Now I'd really appreciate it if we could all take a moment to talk about someting else

I read an interesting article today about 'All about that bass' which highlighted the absurdity of selling positive body image and promoting girls with curves but thin-shaming in the process making the message of every woman being beautiful defunct if they don't have the curves that men are seeking. It's frustrating as it feels like once again the message is wrong and a certain group of women are getting written off as imperfect yet again.

All body shaming needs to stop but perhaps we need to move away from this topic for a while? The body image debate is becoming a bit of a mud slinging match where essentially any-body isn't good enough for another subsection of the population. I would really appreciate it if we could all stop for a moment, take a look at what's important here and perhaps talk about something else?

Perhaps we could have a think about the minds of the people who own those bodies and discuss who we should vote for in the General Election 2015 who will prioritise Mental Health provisions, or how the UK can help in the aftermath of the Nepal Earthquake which has killed over 2000 people or about the issues of deadly migrant routes across the Mediterranean. We need to get back to having a bit of perspective and working on what we can do to make things better. Perhaps people would be able to have better self-esteem and a better body image if they could just get on with having a body rather than needed to discuss it all of the time. Let's get back to celebrating everything incredible we can do with our bodies and learn to love them for that.

214 days later

Today, on the Friday of EDAW 2014 (eating disorders awareness week), is the 214th day of my admission into 'The Retreat' in York for my eating disorder. Today I managed to enter the hospital's bake off competition with a cake I had made... at the last bake off, held in September, I had managed to only just stay in the room because of the strength of the smell of the cakes. A lot has changed in the last 31 (approx.) weeks. I would love to say that I'm recovered but that wouldn't be true at all, but I can safely say I'm well on the start of the long journey that will  be my recovery from my eating disorder. Eating disorder awareness week is an important week of raising awareness and funds mainly for the UK eating disorder charity B-eat who do a really amazing job of supporting and helping those with eating disorders. Eating disorders are a condition that can affect anyone at any time in their lives. I have had the privaledge to complete my journey on the 'Naomi program' with some of the strongest women I have ever met. 

Eating disorders come in all different varieties. I think the common misconception is that eating disorders only affect young, white women who choose to restrict their food intake until they are very underweight. Weight isn't an indication of how unwell a person is. During the time I have had my eating disorder, I have been a variety of different weights and even though I am now maintaining a healthy weight, I still very much have an eating disorder. 

For me, my eating disorder wasn't really about the food or my weight. It has/had a lot more functions than I ever realised but I'm now learning a new way of life and slowly but surely I'm fighting for the life I want to be living and the future I want. I think of eating disorders like having a glass of fruit juice that's been diluted. The sufferer is the fruit juice and their eating disorder is the water. The eating disorder dilutes the person until it's hard to see them but with help they can find themselves again and gradually get more concentrated. The person is there, it can just be hard to see them. I've blogged about my eating disorder before and I encourage people to read and to learn more about eating disorders. They aren't the stereotypes that are shown to us in the media e.t.c. they are so different from person to person and unfortunately there isn't any one cure for them. 

Dog walking after Christmas, learning to love the 'recovered me'

When I agreed to come on to the Naomi program, I had agreed to be here for 6 weeks. Six weeks has become what will be nine months as an inpatient, something I really didn't think I needed when I started this part of my journey. It's funny, I thought I could do a quick fix of treatment and be better. I am so glad I stayed and am on the way to completing the full Naomi program. I've learnt so much about myself and so many really useful skills that I really hope will equip me to be really recovered one day. I believe I will be and I urge anyone who is worried about their relationship with food to get help. It's so worth it to not have to be completely controlled by food and be able to actually experience life. B-eat have recently completed some research into the cost of eating disorders in the UK and an overwhelming message is that earlier interventions and help would reduce the amount of money spent on eating disorder treatment... in other words, if you seek support earlier you can get well quicker. 

For me, recovery is becoming a norm that often I don't really like but can manage. It's not all rosy and nicey-nicey, sometimes it's rubbish but the promise of it not being rubbish forever keeps me going. You can't experience the good without having to experience the difficult too and I am sure I want to strive for the good! 

I'm tired so no doubt my blog tonight might be a bit of a waffly muddle, but hopefully I will have come close to doing justice to what an important topic this is! 

That's what she said

My lovely sister shared this video this morning. It's really great. I urge you to watch. 

Widening my perspectives of the world

Telephonstolpar (telephone posts) By Erik Johansson

This week I listened in to a conversation between two very sweet old ladies. They were 88 and 83 years old and had a lot of life experience. One had been a staff nurse at a mental health hospital for predominantly her entire career and both were full of interesting stories and views of the world. They were discussing how sad it was that the youth of today were so distracted from real life by technology that they weren't out there getting jobs and earning for themselves. 

I was filled with a sense of agreement with some of what they were saying in that I could do with spending less time arsing about on the internet and doing something productive, but equally I didn't agree. For me my laptop is a gateway into the world and a way to show me how much more to life there is than what I see day to day. This evening we skyped our housemate in America and the ability to talk to her despite her being so far away was something I wished the two old ladies I had listened to had experienced. 

Arbete (work)- by Erik Johansson

Recently I've become slightly addicted to stumbleupon and I could easily spend hours aimlessly stumbling at pictures and interesting websites. I realise that this may prove the point that the internet is there for time wasting however being able to flick through places that inspire me and remind me that life won't remain the same forever fills me with some comfort. I'm just a small fish in a big pond and I just need to remember that there's a whole world out there ready for me to get exploring. I came across a photographer/artist named Erik Johansson who creates pictures that have different perceptions on what you are seeing. He describes his work as demonstrating what his mind sees and the pictures are really beautiful and I found them to be quite haunting too. There's something about the images that makes you stop and think about the world for the moment and wonder about some of the aspects of it. The main thing I took away from the pictures was the interaction between what is natural and what is man made and controlled- there seemed to be a wonderful message within the pictures of how interlinked both of those ideas are. Man control and interacts with a world that exists on its own but allows manipulation. 

Tonights blog seems to be a bit of a pile of different ramblings and thoughts. But hey... I'm running with it and I think I might be on to a couple of ideas that other less tired humans might be interested to read haha! My final parting thought is a quote. I'm clearly becoming the queen of quotes but I really like this one. Again it was something that I came across and it made me stop, pause and think for a moment. I think the things in life that make you stop and think are the most valuable especially in a society where we are all so busy all of the time. No wonder there are so many people struggling with there mental health, life moves too quickly to be properly processed so people revert to other ways to cope. 

 ... imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. ” Douglas Adams

Night night for now.

Love Kate x