My Genetics: Who I am Because of My Family

This post ties in with one of previous posts on whether nature, nurture or a mix most impacts on mental health.

It led to me wonder about my own genetics, and how they have influenced who I am, and also why I am so severely mentally ill.

So this is a personal post: so personal in fact it is about my actual personality, and my close family.

So I’ll start with my grandparents:

I only have one pair of grandparents as my other pair (paternal side) died when my dad was around 14. But the grandparents that I do have are people I am very close to and live just down the road from me, well within walking distance.

From my nan, June who is very self-confident, but less so now that she has osteoporosis. She can also be really caring and giving too, but it can often feel as if she is buying your affection as she is often nasty and grumpy indirectly because of her pain. She talks about diets far too often, even though she is slightly overweight and idolised me when I was skeletally thin. And she completely doesn’t understand mental illness, perhaps because she is from the wrong generation: but that can be very triggering. From her I believe I got:

• My resilience.
• My confidence (that fluctuates in social situations, going from panic attacks, to introducing myself to strangers in order to help them with something).
• And the physicality of my little feet hehe.

From my grandad (Fad), Lawrence, the kindest, most selfless person I have ever met, ever, and likely ever will meet. He is just a darling and I love him with my complete heart. I got:

• My super caring nature.
• My love of animals.
• Perhaps a factor in my anxiety as he has started to develop this now that he is getting older, and was diagnosed with depression recently after a tough time with my nan (who often puts him down in quite an abusive way even though she loves him).
• My ability to see the bright side of situations.

From my mam, Gillian, my beautiful mother who I argued with far too often, and who doesn’t understand mental illness so she often says the wrong things, but is devastated when she does. We are very close, but she can be very vicious, thinking that I created my mental illnesses myself. She has dyslexia, so never leaves the house on her own in case she has to write something down in a shop etc. which can be sad as she has no friends and is very withdrawn even though she is a really friendly and cheery person. From her I got:

• More of my anxiety, in social situations as well as in general: fretting too often.
• My hair colour.
• Being naturally thin when I was younger and growing.
• More of my caring, friendly nature as she also got this from my grandad, but me even more so.

And from my dad, Michael, who can get so frustrated and quick tempered at things but never means to. My mental illnesses cause him a lot of pain and he has said some horrible things, even calling me a monster when he thought I was in bed. Man, that hurt like a stab wound.

• My eyes: me and my dad are the only people in my entire extended family with brown eyes.
• My sense of humour.
• More of my confidence as he pushes me out of my comfort zone often and gets really proud of me, which is a reward for both of us.

So there you go: and if you read this thankyou and I’m sorry I wasted your time hehe.

The point is that I wouldn’t be who I am today without my family. I have my own charaecteristics, granted, and that is what makes me unique: but I have so much from my ancestors that if I get depressed and begin to loathe my being, it means that I am loathing my family too and I couldn’t do that.

Think about how this relates to yourself. I’d love to hear about you.

Society’s Cancerous Modelling

(I’ll warn you now: this will get heated. It is something I completely detest and something that often makes me feel sick as I stare at my own body picking out imagined flaws. Also, it’s only right to put a trigger warning on this post if you suffer from an eating disorder, but I am trying to fight the wrong views, not encourage or promote them.)

Flick through any women’s or fashion magazine and you will be confronted with skeletally thin models; staring through vacant eyes, starved of any nutrients that they need to fuel their body. Women teeter down the catwalks, broadcasting to the world the problems and insecurities that either they or the modelling company have with the normal, healthy frame. Audiences gasp as ghosts pass them by; fabric draping over them and engulfing their fragile bodies. Cheekbones. Chest-bones. Thigh gaps. All things that are naturally covered in a healthy amount of fat on the average female body, shown to be abnormal on the disillusioned catwalks.

It is the same also for men, of course. The toned abs and protruding muscles on ghastly thin arms; tans sprayed onto manufactured men. The haircuts that change every week. The pressure of tattooing. Pressure after pressure. They are designed and shaped like dolls.

When I was writing my English Language coursework last year on how mental illness is wrongly portrayed, I came across a link that I sadly can’t find again and have quoted parts from it (making my own edits to the wording so I wasn’t being a huge copy) below. The writer of the article wrote incredibly well and in perhaps a very similar style to my own writing. I’d love to tell you (without bragging in any way as English is my number one subject and the thing that I dedicate myself to), that I received full marks for that work, without any editing: I threw myself so much into my fury at the disgusting reality.

Kirstie Clements showed the true extent and horror of this industry when she released her memoir The Vogue Factor.

“You know how you read interviews where models insist that they eat a lot? Not true,” says Kirstie Clements, who edited Vogue Australia for 13 years. “The only way they can get that thin is to stop eating. They eat tissue paper to stave off the hunger pangs – literally ball it up and eat it.”

Perhaps the most sickening part of this claim is that it is not the most shocking.

Clements lifts the lid on the existence of “fit” models, the women used to check the fit of clothes who are expected to be even thinner than the catwalk variety. “Fit” in this instance means just the opposite, as Clements discovered when she asked a top model how she was getting on with her flatmate. “Oh, it’s fine,” was the insouciant reply, “she’s a fit model so she is mostly in hospital on a drip.”

Am I the only one wincing at this statement?

Eating disorders are certainly not diagnosed simply through appearance (although it does occur a lot, even in the medical profession… For another post I’m sure). It is impossible to say if these girls are sick or starving. This may well be their body shape and genetics: but even so, is this the ideal we should be promoting even if it is natural? I will no doubt be scolded for skinny shaming here (as I already have been in the past): and to be honest I may well be. Even if you are naturally thin I believe you should aim to be healthier, and even to gain weight. It is all about finding your healthy. I’m not forcing, or demeaning or bullying: I am only finding my own way, being forced to gain weight in a society trying to lose it, and I just wish others to find this added health too and to nurture themselves.

Women’s bodies come is a whole range of shapes and sizes: as any of the cliché quotes will tell you, but it is scientifically true.

But just like it’s possible to visually distinguish between someone who is slightly and morbidly overweight, so too you can see when a model appears worryingly thin. Nobody but the model and possibly her doctor is able to determine how healthy she is, certainly not a biased agent, receiving commission for every glossy shot they manufacture; for every runway their models stagger down. The agents in this industry are bullies. They are abusive, creating unrealistic ideals for the models that they seem to own. Having so much control over someone that you determine what and whether they eat in order to mold them into your “perfect picture”… Really?

Who created this vulgar world of promoting being dangerously thin and encouraging disordered eating?

Victoria’s Secret are whom I personally find to be one of the most shocking. They show countless women with underweight BMI’s wearing only their design-labelled underwear and label them with “The Perfect Body.” The public only see their frames. Their plastered on smiles. What about the countless hours exercising? The foods they have permanently cut from their diets in order to “eat clean”. We spend hours online: watching them doing their exercises; then the fitness blogs and youtubers copying and creating their own versions of their exercises. We idolise their fit bodies, that are so far from it, it would be laughable if it were not such a deadly serious concern.

The following links directly to this. It’s all too easy to strive to be just like a model; but how is it possible? All too often even the model’s themselves don’t look like the versions of themselves in the photographs: which can be both a blessing and a curse. Photo-shopping. Highlighting. Toning. Shading. Priming. The endless time spent making these women into something fake and “perfect.” Something that women and teenagers will never, ever achieve; even with years of starving and exercising, and perhaps even developing an eating disorder in the process.

Can’t we be allowed to be ourselves? This post is simply focusing on one tiny part of the modelling industry. I don’t even need to mention all of the other parts to this industry: in the glossy magazine adverts, to the posters plastered on the outside of buildings. To the gossip magazines focusing every single week about a new diet, a new fad, a new exercise, another celebrity’s flaw or “perfection”.

Our bodies change. Our weight naturally fluctuates. We all have our own frames and metabolisms and genetics. We are all our own size through these genetics or our environmental factors.

This is normal.

This is the normal that we need to portray. This is the normal that is so often taped over by a new, malnourished model that we are brainwashed into being. This is not safe and this is not possible.

Your body is beautiful. This is not cheesy or cliché. This is the truth that needs to be said an unlimited amount of times more. We all have our own, unique beauty: perks and indeed flaws. But that is what distinguished us from the plastic Barbie dolls: this is what makes us human.