Stepping outside of that ever-so-cozy comfort zone…

Hello Kitty vanilla birthday cake

I have not left the house in the last 48 hours, and spent majority of this time home alone…It was not planned this way; yesterday I was a little unmotivated, and today I awoke feeling unwell…Hence my hibernation into the land of solitude and words (reading being my main source of comfort when I am alone or unwell, or anytime really!)…What I did notice though, was how very alone I am when my children are gone from the house…How much I have set up my life in such a way that I am cocooned safely inside, which, I am realizing, is not always a good thing…

I have come a long way over the last few years ~ once upon a time, I could go weeks without leaving the safety of my home…Now I try to venture outside into the ‘big wide world’ most days, even if it is just for the sake of my children…It is much easier to find my ‘brave bones’ to go out if the reason is based around my children ~ if they need a lift to school, or food from the shops, or collecting from their friends place…These things I can do, most of the time…Finding the motivation to go somewhere just for myself is much harder…Ideas float around my head ~ I could go to yoga, or to the gym, or to visit a friend, or to run errands…But I am the queen of excuses here, and tend to procrastinate instead…All of a sudden, baking cookies for my children seems like a much safer option…

I was very determined to make the writing as close to the original as possible!

Baking is one thing that brings me a little joy in life…Lately it has also been the thing to cause me distress aswell, as I haven’t been ‘well enough’ to cope with the idea of cake making as much as I used to be…Therefore I have had to turn quite a few requests down, and even had to cancel a couple of orders too, which only adds to my feelings of uselessness and depression…There are two cakes that I have successfully completed though, which gives me a tiny bit of hope that maybe one day I might be able to handle making more….Just maybe….

People with anxiety tend to also be very perfectionistic by nature…This is where I struggle the most, as to me, my cakes are never quite ‘good enough’…I will see the flaws before I see any positive qualities in my work…My anxiety rises to such a degree that my hands are so shaky, I find it very hard to decorate a cake at all, and have to force myself to step away from the table when I have completed one, or else I will sit there forever ‘fixing’ or adding to it unnecessarily…Therefore, once a cake is delivered, I am emotionally drained and all the adrenalin that I had during the creating process disappears…It can be quite an upsetting ‘after-effect’ of what used to be a much-loved hobby ♥

A big part of me hopes that this will improve though; that I will cope better with making cakes once I am coping better with life altogether…I am still in ‘recovery mode’ from my last breakdown, and unfortunately, these things take time to improve…I am still too raw, too fragile (as much as I dislike that word), my resilience levels are below zero…If I get impatient and attempt too much, too quickly, I tend to fall to pieces and make a speedy retreat back into my cocoon….

But, as safe and cozy as this cocoon may be, it is also a pretty lonely place to be sometimes…And it is not always a positive thing to have so much time alone with your own thoughts ~ particularly if they are negative….So it is important to keep pushing forward, keep gingerly stepping outside of your comfort zone, just a little bit….As long as you find a balance in there too…

For anyone battling with anxiety or depression, it can be very helpful to have a hobby or an activity of some kind that can give you a purpose and something to focus on, something to look forward to, something to work towards…It is too easy to sink right down into the depths of despair or fear, to the point where we lose who we are anymore ~ we just become this ball of sadness, shall we say…It is all-consuming, and can seem to be getting worse with each day…This is where having an activity that may bring some joy into your life can be so beneficial, and can really help to lift your spirits…

Pink ombre swirl cake for my Mum ♥

It doesn’t really matter what it is even, as long as it is something that you enjoy doing…Maybe you are crafty, or you like to cook, or you love gardening, or playing sport, or doing crossword puzzles…The options are endless once you open your mind to them…I understand what it can be like to have zero motivation, or zero confidence in your abilities to even achieve anything, but unless you actually give something a go, how will you ever know? You may discover that you can cook a fantastic lasagna, or perhaps you may end up burning it to a crisp ~ but at least you will have attempted something new And opened your eyes to the possibilities that are around you that you may not have considered before…Anything is worth a try if there is the smallest chance that it could help you rise up from the anxiety and/or depression that you are currently sinking under…

Baby steps though…Sometimes it can feel so great to be doing something, to be actively focused on something new and enjoyable, rather than being stuck within our own negative thoughts, that we can tend to over-do it a little…After one yoga class, we may be so happy that we agree to go back every day…Or maybe we decide that we love baking so much that we offer to cater for the next cake stall (for example)…It is not a bad thing to get out there and push ourselves a bit…I just offer you a word of caution here, as I have done this myself ~ tried something new, become a little obsessed with it, and ended up burning myself out…Which lead to me being admitted back in to hospital…

Red Velvet Cake

Anxiety and depression are real conditions…They may be invisible to the eye, but their effects on the mind and body can be very intense, very debilitating and very ongoing…If you are struggling, remember to be gentle with yourself when first stepping out of your comfort zone…It takes a lot of courage to take even one step, and you should be so proud of this ~ even if you find yourself racing straight back inside sooner than you had envisioned…

♥ “Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?” ~ Frank Scully ♥

♥ Chantell xo

The beauty of silence… ♥

My youngest snoozing away ♥

Sometimes complete silence can be the most soothing thing for the soul…It is something I have overlooked for many years, always believing that background noise was the best way to distract myself from the negativity inside my head…Only recently have I discovered the inner peace that silence can bring; how it allows me to just breathe and escape from the constant ‘go-go-go’ pace of daily life around me…In these rare times of complete silence, I have also begun to appreciate the things that I once ignored ~ the tweeting of a bird in the tree outside my window, the rhythmic ticking of the clock on my kitchen wall, the evenly timed snores of my dog sleeping soundly on his blanket in the sunshine near the back door…All of these things once would have irritated me when they were yet another noise mixed in with the sounds of the television, the radio, the chatter, laughter or bickering of my children, the traffic of the cars driving past our house…But when noticed on their own, these tiny sounds can be soothing in their own way…

Today I need the silence…Today I continually close my eyes and force myself to take a deep breath in, and out again…Today I am shaky and my head is pounding….But today I am fighting back, still..I am ever-aware that I am standing on the precipice of a very steep cliff ~ one wrong step and down, down, down I will fall…Back into the pit of despair and the land of irrationality (which for me, is a place of suicidal thoughts or self-harm)…But I am starting to realize that, even though I may be shaky, I still have a choice here…I can choose to step back from the precipice and nervously move forward away from the cliff top…Thanks to many hours of therapy, (and too many experiences of time down in that terrible pit), I am trying so hard to fight the dark thoughts inside my head telling me it is all too hard, trying my best to ignore the black cloud still hanging right over me, despite how much effort I put into escaping it…There it hangs still…I am trying to make a choice that will help me find my way out of this darkness, but it is a very difficult one for me ~ the choice to tell myself that I deserve better, that I am worthy exactly as I am in this very moment…The choice of self-acceptance….

Alot of my anxiety, if not all, comes from having very low self-esteem…Aswell as having high levels of self-loathing and self-doubt…I feel that I am unworthy compared to anyone else, that I am useless; any mistake I make feels like a catastrophe of gigantic proportions, and therefore, I struggle to even risk walking out the front door some days, always feeling like I am such a failure before I have even spoken to another person or attempted to do anything…Many people with anxiety do have low self-esteem, and possibly some level of self-doubt or self-loathing aswell…Once these beliefs have been circling around your head for many years, it is very difficult to change them..I would liken it to someone telling you the sky is actually green, when all your life you have believed it to be blue…Your first instinct would be to correct this person, to say to them, “No I assure you, the sky is definitely blue”, despite their insistance that it is, in fact, a lovely shade of green…And so it is for the person who believes themself to be utterly useless or incapable of achieving as much as the next person…To them, it truly does feel like this is true ~ they are not as worthy as anyone else, they are hopeless…

A tiny little Honeyeater hiding in the centre of my tree ♥

Unfortunately the brain is very good at cementing down thoughts that are repeated frequently, regardless of their validity…If you choose to think a certain way, time and time again, the brain will forge this thought into a defined pathway in your mind, much like a train track, as it believes that this thought is very important to you…It is your ‘truth’…As we all know though, negative thoughts tend to be blown way out of proportion, we are generally harshest on our own selves and we don’t always view a situation objectively from all sides ~ we just catastrophize and re-affirm to ourselves that, yes we are indeed very useless…We even build up a bank of evidence, which is just like adding more tracks to the pathway that is becoming very embedded into our brain….

The difficult part comes when you begin to see, perhaps through therapy, that logically, you are not useless…Or unworthy…And perhaps, maybe you might be capable of achieving more in your life? These are wonderful positive new thoughts for you and they feel great too….But your brain is left thinking, “Hang on, this is not what we are used to receiving here…What do we do with these???” And so they make the swift decision to dismiss the new positive thoughts as errors in judgement, and try to remind you that this is wrong ~ you are useless, and worthless, remember? That is all your mind knows to be ‘true’….

So the process of challenging negative thoughts and trying to change them into more positive, helpful ones can be a very tough exercise…One that I am still trying to do myself, even after many years of therapy…Old thought patterns are very entrenched and it can be very draining, mentally, to work on creating new ones…Similar to trying to convince that train of thought in your head to follow this new, better track that you have created, when it very much prefers the old familiar track it is used to riding…

But, as my counsellor likes to remind me, there is always a choice…We are the ones in control of our minds, and thoughts can be changed, no matter how entrenched they may feel…As I hover on the precipice of the cliff top (mentally), I am trying very hard to make the braver choice to step back and move forward into the land of possibilities….A land of self-acceptance…A place unknown to me….

I imagine that, for an outsider reading this, the choice is obvious ~ why would anyone not choose to be happy? Why risk falling into a pit of despair and more self-loathing? But for someone caught up in the midst of all this, fear takes centre stage and unfortunately, the pit of depression can feel ‘safer’ than the land of possible risk, exposure, embarrassment, or maybe ~ just maybe ~ happiness…Courage is a hard thing to build when the outcome is so unknown…

So I sit here today in my silence, with my shaky hands and pounding head, and contemplate a better future…Even if, at this very moment, I lack the momentum to move forward at all…

My usually snoring dog ♥

♥ “Some days, we just need to turn the quiet up” ~ Dr SunWolf ♥

♥ Chantell xo

Ten things I have discovered about depression….

My favourite artwork depicting depression ~ Toon Hertz

There are many ways to describe how it feels to be depressed….There are also set diagnostic criteria, signs and symptoms which medical professionals use to help them diagnose patients who come into their clinics with the classic symptoms of intense sadness, feeling overwhelmed, fatigued, crying often, feeling worthless and/or helpless, and generally just overwhelmed with life altogether….

But there are also a number of things that are only discovered if you actually experience depression personally ~ and you are not likely to hear these things from your doctor or counsellor….

1. During a bout of those tears-that-just-will-not-stop-falling, it is beyond pointless to apply mascara, eyeliner or any make-up to your face….Believe me, I have done this too many times to count, and have ended up with black streaks across my face, mixed in with ‘oh-so-lovely’ brown foundation or concealer patches….Panda eyes are not attractive, and are likely to only make those endless tears keep falling when you eventually see your reflection in a mirror…

2. Whilst we are on the topic of tears, it is not unusual for you to burst into hysterical sobs and fall to your knees when being met with a mountain of unwashed dishes or an overflowing basket of unwashed clothing that just seems to grow faster than you can keep up with…Yes, I have done this, and although the degree of emotional distress doesn’t quite seem to match up to the apparant so-called ‘problem’ of never-ending housework, it is just yet another sign that depression is sapping the life out of you, and your reserves are running short….Enlist any and all practical help that you can to ease this kind of pressure…

3. Nothing tastes good anymore….Most foods or drink, even your favourite chocolate or that-lasagna-you-once-salivated-over, will become bland and hardly worth eating ~ and that is if you can even swallow it down past the huge ‘golf-ball’ sized lump in your throat in the first place…There are exceptions to this, of course….Some people with depression will say they cannot stop eating, but they are attempting to heal an emotional ‘hole’ within, and are likely to end up feeling worse, no matter how much delicious chocolate they consume ~ the feel-good endorphins released from certain foods are just not strong enough to combat serious depression….

Another amazing artwork showing depression ~ Selina Fenech

4. On the subject of drinking, alcohol can be quite a popular self-soothing tonic for many depression sufferers, but while it may lift your spirits for a short time, leading you to jump around as if you have won the lottery, so happy are you to be free from the horrors of crushing sadness and despair, be aware of the come-down….Sooner or later, usually only within a few hours, that familiar feeling of gut-wrenching depression will return ~ bringing with it a whole army of negative emotions to knock you right back down to where you started from…..It is not unusual for you to be laughing one minute and then falling to the floor the next, crying for all your heart is worth, to anyone or anything that will listen….Yes, I have been there too! Alcohol is a depressant, and if you add anti-depressants into the mix, this generally only worsens this effect….

5. There will be days where you may very well feel nothing at all….No sadness, no happiness, just a plain-old-vanilla nothingness…While it may be a relief to have a break from all those tears and the angst that comes along with them, this numbness is a strange state of being in itself…It is kind of like you are a robot, functioning on automatic pilot perhaps, but not exactly experiencing life around you….You may be looking at your child giggling and think to yourself ‘Aww, that’s so cute’, but inside you feel a huge amount of…..NOTHING……It is like all the colours have been stripped from the world around you, leaving you with completely black and grey surroundings…

6.  Speaking of blackness, the sky may very well be a bright blue for everyone around you, with a few fluffy white clouds thrown in there too, but for you, the sky is black, the clouds are most definitely grey, and are the stormiest dark clouds you have ever seen in your life….Not only are they ominous and gloomy, they are very heavy and are pressing down on you from above in such a manner that you simply cannot ignore, or shake them off ~ it is like trying to run away from the moon….Impossible..

7. All of a sudden, every bad mistake you have ever made in your life may come back to haunt you…From that exam you failed way back in highschool, to the dinner you burnt for your future in-law’s last month, and everything inbetween ~ you are useless, and all these past errors are amplified to such enormous levels that you end up with a constant stream of negative thoughts in your mind telling you how pathetic you are, how stupid you are and why on earth did you ever think otherwise? Any positive attributes or qualities that you no doubt do have are dismissed or way under-valued in your mind….Basically, you are consumed by a little army of soldiers continually re-affirming to you how useless you truly are…And they are very, very good at making you believe this…

8. This army I mentioned? Well, they are also super qualified at making you feel as though you are worthless deep within….You have no value, or what little value you do have is ridiculed by them…I am a single mother of four darling children, but when I am desperately low and feeling worthless, my value as a mother is seen more as a huge failure inside my mind ~ What good am I to my children in this state? I am a terrible parent, they deserve so much better than me…And the worst one ~ They would be better off without me  These thoughts I have mentioned here can be interchanged numerous ways with ‘son/daughter/friend/father/employee, etc’ instead of ‘mother’….The main theme being that you just do not feel worthy to even share the same oxygen as the rest of the people around you…

9. Which brings me to the very scary emotion of fear…Depression can be managed, with the correct medication and possibly therapy, but for many people, it is also very much an ongoing condition, and one that will be better or worse at various times in their lives….There is an element of depression that can make it feel very ‘out-of-your-control’, and at very low points when it seems as though the crushing black clouds of despair have sucked all the life out of you, you can reach a point where you truly wonder if you can handle much more of it….You become afraid that it will never end, the sky will never be blue again, chocolate will never taste delicious again, the corners of your mouth will never lift upwards into a genuine smile ever again…..This place can feel very frightening ~ I have been there myself many times ~ and it can lead to thoughts of suicide…These thoughts can then be very scary in their own right, for the majority of people truly do not wish to end their lives ~ they just dearly wish they could find a way out of the terrible despair they are trapped in….

10. The last thing that I have discovered about depression, which was not told to me from any doctor or counsellor? How incredibly difficult it is to reach out for help when you are feeling so very low, so very confused, so very scared, and more than likely, so very alone….The number of times I have hovered my shaky hand over a phone, so unsure who to ring or even what to say….Sitting on the kitchen floor, crying uncontrollably, barely able to form the words inside my head, let alone speak them out loud ~ too many times to count….But no matter how difficult it always has been, eventually, at some point, I have attempted to ask for help (thank goodness for technology and the invention of text messages!), and this act of reaching out has meant that I received help, and on occasion, it has saved my life…..No matter how badly you may be feeling, you are ALWAYS worthy of help, and ALWAYS worthy of being saved ♥

I may have started this list with a light-hearted point, and ended it with a serious one, but I hope it just goes to show that there are so many varying elements to depression, and much of these things can change from day to day, or even hour to hour…I hope those struggling can take heart that there are many other people who understand out there….And to anyone else, I hope this post might be able to give you an insight into what depression can feel like ‘underneath’ the diagnostic criteria that is often written inside pamphlets on the condition…

I remember feeling very low this day, but smiled anyway ~ as most sufferers do to hide their pain ♥

♥ “That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end.” ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel ♥ 

♥ Chantell xo

Butterflies live in my tummy…. ♥

My ‘lucky charm’ mug ♥

My anxiety is fairly high at the moment….Some days I wake up and instantly feel the lump in my throat, feel myself choking back the nerves, notice my hands are shakier than usual, and feel overwhelmed by the smallest of decisions….”Which mug should I use for my morning cup of tea? Which one might bring me relief, or be my lucky charm to easing this turmoil inside my stomach?” If only it was that easy!

Anxiety is as much a part of me as my curly hair or my short legs…It exudes from me much of the time, no matter how badly I try to hide it…It is a constant, like my shadow ~ the only thing that varies is the intensity from one day or hour to the next…

Today it is not-so-great…I type this with shaky hands and a lump firmly lodged in my throat…I am not breathing fully, only taking little shallow breaths, which is a sign for me ~ I hold my breath when stressed (Contrary to popular belief, not everyone hyperventilates when anxious/panicked…Some can hold their breath, like myself) I am withdrawn, not from a feeling of depression, but due to feeling like my brain is not functioning properly at the moment…I spoke to a shop assistant today and had trouble following the conversation properly ~ not sure of when to speak, or even what to say, so I chose to say very little instead…My level of concentration and cognitions are impaired….

This is what anxiety can be like on a daily basis…The most basic of decisions can seem overwhelming or impossible to make ~ do I clean the bathroom, or wash the car? What is more important? A messy house equals a messy mind for me, so I will tend to tidy the inside more than focusing on the car or garden….But this is also very much about retreating ~ being outside doing those chores means there is a possibility of having to make small talk with the neighbours…As lovely as mine are, when my anxiety is high, this is much harder too…What if I have nothing to say? What if I lose track of the conversation? What if they can tell I’ve been crying or my hands are shaking? All these thoughts and more can instantly make cleaning the bathroom a far more attractive prospect than washing the car ~ it feels ‘safer’…

But, having had the years of intense therapy that I have been fortunate enough to have, I know that anxiety is a monster which only becomes even more fierce the more you feed it…Staying inside becomes the ‘norm’, and any occasion to go out suddenly becomes amplified to epic levels of panic inside your mind…So now the battle inside my head has changed from ‘Which is the safer option?’ to ‘Which option should I be doing to help my anxiety levels decrease?’….

My tiny Worry Doll ~ a gift from a dear friend ♥

Therefore, despite days of high anxiety, I made myself get organized early this morning in order to have no excuse not to attend yoga…Something I have been telling myself I will attend all year, but as many of you will know, avoidance is anxiety’s best friend, and before you know it, we are nearly in June…So today I made myself go, and was fortunate enough to have my best friend there aswell….I felt stupid, I no doubt looked completely incompetent trying to get into the correct poses, and at one point, in an upside-down pose, a rush of panic hit me and I had to climb out of it and felt like an idiot, lying on the mat with tears in my eyes…

But I stayed there…And I continued on with the class..And I even went into town after the class to run a few errands…All these things are tiny improvements, almost impossible to see, unless you knew me years ago….Back then, not only would I just simply not have attended the yoga class, but if I had have been dragged there, I would have run out crying far earlier, and certainly would not have run errands in town afterwards….

I guess what I am trying to show here is that although the anxiety has remained a constant in my life all these years, despite medication, I have still managed to change a little of my mindset about the whole situation, thanks to all the therapy I have had…Instead of constantly hiding at home and being consumed by the anxiety, like a prisoner in my own head, I now try to persevere through it, and get out there anyway….Not always ~ old habits die hard, and it is far more comforting to cocoon myself away ♥ But I also know that this only leads to isolation and depression, which are things I already battle with, and don’t need to worsen…

Something that we all tend to forget too often… ♥

So I may seem ‘incredibly shy’ or ‘so quiet’, as people have said about me in the past, or I may even make a fool of myself at times, running out of things or bursting into tears at inappropriate moments, but I am still trying….Which really, is half the battle…

♥ ‘All too frequently anxiety crushes not only your spirit and your potential, but your ability to take care of your mind and body’ ~ Jonathan Davidson and Henry Dreher ♥

♥ Chantell xo

Finding the courage within me…

Our home entrance…Trying to keep myself positive

When I began this little blog of mine late last year, my aim was to use it as a vehicle for raising awareness about mental health issues, and also for it to be an outlet I could turn to, to try to express the thoughts and feelings inside my head…I was coming from a place of hope ~ hope that, in some small way, I could reach others through my writing, and perhaps help them to feel less alone with their own struggles, or that maybe, by reading my posts and gaining a little insight into what mental illness can feel like, that I may give others around someone struggling a little more understanding and perhaps empathy…

What I didn’t factor into this aim was my own vulnerability and risk of breaking down, and consequently, what little reserves I would have left within myself to share and help others when I was consumed by despair myself…Breaking down is exactly what did happen to me, as some of you may know…I reached a very low point, and after overdosing on medication, ended up in a psychiatric ward as an involuntary patient…I was only in there for a short period, but the climb back up, mentally and emotionally, has been one of the hardest challenges I have had to face yet…

So I guess I just wanted to explain and maybe apologize to those readers who chose to follow my blog just when I disappeared from the virtual world of blogging….Many times I have wanted to write but wasn’t in a good frame of mind, so I chose not to…There can be positives to honestly sharing how difficult bad episodes of depression/anxiety can be, and I know I have taken heart in reading similar words from other bloggers over the years myself, but I wanted to come from a place of positivity….Not denial or ignorance of how emotionally wrecked I have been this year ~ I would be the first person to admit this…But more wanting to be able to express that, no matter how horrible or upsetting some days have been, how close I have come to the edge yet again, I am still fighting to find my way back up….I haven’t quite lost all hope ~ some days it is hidden from sight, and all I can see are the dark gloomy clouds, but a tiny piece of me still holds faith that behind those clouds is the most wonderous sunlight known to man ~ even if I am yet to see it…

I suppose this is what is called blind faith…I am not a religious person, as such, but I am putting all my belief into the thought that recovery is not beyond me…I must be stronger within than I ever truly believe I am…Or else why would I keep fighting?

I hope to begin to find the courage to post more often in this beloved little blog of mine, if only to give a voice to the many, many others out there who suffer in silence with their own mental health issues/illness….There is nothing worse than struggling alone out of fear of being ridiculed or judged…We are all only human in the end, and even if we do not understand what another person is going through, we can still offer our support and compassion…

My four darlings and I, Christmas Day 2012 ~ two days before I ended up in hospital…

♥ “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” ~ Leo Buscaglia ♥

♥ Chantell xo

Building Lego blocks of confidence within you :)

My birthday boy and myself

Sometimes I can get so caught up in worrying about all the things that I CAN’T do, all the huge seemingly insurmountable things like studying or working or even attending a group occasion like a party without shaking like a leaf, that I forget to remind myself of the smaller, maybe less significant, but still important, things that I CAN do…

The majority of this year has been a steep climb back uphill for me, after my rather traumatic breakdown and time spent in hospital after Christmas last year…The small amount of self-esteem I had managed to accrue up to this point very quickly disintegrated with my hospital stay, and was replaced by a huge sense of failure and a resigned ‘uselessness’ feeling deep within me ~ this was going to be my life….One step forward, and then a huge fall right back down again…These ‘episodes’ were something I was just going to have to accept and learn how to cope with, time and time again…

Not much of a future to look forward to, is it? For many people with mental illness, this is their reality…No matter how hard you may try to stay on top of things, whether it be depression, anxiety or another condition, there are times when you will still be struck down by a ‘bad patch’, even if there seems to be no reason for it…You can be compliant with your medications, make sure that you are eating healthily, exercising, sleeping, and attending counselling appointments, and still you may see the black cloud looming upon you…Some of us in society simply have a vulnerability to mental illness more than others…

So where does this leave us? To face another 50+ years of life, not knowing from day to day how the wheel of fortune is going to turn? Knowing that, even despite your best efforts, there is a very high chance that life will get the better of you at times, and you may resort to unhealthy coping methods during this unbearable time of distress, which will therefore lead you to yet another hospitalization?

I have struggled with this alot since I came home from hospital in January…The lack of control over my illness is very upsetting to me, and to know that my children, family and close friends also have no choice but to travel on this journey with me, suffering the consequences along the way, is heartbreaking…As much as I try to hide my struggles from my loved ones, I know there will always be times when I will end up sitting on the kitchen floor, bawling, while my 14yr old daughter calls for help…Or that there will be days when I just cannot pull myself together to take my boys to their soccor games, and they will have to ask others for a lift…

There is much to be said for thinking positively, but there is also much to be gained from being realistic about your own limits and the nature of your illness ~ you, yourself, are the one who understands your condition the best…You know the triggers, you know the symptoms, you know when things are good, and also when things are way down low…If you can begin to accept and acknowledge this insight that you have into your illness, then you can slowly start to take back some of the control over it too…

Minecraft cake

This is where I am at right now I have had to break life down into very small goals, things that others may take for granted, like grocery shopping, but things that can be stressful for me…Small achievements, but enough to be able to bring a smile to my face and a sense of relief that I CAN still achieve some things…I am not as useless as I feel…

One of these goals was to prove to myself that I still had the ability to decorate a cake…This is a hobby of mine, a much-loved passion, but it is also something that falls into the ‘too hard’ basket when I am unwell…Therefore, I have lost alot of confidence in my abilities, and have had to turn many requests away this year, due to the anxiety over it being too high for me to handle…So, knowing this, I chose to start by making a cake for a beautiful young girl who is like a second daughter to me, and I was so focused and determined to see her smile that I was able to let go of the pressure and expectations that I normally would have struggled with…

And it turned out ok I can sit here and criticize my work, and I literally had to make myself step back from the cake, as my perfectionism was threatening to topple my anxiety over, but the most important thing ~ the birthday girl loved it Her family liked it too, and I could give this goal a big tick on my checklist…Small things are sometimes far bigger than we ever give them credit for…

Samsung phone cake

One week later I was able to make a mobile phone cake for my son’s 13th birthday…Had I not had the experience of making Kyra’s cake up my sleeve, I do not think I would have had the confidence to even attempt something as involved as a smartphone cake…But once again, it turned out okay, and gave me another chance to tick off a goal on my checklist…

Only now, after umpteen years of counselling, am I truly understanding the benefits of appreciating the small steps along the way to recovery…I have been so distressed and panicked about the overwhelmingly huge tasks of how to study or work without my anxiety getting the better of me, that I failed to see the very small, but still important, things that I do manage to achieve along the way…These small steps are the building blocks to the confidence slowly growing within you ~ I like to see them as tiny pieces of Lego all connecting to each other…There are not many there inside of me yet, but I am adding tiny pieces after each goal I manage to tick off my list…

For anyone caught in the midst of an anxiety disorder, depression, or any kind of mental health issue, my wish is that this may give you a little hope…No matter how unbearable life may seem at times, no matter how dismal the future may feel looming ahead of you, there is always room for a little bit of hope, and always room within you to start your very own Lego confidence building blocks too

My two teenagers

♥ Chantell xo

The tiniest flicker of hope…

My much-adored bible at the moment… ♥

Do you ever have those weeks where you feel like you are almost a different person by the end of the week compared to at the beginning? No? Must be just me and my weird psycho-analysis of myself then

At the start of this week, I was walking around in a daze, very light-headed, having clocked up eight days without food (well, aside from the very rare apple or muesli bar) ~ you could say I was running on automatic pilot, but it was also a very real sensation of detaching myself from the reality of life stressors around me…I was present, yes, and for all intents and purposes, I would have appeared as ‘normal’ (Oh, how I struggle with that word!) to anyone else…But on the inside, I was escaping from the reality that I could not bare to face…A few innocent remarks from others that I was ‘looking better with a few extra kilos’ on me, and internally, I shut down once again…It does not matter that those comments were actually said to me in a complimentary manner…My mind only processes them as a huge failure and loss of control on my part ~ it is like a thousand little soldiers start racing around in a state of pure panic inside my head ~ “Attention! We have a catastrophe on our hands here! All men armed and ready for battle ASAP!”  Yes, I really am quite eccentric much of the time

Therefore, my minds solution to this ‘dire’ situation is to restrict all intake of food completely ~ there is no ‘cutting back’, or finding the latest diet to test out; it is simply total starvation, no flexibility allowed…There is very little common sense involved ~ hunger pangs are not seen as a warning that the body needs refueling or else it may collapse on the pavement; they are seen as a positive sign that ‘we’ (you know, all those little soldiers!) are on the right track, we are dealing with the problem, and we will have taken back full control (ie lost the weight) in no time…

This pattern will be sustainable for a while; much longer than people may believe, actually…But invariably, something will occur to throw a spanner in the works of this ‘war effort’, whether that be a dinner that cannot be talked out of, or a very real sense that fainting is not too far away; those spots in front of your eyes and the ringing in your ears are telling you this loud and clear…A tiny bit of concern may show itself for a change, not necessarily directed towards yourself (for really, if you truly cared about yourself, you wouldn’t starve to begin with…), but perhaps a niggling worry for your children ~ how worried would they be to see you fall on the floor? And how many nights can you really tell them that you just don’t need dinner as you aren’t feeling well? So therefore, you crack…There is a chink in your armour, a stray bullet has made its way inside you, despite your best defense efforts…You are, in fact, only human after all….

My Gratitude journal which I made this week…♥

Whether that be something as ‘safe’ as an apple, or as ‘dangerous’ as chocolate really depends on your inner strength at that point, how low you are feeling emotionally, or even if you are just half-asleep and it is 2am…(the body will break control out of necessity for sustenance, choosing its time when the brain is the most vulnerable, eg. being half-asleep). I kid you not the number of mornings I have woken up to empty muesli bar wrappers, or worse, by my bedside…The brain is a sneaky machine, working to protect itself regardless of what ‘you’ may want…

So early this week, I found myself at this point ~ self-control broken, in a way that was unbearable to me, and after my unhealthy way of trying to compensate for this, I very nearly pushed my body too far…I ended up crouching on the floor, very scared, very unwell, and yet, also very ‘woken up’ as to the ridiculous way that I have been treating my body…You could say that I had common sense knocked into me when I least expected it, and honestly, I could have ended up back in hospital as a result of my stupidity (the details of which I am reluctant to divulge out of shame)…But I didn’t ~ I pulled myself together by the next day, spoke to my counsellor, increased my medication (as suggested), took things very easy physically, and forced myself to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner from that moment onwards…

To the general public, this may sound like no great feat ~ I mean, “Woo hoo, how very unique of you, Chantell!” I understand it is something that the majority of people do every day, more than likely without even thinking much about it, aside from deciding what exactly to eat, usually being lead by their taste buds more than their need to eat in order to survive…It is as necessary as is breathing, and sometimes just as subconscious, I am sure…For someone with an eating disorder though, eating is the worst thing you can do ~ it is akin to a complete invasion for all those tiny little soldiers running around inside my head; peace is gone and can never be restored again, or so it feels…At every moment before, during and after a meal, there is a huge battle going on inside my head ~ “Stop! That’s too much! Tip some of that out! Oh that’s too fattening! Only eat half of that! Seriously, do you have NO self-control?? What the hell are you doing raising that piece of toast to your mouth?” and on and on and on….All while I could be sitting at the table trying to keep up a conversation with my children, or trying to organize what I need to do for that day…It is incredibly invasive, and completely relentless! It is the demon I am yet to slay, I suppose….

And yet, if the last few days have shown me anything, it is that there is a tiny spark inside of me that is stronger than I ever knew, and that is willing to fight back against this madness…Once upon a time, that spark did not exist, or at least was so invisible that I did not believe it was there…But for the last four days, I have eaten three times a day, have not skipped any meals, have not ‘compensated’ for eating afterwards, have persisted with the anxiety of all those tiny men running riot inside my head,(oh yes, there is alot of them!), and ~ shock, horror ~ have not fallen to pieces on the floor…I am terrified of gaining weight, yes, for reasons that I fail to even understand these days, but I suppose old habits die hard, especially 20 years old ones! I am religiously keeping a tally in my head of what I have eaten, bargaining with myself over what is ‘safe’ to eat and what to avoid…I have no doubt this will forever remain, no matter how much I hopefully manage to overcome this demon of mine..

Myself with my much-loved youngest son… ♥

But, to the complete and utter surprise of myself, I am forcing myself to fight back against it this time, and ~ although I may very well falter, I am certain ~ I am discovering that I may actually be stronger than I have ever given myself credit for…Which is a very ‘Wow’ moment for me…

♥ ”Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark” ~ George Iles ♥

♥ Chantell xo