Distraction is The Name of The Game

Hey there lovely people.

When you feel the urge to do something destructive, what do you do to fight it? Do you read a book? Knit something or crochet? Do you message someone on Facebook and have a good ol' catch up? Maybe you bake! I personally try to take a nap or watch something on my computer. 

All these things have one thing in common: They are distraction techniques. And I know that when I'm going the right way for a slip, that distraction can help to ease the urge until it passes. 

Here are some ways to distract yourself:

1. Read a book
2. Draw something
3. Play solitaire 
4. Text a friend 
5. Walk the dog
6. Play with your cats 
7. Clean your room
8. Do the ironing (your mum or dad will be delighted)
9. Start a vegetable patch
10. Bake a cake, 
11. Learn a new language, 
12. Take a hot bath with candles and bath salts
13. Cook a nice dinner
14. Look up funny pictures on Pinterest
15. Download a movie and watch it
16. Go shopping with a friend
17. Spend time with your family. 
18. Dance
19. Sing as loud as you can. 

If you want to write a piece for us, please feel free to mail us (all details are on our contact page) or if you have a Reader Story dont hesitate to submit it! 

Fight the Fear, 

Amy 

xox

Eating Disorders ~ Bulimia.

Hi Guys!

This weeks post is about Bulimia. I am writing this from a psychological theory perspective and my experience.

An eating disorder is defined in the APA as abnormal eating habits that threaten your health or even your life which include Anorexia, Bulimia and BED (Binge Eating Disorder). At the heart of Bulimia there is an intense fear of gaining weight and a pursuit of thinness which can sometimes be deadly. 

Bulimia Nervosa is characterized by binge eating and efforts to prevent weight gain such as self-induced vomiting, excessive exercising and many more.  To be diagnosed with bulimia the individual must have recurrent episodes of binge eating and efforts to compensate for it, along with being influenced by body weight and body shape. The average binge would consist of over 4,800 calories. 

There are two main sub-types of bulimia: 

1. Purging Sub-Type ~ compensates for a binge with efforts to expel the food from their body.
2. Non-Purging Sub-Type ~ Compensate with excessive exercising and fasting.

Purging sub-type bulimia accounts for about 80% of reported bulimia cases.

The individual is usually of a normal weight or even over weight, however if they reach the criteria for binge eating anorexia they could be diagnosed with this as there is a greater mortality risk involved. The average onset for bulimia is 20 to 24 years old with a life time prevalence of 1% to 3% and a rate of one male to every ten females with an eating disorder.

Bulimia can lead to electrolyte imbalance, low potassium, damage to hands, throat and teeth due to purging, heart abnormalities and damage to heart muscle.

This is considered a modern disorder and children as young as 7 have been known to develop eating disorders. It is debated as to if bulimia and anorexia should be classed as different disorders as may who meet the criteria for bulimia have previously been diagnosed with anorexia. 

Eating disorders are commonly associated with with other disorders as 63% of individuals are diagnosed with depression along with occurrences of OCD, substance abuse, BPD (bi-polar disorder) and in more than 33% of reported cases the individual has engaged in some kind of self harming behavior. 

There is no one cause of an eating disorder and it is thought that it could be a result of biological, sociocultural, family and individual variables. 

Now you have the facts this is my experience with bulimia.

An eating disorder is never something you get over, it gets better but it doesn't just disappear. In the past six years of being diagnosed with bulimia I have gone through hard times. It had gotten to the stage where I was okay with eating and feeling good about it but there were times where I could not take the pressure of college or school and it got bad again. I just had to keep fighting it.

There were times that I could not bring myself to eat in front of others. We would be sat at college and we would all go for lunch but I would not eat because I knew if I did, I would have to purge and someone would find out. It was not until after we had our first discussion about eating disorders that a friend found me out. She didn't treat me any different and she didn't pressure me to eat either. She would ask me if I felt up to it today to try and encourage me to eat but if I said no she would not force me to eat. But most importantly she didn't tell anyone, she kept my secret and that was the best thing she could do for me. 

There was times where I was going over 24 hours with one meal and I was throwing that up as fast as I could. I would pass out because I would be that dizzy and at times I would not be able to see properly when I had finished getting every last bit of food out of me. I hated myself and always felt like I was not good enough or worthy in a way. Now I am able to eat a meal without feeling horrible, I am able to go out to dinner with my boyfriend and feel good about it. Yeah the feelings of wanting to purge are there but I fight them back because I know that nothing matters aslong as the people who love me are around me. I fight the feelings and urges because I know I am stronger than any urge can be.

Just remember that no matter what you are stronger than any urge will ever be!

If you would like any more information or need to talk about anything please remember that we are here to talk to you and help you. If you would like to know anything more about this topic tweet us, comment or e-mail us and we will help as well as we can.

Kayliegh

xox

Siobháns Story

Trigger Warning: Contains talk of Self-Harm and Suicide which some may find triggering.

Mental health, we all have it yet we refuse to accept that we have it. Many of us may live our life without experiencing a mental illness while many of us may experience a mental illness. Those of us who are unfortunate enough to experience a mental illness such as depression or bi-polar tend to hide our illness and in turn let it consume us until we can no longer go on with our lives. We hide our feelings, thoughts, emotions and mental illness because of the stigma which is present in the society we live in today. The stigma associated with mental health is strong despite the work being done by a number of different organisations world wide to reduce this stigma. People fear talking about mental health or their experiences with ill mental health as they fear they will be looked down on by society and seen as an outcast.

Well my experience with poor mental health began when I was 13. I had just started secondary school and was struggling with fitting in, making friends and the typical things a teenage girl would struggle with, I however also had to no female role model to turn too and my dad was like an alien to me, we didn't talk, we didn't communicate, we saw each other in the house and that was it. As the weeks went on I became more isolated, lonely and just plain sad. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know who to turn to and so I just kept all my feelings and emotions bottled up inside me. Although nearing the end of my first yea in secondary school I did receive some help from my school chaplain I did not benefit due to my unwillingness to co-operate. I refused to co-operate because I was scared, worried and self-conscious. I would ask myself what will people think of me if they find out? What will the teachers say? How will I ever make friends now? I like many young teenage girls kept these feelings bottled up inside and never spoke to anyone about it despite numerous efforts made by my family to get me to open up.

I went on living like this up until two days before my junior cert was due to begin. The feelings I had inside me kept building up and up and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I was confused, I couldn't stop my thoughts from racing and I just felt lost in a world that didn't want me. Three years (there a bouts) had gone by and I wasn't feeling any better, I was only spiralling deeper and deeper in a dark place and I could stop it from happening. One day it all change, one day I decided to do something about it.

Sitting alone in my bedroom I had just finished writing my note, what I hoped to be my final note. I wrote it a thousand times to make it perfect, I couldn't give my family anything less than perfect. I placed it under my pillow; I knew they would look under my pillow eventually. I grabbed a towel from the hot press and went back into my room. Shutting the door slowly trying not to make any noise. I didn't want anything to ruin my plan, I couldn't let anybody come into my room, I had put too much planning into this for something to go wrong, it all had to be perfect.

I sat on my bed, my legs crossed and glancing out the window I took a deep breath, I was ready. After spending the day with my brother and dad I was ready, I was ready to take my own life. I took the piece of glass I had been saving for some time, hidden in my room in the remaining part of the jar. I slowly but carefully ran to glass over my arm.  a feeling of relief came over me; it was like I was able to breath. This wasn't what I wanted though, I wanted to die.  I felt alive, I was trying to commit suicide and yet I felt alive, I hadn't felt that alive in weeks.

Six cuts down my arm I freaked out. It was like I suddenly became aware of what I was doing. Did I really want to die? What had I just done? I was bleeding and I couldn't get it to stop. I panicked, suddenly I didn't want to die anymore, I called down to my dad. He came up the stars slowly but surely to find me frantically pacing on the landing, the only words I could manage "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I did something stupid I'm sorry"

It was like I had suddenly woken up and everything was a dream, that's how it felt but it was all a very true reality. Within in seconds my dad had me sitting down and he was applying pressure to my cuts. Paul was racing up the stairs with the first aid kit all while I was crying and constantly saying sorry. I wasn't really aware what was going on around me after that. With a bit of persuasion I was taken to the hospital, I refused to go in the beginning but in reality I had no choice, I was going to the hospital willing or forcibly.

After arriving at the hospital things happened very fast. There was no waiting around to be seen, I was brought to a room so me and my dad could have some time together in private. That’s just what I needed, to be left in a room on my own with a man who was worried and angry. What was I meant to say to him, I couldn't explain what I had done the reality of it was that I didn't know why I wanted to die. I just couldn't cope anymore and unless you haven’t been in that situation before you don’t understand. I didn't want to die I just wanted a way out. I didn't know what else to do and there was no chance that my dad would have understood that. It was agreed that I would be admitted to the hospital so that the next day I could see my psychologist and a psychiatrist. They also wanted to make sure that I was safe but to be honest in my mind I had a million other plans of things that I could do to hurt myself. I had so many ideas and I had planned to carry them out, I didn't realise though that the doctors and nurses were not going to leave me on my own. 

I was brought to the ward and shown my room. Once settled into my bed my dad left, needless to say we weren’t really on talking terms. I was tired and I was annoyed, my plan hadn’t worked. To make things even worse as well I was being watched. There was a nurse sitting by my bed and she was not going to be going away any time soon.This all happened only a few days before the junior cert. I didn’t realise though that I would be starting my junior cert in the hospital. With a nurse with me 24/7 I couldn’t do anything.  

This suicide attempt was my way of looking for help, I know now though that it was indeed the wrong way of looking for help. I was given the help and support that I needed although deep inside me I wasn't ready to get help, I wasn't ready to begin the road to recovery and once again I didn't co-operate and I let myself fall deep into depression and things only began to get worse for me. Once again I kept all my thoughts, feelings and emotions all bottled inside me and at the age of fifteen I became a "cutter". It began with a cut or two every now and again, just enough to draw blood but that soon changed, soon I had become addicted. My life was centered around when I would get my next "fix", I was an addict and cutting was my drug. My self-harm escalated, I became closed off and isolated, I was slowly but surely killing myself but no body knew, nobody knew because I didn't let anybody know.

Somewhere deep inside me I found a spark of strength, with this spark of strength I found the courage to ask for help, I was ready to begin to get help. I didn't like the person I had become as a result of my self-harm and so I reached out. I approached my year-head at the time, Mrs L. We talked, we worked together and this was the beginning of my long and hard road to recovery. Although I had finally taken the first step and asked for help my self-harm persisted and I learned that there was no quick fix. I began seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist. I was placed on medication and when things did not improve after about a year I was admitted into an adolescent unit to get the help I so desperately need. 

It was here when I was put on a new medication to treat my depression, anxiety and OCD. It was here where I began to have a relationship with my dad, it was here where I met some amazing and inspirational people and it was here that I began to gain control over my self harm and become the Siobhán I once was!  It was hard and it was long but I made it out the other end, I  got discharged, I gained control over my illness and my addiction and I began to be happy again.

I have had many suicide attempts, years of self-harm, scars all over my body but it is because of this I have chosen to speak out about my experiences. I was in a dark and isolated place and at the age of 13 the world is a scary place but with added feelings of loneliness and isolation it becomes even scarier. I have chosen to share my experiences not to look for sympathy or pity but to show people it is okay to talk and to try and help prevent people from going down the same dark road I once did. I didn't talk to my family or my friends and I thought I didn't want help but in fact I did. There is always a reason to live no matter what you might think- I am happy that I am alive and I am happy that I can share my story in the hopes that somebody will read this and realise that there is always a reason to live. Things such as the love an animal has for you, your family, your friends, sports, things you love to do, everything that makes you who you are is your reason to live. At the time I felt there was no way out but I was wrong, there is always a way out. You may feel that there is no help around or that nobody cares about you but that is not true, there is help and people do care about you. There is always a reason to live and don't ever forget that!

Finally in the words of young Donal Walsh-  "Suicide is a permanent solution to your temporary pain"

Siobhán

xx

Kaylieghs Story

Trigger Warning:

Contains information about self-injurious behaviour and eating disorders which some readers may find triggering. 

"Strength means recognizing that is is impossible to be strong all the time" ~ Sally Franser

Okay, so this is a little hard to write, I thought I had locked all of this away in a box and put it all in the past. However, the past never stays in the past, does it? But I can't deny my past as it has made me who I am today, I guess that in some way I am thankful to all the crappy things I went through because if I didn't go through them I may have taken a very different path.

So I am Kayliegh and I am 22 and I didn't really have the easiest teenage years to say the least (I feel like I am standing up at an AA meeting or something) and since I was 16 I have been a cutter. I have never said those words like that before it's weird as I never put myself into a category I would always make excuses for my actions but now I realize I was just kidding myself.  

"People have no idea how long something they say can stay in ones mind".

I was never one of the popular kids, I wasn't one of the smart people, I didn't fit into any group so I would bury myself into school work to try and bring up my grades and I started to get smarter. That didn't help as then I was bullied for being to smart then I decided to dumb myself down to try and stop the name calling. I didn't have many friends I had a few people who I though were my friends but they were not really, I learned that the hard way. Then I felt isolated and I didn't know it at the time but I was sinking into depression. I started to feel more lonely and that loneliness was getting worse by the day so I started to hurt myself. For some reason hurting myself made the lonely feelings better and more bearable. I went on doing this for about a year and slowly I became addicted to it, I needed to it get through the day. One night I was on first aid duty at a football match with some true friends and I passed out and they took me to the hospital and this is where my secret was revealed. At this point I was 17 and I was forced to go to see a counselor and I was diagnosed with depression, social anxiety disorder and participating in self-injurious behavior. So once a week I would sit in a room with a woman I didn't know and I was expected to tell her everything I was thinking, it was hard but I slowly opened up. Later in my sessions I was diagnosed with bulimia. The think about bulimia is that you don't have to be dangerously thin to be diagnosed and that's why for me it was the perfect alternative to cutting myself because in a way I was still hurting myself. 

Through counseling I started to feel better about myself and I managed to stop. I continued the counseling through my final year in secondary school because I was terrified that with the pressure I would be under that I would start doing it again. I continued it and I made it through the year without hurting myself.

"One day can change everything......"

When I went to college all this changed.........

College is a totally different world to secondary school, new people, new city, new life and a new me..... or so I thought. Even though I made some amazing friends I still felt so isolated and I could feel myself slipping again. Slowly the urges I had felt for the past two years to hurt were getting stronger and stronger and one day I slipped up and that was it. It started to creep back into my life. It started out as one cut every few days, but it became two every day and then more and more to where I couldn't get through one lecture a day without cutting myself and my eating had gotten bad again to the point where I was eating once a day but throwing that up when I would go for a shower. I was back in the dark place I thought I had left behind forever.

"Sometimes all we can do is cry...."

One night I broke and I could no longer keep up the facade and I told my best friend Chris. He was shocked that I had kept this from him when eight months previous to this we were together, I have never been able to figure out why I could tell him but no one else. I was only in my first year of my psychology degree and I didn't want to live anymore, the pressure was just to immense and I didn't know how to handle it and I didn't want to tell my parents as they thought I was better and I didn't want to put them through what they went through when they found out the first time. I was shocked by something Chris did, he never gave up on me. He would sit up until all hours of the morning taking to me and telling me everything would be okay. He pushed me and pushed me to help me get better and be the person that he knew! He knew that I could get better even when I didn't know it, he had faith when I didn't have anything to hold onto. 

"There is always one way out of hell, and that is through it"~ Winston Churchill

The hardest day during this time was the day I gave up my blades to Chris, but I hit rock bottom when I walked over an hour to his house to get them back. However, when I had them I did not feel any of the comfort I used to when I had them. I could never leave the house without at least one blade, they were like a comfort blanket to me bit this time I felt nothing but contempt for them. They changed me, they took away the spark that I had and they hacked that spark into little pieces and changed me into someone I didn't recognize in the slightest. I knew things had to change and that was the moment that I knew that I wanted to get better for me. That was the day that I really knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life..... I wanted to clean up and become a counselor, I wanted to help people who went through crappy things in their life. I wanted to help people who thought that their life was not worth living anymore. 

So that's what I did I sorted myself out with the help of Chris. I am not saying that everything is great now, those urges never go away when I am down or sad or feel like I am not good enough I feel like I want to hurt but I fight those urges and say 'no' I am not going back there because getting to the place where I don't do it everyday took a lot of work and commitment and nights up crying and distracting myself but for the past two years I have been totally clean.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger......."

They say you need life experience to be a counselor, I think between deaths, family members just getting up and leaving, being bullied because I was half English living in Ireland, people stabbing me in the back at every turn, building my walls to keep people out, not trusting guys, depression, anxiety, self-harm and coming out the other end of it, I think I have been through enough.

I have proved a lot of people wrong by getting to the place I am in right now. I have been to hell and back and I'm still standing and I have the scars to prove it. For so long I was ashamed of my scars and my past and I hid myself and would never wear anything that would run the chance of people seeing them but now I don't care, I don't care who sees them now. As weird as it sounds I wear them with some pride, they show that I have been trough a tough dark time in my life but I am proof that there is a way out of it. 

I have some amazing friends now that don't judge me for this and they are partly the reason I am still here. They will never know how much I value them and how much I am in debt to them for saving me and at times they quiet literally saved my life. I don't think Chris knows how much I love him for saving me and believing in me when so many others would have walked away and I can never thank him enough for it and Amy too. Even when Amy and I didn't really know each other she still let him help me and she helped too. Even when me and chris fought she pushed us to talk and she knows when she did this and I thank her for that because if she didn't that could have been the end of our friendship. And I have an amazing boyfriend that helps me and looks past all my mistakes and all of my past and loves me for me and loves all of me when alot of people would not be able to. So thank you guys for believing in me because sometimes people need someone to believe in them before they can believe in themselves.

"Scars are like battle wounds, beautiful in way. They show what you've been through and how strong you are for coming out of it" ~ Demi Lovato

Mental health is not really addressed, there is this ridicules stigma with it, like it is a taboo or something! There is not nearly enough emphasis on it as there is with other problems, and that sickens me! Due to this stupid stigma I was afraid to write and publish this but I think it is about time more people stood up and started telling their story. 

So this is me telling mine and if it will encourage one person out there to tell their story and that their life is worth living then I have done my job.

Always remember in the dark of night, even when you can't see them, the stars are still there.......

Stay strong my lovelies

Kayliegh

xox