Gut Brain Glow Up

In my post last week I mentioned that we have a dog, and the fact the my husband became her number 1 overnight. Well today I wanted to touch on a relationship that's probably not really thought about in terms of long term illness: the relationship with our pets.  Anyone who has a pet will know they are part of the family, and how they rely on us humans for everything - well... maybe not so much cats, but you get the gist. Before I became poorly, my husband and I shared the doggo load, with me being the chief walker/trainer/dinner provider and my husband being the breakfast feeder/trainer. The intention was that I would be the main person training our dog, who when I became poorly was only 6 months old. However, as with everything this went out the window on that fateful day, and so my husband became chief of everything.  Now, why would this impact on my relationship with our dog? Well for one, she became my ever watching shadow, she is also immensely careful around me and to t...

To start my series on how long term illness impacts relationships, I thought I'd cover the hardest one to write first: romantic relationships. Anyone will tell you that romantic relationships take work, let alone when there's something additional adding pressure that there's no easy way around. Then again they will also say that going through these issues will only make you stronger - something I will absolutely agree with. For me and my husband, my health took a nose dive only 7 months after getting married, and in that time we had already experienced a truly traumatic bereavement (something the doctors believe was actually the last straw for my body/nervous system); so to say that our wedded bliss had come to an end quickly is quite the understatement (unfortunately this seems to be a theme in our relationship considering my life turned rather dramatic when we had only been together 3 months, popping that initial new relationship bubble, but I digress). With this nose div...

At the start of this blog, I explained how Gut Brain Disconnect has impacted me with my health - so I thought I should touch on how it's impacted those around me and a key part in life: relationships. When I think about the term 'relationship' my immediate go to is romantic relationships, but this term also covers family, friends, work/colleagues, pets and your own relationship with yourself. As a result, for the next few weeks I'm going to touch on how long term illness has effected each of those relationships, at least in my experience. This week though I'll just keep to a general overview.  I think it's safe to say that any kind of illness you experience will affect your day to day relationships; whether it's just a cold making you more irritable than normal, or something more long-term, anything 'out of the norm' will always shift the balance and make simple small things a little more difficult, a form of ripple effect if you will. Ultimately, it...

I thought I'd venture a little more into one of my  symptoms of mental pain that isn't necessarily instantly recognisable as such: skin picking and hair pulling, aka Dermatillomania and Trichotillomania. Those who know me 'in the real world' will have more than likely noticed these habits, mainly the skin picking. I've been doing these things for so long I dont even know when it started, all I know is its certainly not healthy and are issues I've tried to stop and failed to do so countless times. But how do these unhealthy habits relate to mental health? Well it seems that, for me at least, they have developed as a very unhelpful coping mechanism for anxiety turned habit that 90% of the time I'm not aware I'm actually doing. The other 10% is when I'm aware of it but can't seem to stop myself, the impulse has me trapped, and this is usually when I do the most damage.  For those not aware of these issues, to put it simply everyone has had that sati...