Gut Brain Glow Up

Talking about the buried anger last week got me thinking about what other emotions I'm regularly suppressing, but are extremely prevelant in how my current health is impacting my every day interactions. So I guess a new series has come about quite organically - this week it's envy/jealousy.  It's quite normal to feel jealous about one thing or another, and when you think about it,  jealousy crops up more often than we realise. You could be jealous of how amazing someone elses life seems to be, someones wealth and financial standing, the amazing holiday one of your friends is on whilst you're in the office or at home in the rain. Anything that you wish you had or were doing that's different to your here and now.  I've realised that I'm finding myself envious of the every day 'normality' where life isn't revolving around pain, sickness, fatigue. I'm envious of my pre-illness self who was functioning - albeit not quite as well as she thought she...

Hello! After a couple weeks break I'm back! Whilst on my little break, a topic came up that has probably been bubbling in the background of some of my posts but not explicitly called out; that topic is 'anger'.  I may have touched on anger previously, but that's because anger seems to come in multiple forms depending on the situation. I believe I've mostly referred to anger in the form of frustration; frustration at the situation, at how long everything seems to take, but also with myself. Other forms may be annoyance, irritation, irritability, feeling resentment about something. For those who know me 'IRL', they'll know that I rarely get angry, and when I do I find it very, very hard to manage. I become the human version of the anger emotion in 'inside out'; physically shaking, a ball of angry energy with no idea where to put it, sometimes audibly 'roaring' and becoming emotionally volatile. I also have a horrible habit of deferring bac...

Well well, here we are at the 2 years mark. I must admit I've felt rather uneasey the past couple of weeks as today (29th April) approaced. I thought twice about making this post in all honesty, as it probably gives it more weight than I should award it. However, I then thought that its a good opportunity to reflect on just how far those 730 days have brought me.  So how has the last 2 years played out? Well in a nutshell: - 18 months were spent trying to understand what the heck is wrong, with a fair few detours taken on the way, eventually being confirmed to have Centrally Mediated Abdominal Pain Syndrome.  - The last 6 months has probably been the first real section I can name 'recovery'. With the likes of PTSD treatment, accupuncture, yoga and now hypnotherapy, all playing a very important role in what is to be a long road to recovery.  Yes, it's been frustrating, and I'd absolutely rather be healthy and not going through this, but it has also taught me some ext...

Nature! How often do you actually stop and take note of the natural world? I've suddenly realised recently how often I walk around too much in my head, or phone, to take stock of the nature around me. Yet, despite my habit of not really appreciating my surroundings, I'm benefitting from it all the same.  I imagine most of us have experienced the power of getting 5 minutes of fresh air on our mindset. But, how often do you actually stop and really take note of the happenings around you? The birds singing, the fresh Spring blooms, that special colour of green the new leaves have. Whether its because of the sunny weather or because I've made an extra effort to take stock of what's around me, nature has had an extra mood lifting effect lately. Being British, I won't lie that the sun probably has a lot to do with it (all us Brits seem a lot happier on sunny days because of how rare they are!), but really taking stock of the intricate blooms, the bees, and butterflies sud...

Part 3 is here! Not exactly the most exciting thing to wait for, but for anyone who's interested here it is... Do you know what the biggest irony of dealing with the mental pressure to keep weight off is? I'm not happy with my body. Plain and simple. All this mental energy being wasted to achieve something I'm ultimately not happy about. So if I'm not happy , why not change it? Because its not that simple - the instant that scale goes up, or I feel bloated, I hate my body even more and panic. I've mentioned before that prior to losing the weight and being ill, I was confident and at the happiest with my body I'd ever been; yes I still had days of feeling 'gross' but they were completely outweighed (ha, pun not intended!) by the fact my body was so strong, and I was amazed at exactly what it could do. I think this is why I'm not happy with it now - even though I've very much got the desirable look for social media,  skinny,  my body feels weak and...

Back in June last year I opened up about how food had suddenly become an issue for me overnight, and I wanted to give a little update.To be able to do this subject justice, this will be the first installment of a 2 part update, rather than making you read a small novel posing as a blog post! Reading my post ('food glorious food') back it makes me sad to realise that, realistically, my body dismorphia and eating disorder are far more engrained in my psyche than I realised at the time. Rather than my managing to overcome it with, what seemed simple, changes of thought pattern to 'food is strength', it has doubled down. I will freely admit that this is mostly down to my naiveity regarding how long I've actually been dealing with this (turns out most of my adult life), and just how firm those foundations are sunk into my brain.   I've now realised that my body dismorphia spans from childhood; always being heavier than my friends, 'innocent' childish teasing ...