the breakdown of February 2014. It felt like nothing had changed, I had fallen to my knees sobbing, howling and not caring about how it must have looked or sounded to other people in the house.

I don't want anyone to run to my aid now. I'm OK now. Over time I have learnt to recover quicker from panic attacks and low periods. A sign of progress! Of course it's alarming to me and anyone else in my life when this happens. It's unexpected for all of us, and yet it shouldn't be. Yes, I've made progress in many areas and some days it may seem like I'm well again. But, I still have an illness,  I am still very, very unwell and need to bare in mind that I can't run a marathon without training for it first! My project (very secret I'm afraid) will not stop because of this incident. I just need to take things slowly and remember that even my own words can hurt me.

Keep Calm, Carry On

I have previously mentioned that I have had panic attacks in the past. I always intended to do a post covering panic attacks, having a handful of them recently has prompted me to write on the topic. I first experienced a panic attack when I was in sixth form. I'd just started there and had gone from a school with around six hundred students, to well over a thousand. I tended to avoid the over-crowded areas due to my fear of large crowds and the noise they tend to produce. However, some times I couldn't avoid passing through such areas in order to get to certain classrooms, if I had the time I would go the longer way, but at times this wasn't possible. I remember dodging in and out of the crowds in the atrium, pushing my way through and faintly saying "excuse me". I was getting worked up over the amount of people, the amount of eyes on me, feeling awkward, the loud music and conversations and my fear of being late to class which would induce the next load of anxieties. I felt flustered, incredibly warm despite only wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I made a break for the nearest toilets, and looking in the mirror I saw the red faced, clammy, panting reflection of someone that looked like they had run 10 miles rather than a hundred feet or so. I felt the gazes of other girls present so I hurried off into a toilet cubicle. I simply couldn't catch my breath, I constantly blotted my face with toilet paper, sweat was running down my back and my hair was glued to my face from the wetness of my forehead. My first thoughts were that perhaps I was getting a fever, maybe an asthma attack could explain the shortness of breath. And then a pain struck me in the chest, I felt winded as it doubled me over. Nowadays I often say "I feel like I've been hit by a bus today" whenever I feel extremely fatigued with heavy limbs despite only just getting up from bed. The pain felt like someone sitting on my chest and I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I was convinced I was having a heart attack at the age of sixteen/seventeen.

It took me a long time to discover that I had experienced a panic attack. It was all induced by the loud, hectic environment I was passing through. I soon learnt to leave places ten minutes early so I could take the quieter staircases and long twisty corridors to get to my next lesson. I've learnt to avoid the situations that have triggered panic attacks in the past. If I can feel one coming on, if my mind is restless and I can't fix my eyes on one thing for more than a few seconds, I know that I need to remove myself from the situation and find a quieter spot. Its a very frustrating thing to go through, just when you think you've isolated all of the causes of your panic attacks, something will come out of the blue to trip you up. Sometimes I realise I'm having a panic attack or one is imminent but I'm in a busy area with no clear places for me to duck into and escape. I end up walking with a far away destination in mind such as the car parked in the multi storey car park. It feels like I'm walking whilst being under water, when you've dived under the water's surface and can feel the breath in your lungs starting to escape from you, your head suddenly starts to feel full and heavy from the pressure of being deep underwater. Not a sensation you want to feel whilst walking for 15 minutes until you are safely inside the car wheezing in and out, with jittery knees and feeling unsure as to whether you're about to projectile vomit into the windshield or burst into tears. Fortunately I seem to be a crier, although I do often feel sick throughout and for a long time after having a panic attack. As always I do not intend to scare, I just want to educate people on what its like so people can either realise that's what they're going through too or so friends and family, or even passing strangers may be able to help someone experiencing one in public. I do love a good list, so below I have provided my 'cheat sheet' to helping someone having a panic attack.

1. Don't ask if they are OK, its quite obvious they aren't.
2. Its tempting to bombard the person with questions, but its likely they will be unable to answer you and they probably need some quiet to focus on their breathing and calm down.
3. Do not flap about or tell them to calm down. Annoying!
4. If they seem to be hyperventilating/can't catch their breath for a long time, gently suggest deep calming breaths and do this alongside them.
5. Once they seem to be doing better offer some water, a tissue (sweat, tears and snot are a delightful combination), some kind of snack if they can manage it, somewhere quiet to sit down. 
6. Ask if they need help getting somewhere they would be more comfortable.
7. Ask if there is anyone you can call/text for them.
8. For future reference, and if they are comfortable discussing it, ask them what would help them the most if they have a panic attack again and you are present. 
9. Help them avoid the situations that induce their panic attacks, forethought and a small amount of planning in advance goes a long way.
10. Encourage them to take a 'survival kit' with them when going out i.e. water, tissues, an emergency snack.

I am by no means an expert of this matter. I still have slip ups, silly moments when I should have realised I could be prone to having an attack. Only a few weeks ago I had an attack in the car as we drove by one of two car parks at a place where we walk our dog. I saw that the first car park was heaving. It was a bloody bank holiday Monday and the sun was out. Of course people would spend it outside with their family, friends and dogs. And although I knew there were areas we could walk to avoid clustered spots, I couldn't get out of the car. I had even considered the fact that it was a bank holiday, the weather was nice and that the walking spot is popular before we left the house. For some reason I failed to raise my hand and say BAD IDEA can we please go to somewhere quieter. Oops. No one is a pro at panic attacks, why would you even want to be?!

Scraping The Barrel

I've been trying really hard to write this post for months now. I had written content prior to launching the blog in October. My writing process varies from drawing upon memories and experiences of my own, reacting to mental health coverage online and in the news and sometimes finding unexpected triggers of inspiration in objects, TV programmes and quotes. Most often something will come into my head when I'm suffering from insomnia, I know I have to get it down immediately in case I suddenly drift into sleep and wake up not being able to recall those thoughts in the morning. Sometimes an entire post will come to me immediately, I'll write it in the notes app on my phone and barely edit the wording when it comes to typing it up on my laptop. There are occasions, like this one, where I've been desperate to discuss an important topic, most likely a sensitive one too, and I'll just be stumped by it. The sentences form very slowly and I'll trip over the wording, really beating myself up over the quality of it all. I've attempted to write this post four, perhaps five times. Some of my notes were lighthearted in attempts to skim over the darkness of the content, whereas other notes go into a dangerous amount of detail which could trigger a period of depression or self-harm for those with mental health conditions. I started writing this post thinking I'd finally worked up the courage to discuss my experience with and knowledge of self harm. I'm afraid I haven't quite managed that today, some areas are easier for me to write about but self-harm is an incredibly serious, sensitive and tricky subject to manoeuvre around and I don't want to cause any harm to anyone by not wording it correctly. Its also still an incredibly raw nerve for me. I often say the last time I harmed myself was this time last year. But to be honest I somehow manage to block out that it happened not so long ago, so please give me time to do the subject justice. My main motivation behind this blog is believing that I could help just one person with my words, so someone knows that they aren't alone in what they're going through. I know how that feels, I didn't have any idea what was happening to me when I was 16, I just happened to stumble across the lovely Zoella who had just posted about panic attacks. That's all it took, it clicked in my head. I am not alone in this, and neither are you.

As I tried to write this post I felt myself slipping into a dark spot, feeling sore around my eyes, waiting for the tears to form and thinking that closing the laptop lid and retreating was inevitable. It seems ridiculous to me that I can become so tongue-tied even when it comes to a subject which I'm very familiar with, painfully familiar with. This is my duty, my job as such to help people with my words and hopefully educate those who don't quite understand aspects of mental illness. So when I feel like I'm failing at that I plunge into the dark pits of depression and submerge myself in it feeling desperate to scream at myself, but the pit won't let the sound bounce back to me, I can't hear the scream, or perhaps I just can't let it out for everyone else to hear. It can be incredibly hard to write it down accurately, or to the level I expect from myself. I don't want to skimp on the details or publish anything until its just right. Sometimes I wish I could video myself talking about all this, but I'm usually just as inarticulate when I speak out loud, although perhaps those reading would actually feel like there is a real girl behind all of this. I use blogging as a way of expressing myself when words fail me when interacting with others in person, I head a Youtuber say something that rung true and applicable to me the other day "I mean, I'm on Youtube because I don't know how to interact in the real world"(Thomas TomSka, 2015).

 I often forget how hard this process can be, I'm pouring out my soul, my past, my present to hundreds of readers each week, I am thrilled that my blog generates on average 1,000 views each month, thank you to everyone who reads my ramblings. I don't want to give up on writing the blog, I don't even wish to take a break, but I do want people to realise how difficult it can be. I may be 'Cheerful Chelsea' but the truth is more often than not, I can be far from that persona. This was evident when I was trying to arrange this post in my mind for the thousandth time. I'm a hardcore fan geek when it comes to video extras of films and TV programmes, and I was watching a behind the making of Game of Thrones prior to writing this, and I just zoned out. Around twenty minutes of videos passed me by and I wasn't jumping for joy with my nose pressed against the screen to take in every detail. Not like me at all, I usually re-watch these segments at least five times. So when that happened due to stressing over a blog post I did question whether this all does more harm than good. I really hope it helps someone. So perhaps I didn't quite make it to writing the self harm post I had intended, perhaps I've just discovered that fretting about things too much can be a form of self harm in itself. Just know that the intended post is coming. Also, on a final note, try to keep this in mind "everything will be fine in the end. If it is not fine, then it is not yet the end"(quote from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel).