Discovering meditation.

I've always been a bit skeptical about meditation. I just had this vision in my head of hard-core, new-age hippies sitting round in a circle burning incense sticks and in the lotus position.

I wouldn't even know where to go and get incense sticks, let alone manage to get in to the lotus position without doing some serious ankle damage. (I've tried!)

But what do you know? I've actually been converted..well..maybe not the incense stick bit..yet.

My doctor told me to try it months ago, and I came up with every excuse you can think of to get out of doing it. It just wasn't my thing. But I started to get curious after a close friend told me she meditated every day and the difference it made to her life had changed it for the better.

I still wasn't totally convinced though. I just couldn't picture myself chanting "Ommmm" and inwardly thinking "Hell, my ankles hurt.."

It took a very severe depressive episode a few months ago to make me try it. I got pretty desperate and it was a 'do or die' kind of situation, so this time I decided to 'do'.

Before when I've tried meditation/mindfulness CD's I've just never connected with the voice on the programme and always ended up in hysterical laughter because it was so corny and I gave up pretty quickly.

 

But this time I was advised to try "Headspace - Take 10" - a free app in the app store which means I can access it on the go. I connected with the voice of the man straight away and decided to give it at least a couple of weeks to see if anything would happen.

Almost immediately I started to feel some changes.

It was hard to stop my mind wandering at first and I could let it run for ages before I noticed that it had strayed. Now I'm more aware when I have gone off course and can bring it back to focus sooner. The trouble I have most is trying too hard.

So, what are all these wonderful benefits then?

Before I started I was having constant anxiety about everything. A few days in to the meditations I noticed it dampening down. The chatter in my head was also quietening down. But what made it really curious was I couldn't work out if I was slipping in to a very deep depression as I lose all my feelings and thoughts when this happens, or it was the result of the meditation balancing things out. It was hard to tell and I was rather curious to see what was going to happen with this calming down over time.

Fast forward a few months down the line and I feel a completely different person!

The anxiety and internal chatter are still absent. I feel more balanced and stable which has increased my self confidence which in turn makes me less needy and lonely.

A calmer mind gives me more mental energy and it's easier to concentrate.

I'm more productive, less stressed, less impulsive and I actually feel happy.

I have clarity which I never had before, and any issues I need to sort out come straight to the surface rather than me digging around the murky swamp of my mind not knowing if it is the right thing I'm fishing out.

My relationships with others seem to be much easier and I've had comments that I appear more balanced and calmer.

Some sessions speed by and seem very "easy", while others are frustrating and I can't seem to get in to it at all..part of the meditation journey I guess, and it's during those harder sessions where there is more scope to get to know yourself better.

I try to do it first thing in the morning just after I've woken, but if I sleep in or forget, it can be a struggle to find a space in the day where I will be uninterrupted. 

When things are going especially well in my life, I think "I don't need it today.." and this can turn in to several days, very quickly my mind will begin to chatter again, and back comes the anxiety. Then comes my frustration because I knew this was going to happen and why didn't I just keep doing it all along blah blah blah...

I can't believe what a difference this has made to my life and I'm rather looking forward to where this journey will take me.

I've not discovered any down sides to it yet and there is the added bonus of having that time tucked away in the day knowing that I am taking that time out for "Me".

It's the first time in my life where I feel I can become the person I've always wanted to be. Sometimes I can feel a bit 'defective' as a person because of my mental struggles but this is fading and as I become more balanced it bothers me less. 

It's hard to believe that something so simple can make such a difference. I really wish I'd discovered this years ago. (Thanks Mairi for converting me - I owe you!)

And no! I don't need to get in to the Lotus position to do it.

Kerry.

Eating Disorder recovery. (Part Four).

Afterword..

(It's advisable to read parts one, two and three before you get to this one!)

I'm very fortunate that I did recover from my eating disorders. Of course, there is the whole debate about what recovery actually means. A full recovery? Or maintaining symptoms to achieve a decent quality of life?

For me, it was a full recovery..a thing I never thought I'd see. It was done entirely by me..I had been discharged from the eating disorder clinic four years by that time. They tried many things to crack the disorder, but in the end they gave up. If I didn't know what had triggered my illness and what was driving it, how on earth were they supposed to know how to help me?!

There were many reasons I became anorexic in the first place..buying time..a fear of growing up and responsibility, sex, a job, having a partner, becoming a mother and more. Now I have the majority of these and don't know what I was so scared of..I guess back then I just wasn't ready. 

I now eat food without a second thought as to how much of what is in it. I used to know the calorific content of each slice in every brand of bread stocked by my local supermarket or every type of (diet) yogurts on the shelves, or tomato or banana or...you get the picture! (I was a walking calorie guide in my day!)

You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you that I have no lasting food/weight issues from my illness years. This is true - up to a point. There are a few things which are nothing to do with weight/calories/body shape or disordered eating which I am left with:

The first few months in to my recovery everything was almost psychedelic. Food tasted amazing and I devoured it quickly. 

Now I don't seem to have much of a sense of taste. I don't know if it was the excess of regurgitated acid (or my love of hard-core sour sweets) that caused this deadening of my taste buds but because of this, food is more of a function than a pleasure. 

The other thing is I tend to cut food up in to squares all in one go before I eat it (dunno where that comes from!) It's possibly a control thing but I haven't really thought about it. I just know I do it!

I get very annoyed if people comment on my weight. I know I have no problems now and it just takes me back to those illness years where many people were unbelievably rude. Complete strangers came up to me in the street and felt they had the right to comment on my weight when in normal life it would be unthinkable. I'd rather forget about all that now.

I'm still very unfit compared with most of my contemporaries. I lost a lot of muscle and never regained it. Often I'm fatigued and very frustrated by my limitations but I'm making it a priority this year to get really fit. It's not always easy and my lazy side can get the better of me, but I'm fitter now than I've been for years and I'm enjoying that!

It seems a whole other world away now..It's been nearly six years since I recovered and I'm almost double my lowest body weight (and I still feel too thin). Looking back, I now wonder how I managed at all...

I guess I see the whole mental illness/eating disorder journey as a path to self-knowledge and learning to look after myself and listening to my body..facing my fears, overcoming them, and realising that things are not as scary as I think they are.

If you want to ask any questions about recovery, feel free to get in touch. I'll try my best to answer them if I can!

Kerry x

What, Sorry?

I hate apologising for my hearing impairment. It's usually blurted out after a conversation has got completely out of hand, the person I'm conversing with staring at me with an expression of horror wondering if I haven't quite lost it..

Then when it seems as if the ground will never open up and swallow me, I manage to splutter out those words, "I'm sorry but I'm deaf".

It never fails to amuse me the reactions of some people when I tell them I have quite a significant hearing impairment...

"But you're so young".. (I'm 35, but thanks for the compliment anyway!) "Really?? You would never be able to tell".. (How would you?), and my personal favourite, "But you hear me okay..are you sure it's not just selective deafness?".. (No, my audiogram will tell you otherwise!)

Y'see..people sound different from each other. It very much depends on the pitch of the voice..how loud they are, how fast they are, how clear they are, how busy it is, their accent and whether or not they are having a latte 'to go' from Starbucks which gets in the way of valuable lipreading!

I've been deaf since I was a baby..nerve damage or something like that. I've never known anything else. I think I manage pretty well, but it has got me in to trouble occasionally.

I find elderly gentlemen almost impossible to decipher which I found out to my cost (and everyone else's amusement) when I did a stint at the care home up the road.

Mannie: Hi Kerry, how are you today?
Me: Och fine..yourself?
Mannie: The usual... How old are you?
Me: 31
Mannie: Are you married?
Me: Och aye.. (I was single at the time)
Mannie: How long?
Me: Oh, a while..
Him: Do you have children?
Me: Yeah. (Er no!)
Him: How many?
Me: Oh..I don't really know...

By this time the staff were collapsing with hysterical laughter..- What was so funny about that?

Oh dear. And I thought he was talking about the weather..as most people in Scotland tend to do - always a safe topic of conversation which doesn't need any more than a few nods and 'Aye's' here and there!

The thing is..I couldn't hear a bloody word he said after his first 2 questions. I was using my fund of general answers that I use in situations like this. Normally nobody has any clue that I'm faking it and usually it works out okay! I was mortified when I was told afterwards what he had been asking. He probably thought I was weird..or didn't care very much for my 'children'! I avoided him after that.