PLEASE Support my Petition: “Improve CAMHS services in Cumbria, especially surrounding eating disorders.”

Hello!

I’ve kept this petition on the down low until I knew that it was fully up and running and agreed by the authorities that allow these kinds of things to be published. Until NOW.

(As a little foreword, I had to email this petition to 5 people and have them support it to first get it up and running and I finally have those 5 supporters now. This now means it will be checked and verified and then published officially, giving me 6 months to collect 10,000 signatures in order for it to be reviewed by the government/parliament.)

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/162797

I have wanted to make this petition for so long but have always too anxious to; convincing myself that I was an attention seeker BUT even if that was true, which as much as I may try to convince myself, it really is not, this action will help so so many other sufferer’s lives in our county in the years to come.

This is something I feel very passionate about as it is something very close to my heart and has been a part of my life for around 5 years now. I am learning not to be ashamed of the fact that: I have Anorexia Nervosa. I have had for 5 years of my 17 year-long life now already. I also have multiple other mental illnesses that have made my life immensely difficult in the past and still do despite being in active recovery.

I am soon to be discharged from my second stay in a specialist eating disorder inpatient unit. I have spent a total of a year of my life (or more) in this very unit.

It is 120 miles away from my home.

That is a minimum of a 2 and half hour -journey ONE WAY.

This is the closest one to me as there is zero specialist eating disorder treatment within the entire county, with an area of 4206 miles squared.

 

I want to make it clear that this is not a vendetta against a particular individual. Nor am I saying that this is the services’ fault; this really is through lack of funding and trained individuals working within the service in this county. It is not even a direct action for myself and my own care as I will soon be transitioning into adult services which begin at the age of 18. But this has gone on long enough. It has effected far too many people already and it will only continue to happen in the future if direct action like this isn’t taken.

In my own experience of the CAMHS services, that despite being incredibly grateful for a lot of the direct support that I have received in understanding myself and my illnesses, there is still a long way to go and a lot of failings, not caused by any one individual, but rather a general lack of resources and funding. Mental illnesses are allowed to get out of hand before proper intervention is taken. Personally, I was allowed to destroy myself and my body, despite constantly telling the services and originally actively seeking support, not just once but twice. I was allowed to deteriorate to below my dangerously underweight lowest before I was finally referred to inpatient services. This was at least a wait of 6 months, if not much, much longer. Many sufferers are not able to actively seek support this way and intervention must be taken so much sooner to stop this from happening, especially surrounding eating disorders.

In my own experience, every single person that I have met in my inpatient centre in Middlesborough, has been struggling so drastically that they were not physically able to or allowed to walk. They were in a wheelchair, even to get to their bedroom down the short corridor. Why must we as sufferers from such a horribly common mental illness, have to physically deteriorate ourselves at all to be taken seriously, never mind to such a dangerous degree?

 

This has to change.

We recently received a letter telling of a grant of money being given to Cumbria to increase eating disorder services which I am immensely grateful for. I can only hope that this goes ahead and services do improve. I guess I’m just a desperate and scared teenage girl trying to make even the slightest difference.

 

Soooooo:

Here is the link to my petition below and I can only ask you to take a couple of minutes out of your day to make such an incredible difference.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/162797

 

 

My Torture Became My Remedy

I have just read this blog post and in writing my comment, I really delved deep into myself and I ask that you take time to read it and do this yourself! I’ve included my comment below too, but obviously read that after the original post.

This is so inspiring! Honestly, I have felt so alone in this: almost ashamed of the fact that Anorexia has consumed me and my identity. I have had Anorexia for so long (despite only being almost 17 now), and so severely that I physically cannot remember what life was like before this. It has become my normal as you worded so well.
But we need to recognise that there is so much more to us than this. I’m trying to think as I type this about what I am. I am a daughter, I am training to be a psychologist (to give back the amazing support I have received and save other tortured souls), I am caring, I am artistic, I am worthy of so much more than this. My head is giving me such a hard time for typing this and thinking of something other than the endless calories and numbers and fears and rituals.
But just as I am more than this, you are too!
YOU ARE MEANT TO BE HAPPY.

One of the hardest parts about recovering from an eating disorder is trying to remember who you were before the eating disorder took over your life. Is it physically hard to eat? Absolutely. Is it mentally hard to eat? Yes. Is it hard to accept my body for what it is and accept myself for […]

via My Torture Became My Remedy — LIFE IN RECOVERY

“Oh, I Had That Too”: Mental Illnesses

I want to start this with an apology, really on the state of my writing recently. I must hold myself back from constantly apologising, because it’s one of my deep set compulsions stemming from countless core beliefs and therapy is constantly telling me “STOP” (insert little hand up emoji here because it would be very fitting). But I do believe this is called for and justified: my mind is so hazy, so confused and flustered, that I just really can’t focus. I worry that I make no sense, and my sentences take so so long to form as they should. There’s something time consuming and poetic about venting here and writing, but I really need to admit that it takes so much out of me. That I have been wanting to do an update on my Instagram for weeks but just seriously don’t have the energy from failing to fuel my body. I have wanted to write this post for months, but I stare at my laptop with the screen closed firmly, mocking me with its dusted, black emptiness where there should be a projection. (I cannot even open it to play the Sims 3, and you know that’s serious.)

Moving on, if you are still reading, I’m going to go into one of my faaaavourite sayings *sarcasm overload and spontaneous combustion* “Oh, you have *insert major and severe mental illness here*? I had that for a few days/weeks too.”

But did you??? Ok, then. Just, okayyyyyy then.

It’s been happening a lot around me in college, (but now thankfully the main person is not in the class, which frankly means I am completely alone again) but of course it happens ALL the time in society and even on the television this very morning.

It makes my blood boil inside.

Or even, rather, it just makes me fall deeper into my own actual, clinical and highly medicated depression (…and anxiety and severe Anorexia and self-harm to cope with that). Because I know as a scientific and medical FACT that you didn’t.

You had depression for a few days then voluntarily pulled yourself out of it? Allow me to correct you, and it’s going to be blunt: you were slightly sad and you got over it because it was trivial and it didn’t matter and you didn’t have a chemical imbalance in the very structure of your brain.

You had an eating disorder for a few weeks and then just got better and never bothered about food or calories again. As you sit there with your Lucozade and chocolate bar as a snack. (I mean I can’t even go there with this one because I have just gone through way too much and there are people in my college who are my “friends” saying bullshit like this while I am teetering on the edge of a second inpatient admission with my health deteriorating daily, having full, screaming, clawing mental breakdowns at night. And if that makes me selfish so be it, I need to let that slide, because I’m on the brink of tears, or rather full panic attack already. Hmm, Anorexia, you are so poetic and beautiful.)

*takes a few days break from the writing process, and comes back after even more breakdowns (again, how beautiful, “I wish I had Anorexia”)*

You tell me you had anxiety, you used to panic. But were you trembling all over at something so seemingly trivial it made you sick with embarrassment and even more pain? You were dizzy, hyperventilating, feeling so close to passing out as your heart fluttered or palpitated in your aching, convulsing chest? That’s so great you just turned those off! I WISH I COULD.

You had a bit of OCD? Well that’s so fantastic that you just got over your “fear of germs” or you stopped ordering the crayons into the colour of the rainbow. How strong of you.

 

I’m so glad that you decided to just flip that switch and decide not to have a life-consuming mental illness.

Or how about, I AM REALLY NOT.

Because none of you had a chemical imbalance, or mental disease/disorder for a few days. For one nervous moment before something completely rational like a test. For one week’s dieting. For feeling a bit down. For picking at your scabs a few times. For saying you didn’t want to wake up tomorrow because you couldn’t be arsed going to school.

None of you were “depressed” that there wasn’t any of your favourite cereal in the house either.

None of you had a “schizo” mother because she got mad at you.

There’s hundreds of things I could list, so I’m going to round this up for you and end this patronising.

It’s annoying isn’t it?

So how do you think I feel when you tell me that you got over something that consumes my every waking moment, and even my restless, anxious time that I allow myself to sleep between compulsive and dangerous over-exercise and self-harming. When you use something so deadly and destructive to describe your emotions or daily activities. I really can’t stress this enough.

 

Because of someone’s naïve and plain STUPID comments today, just overhearing 2 minutes of their conversation, set me into a major panic attack and breakdown in the middle of college for hours. I’ll treat you to that post when I’m strong enough to do so.

Take time before you make mental illnesses sound so miniscule and unimportant: trivial even.

 

I’d love to hear of your experiences with this: if I get enough of them I will make a post with them on, linking you, so please share below or email me at:

deni.is.gaga@gmail.com

 

(I hope this post was okay at least!)

 

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.

Nature or Nurture: Which Most Impacts on Mental Health?

I began the 30 Days Mental Illness Awareness Challenge on my recovery Instagram (but have since deleted the posts as they did not fit in with my feed; damn aesthetics hehe).

But I came across this question and immediately made a note so that I could post it as a blog entry instead.

Do you believe nature (biology/physiology), nurture (environment), a mix, or something else has an effect on mental health?

This was a very important question: one that is very strong in my own recovering mind and one that link perfectly with this blog and its theme.

Personally I believe it is a mix; a potent mix of bad and harmful things to create something as dreadful as mental illness. From my own experience with my mental illnesses, it was definitely much more to do with nurture and the surroundings and company I found myself in, but this may be because it is (severe) Anorexia Nervosa that I mostly suffer with. An illness so naively promoted all over the internet as a poetic fad diet: pro ana breeding and spreading like a bacterium disease, feeding on the negativity of humankind and seemingly nothing else but ice cold waters (goodness I hope you don’t understand these references).

It is most likely dependant on the mental illness itself: whether it is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD or OC traits), or any number of the others that inflict daily, endless pain on the sufferers and victims of itself.

To give you an insight and make this post more personal, I’ll relate it to my own struggles:

I have always been underweight. Always. Varying degrees admittedly, but I have never been a healthy weight, especially not as a child stuffing her face with Fruit Winders and Happy Hippos and unbuttered white bread slices, one after the other. This was due to my super speedy metabolism (which I still have now, but perhaps not as much). This meant that there has always been some sort of obsession with my weight and size: as if other people couldn’t comprehend how I was so thin, or rather how I “stayed so skinny”. I was bullied in my tiny primary school, that had 65 people in its entirety. I was called “lanky” and a “stick insect” and pushed into walls because I bruised so easily. This may not sound so bad, and in retrospect it wasn’t, but this meant that there was an awareness awoken in me of my body and my size. As if a metaphorical demon woke up that I could never turn off. This is when I started self- harming, but I didn’t even realise it at the time as I flung myself at the floor to skin my knees and develop “carpet burns” at the age of 8.

(Just a reminder, I will try to keep this as related to the subject as possible: so clearly a lot more happened in these years but this is focused on my development of Anorexia Nervosa. I have mentioned this before, but I also suffer from severe forms of depression, anxiety and self-harming ((but am now clean)).

In secondary school I was, again, a commodity. I was something to stare and revel at in the changing rooms. When the class was weighed individually in fitness (part of the P.E curriculum), people would crowd around me as I stepped on the scale or just after to question my weight and gawp at my BMI that was dangerous to begin with but dropped another 2.0 or more as the monster took over. I began to become aware of myself even more, and as the natural process of development and puberty began, I was bewildered at the tiny differences that were all consuming in my head. I was developing two years after everyone else, and after all of this attention that I received for my size, being glorified and liked for being so thin, I began to wonder that if I were to lose more weight, would I be liked more? “OF COURSE! LOSE MORE WEIGHT. MORE AND MORE AND MORE.” Piped up the awakened demon which manifested itself into Anorexia over years. In the midst of all this of course was the revolting world of pro ana on Tumblr, mentioned in my previous posts.

Super long, stressful and traumatic story short, one thing led to another and I was not liked for being thin, I was worried and gossiped about. I was gawky, I was disgusting, I was fainting up to once a day. My heart was failing and I was rushed into hospital where I began my really rocky path to recovery. (Almost typed rocky road there hehe. )

Literary perfectionism hates the way that the above was worded, but I wanted to shorten my story as much as possible as it wasn’t particularly the subject of the post.

The point that I wanted to make with the above point was: did my mental illnesses develop because of nature or nurture?

For me personally: both.

Would I have been bullied for being so “lanky and thin” if it hadn’t of been for my genetics of growing tall so quickly?

Would I have become aware of my body at such a fragile, young age if it weren’t for this bullying?

Would I have been paralysed with fear of gaining weight and of losing my poisoned “popularity” if I wasn’t glorified at the height of my illness, then discarded like rubbish as soon as it “went too far”?

Perhaps most importantly: would I have even known how to lose the weight, or even wanted/felt the need to if it weren’t for society: modelling, pro ana and the typical trash talking teenage girls in the changing rooms?

One thing leads to another in this world. But the journey would not have begun at all if it hadn’t been for my natural genetics: something out of my control.

I wanted to know what you thought about it, and I’d certainly love to write another post about it.

Do you believe nature (biology/physiology), nurture (environment), a mix, or something else has an effect on mental health?

Think in depth about it: how did it affect your own journey or those around you, or even what do you predict is the truth?

A Physically Different Eating Disordered Brain

Just a short post today, but one that holds an awful lot of significance.

I feel a huge responsibility to share this image as it was something that I only found whilst desperately searching for answers, crying into my hands at night.

This is the brain of a person suffering from Anorexia Nervosa. These results were only published and discovered as late as 2014. Yes. Really.

So here it is for you all: but mostly for us suffering (emphasis on this) with an eating disorder. Here is a little evidence; of something so rare to find.

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.

Glamorising Mental Illness and Harmful Behaviours: Channel 4’s Drama Series “Skins”

This post is again raising awareness of how mental illness is wrongly portrayed. It links back to my previous post relating to promoting mental illness on Tumblr..

I have personally watched the drama series Skins (4/6 seasons). I watched them with ecstasy as I fell in love with each character and their unique representations. But I watched this as my own world was crumbling and as my severe Anorexia (Nervosa) developed, the familiar characters plastered over Tumblr were there to reassure me that this behaviour was all fine and dandy. This post, although it may seem to be straight forward “slagging off” of the show, is to raise awareness of over glamorising in the TV and media. This is not the way mental illnesses are. At all.

This is but one television series’, labelling people and judging them. Using mental illness in order to make their characters more quirky and exciting; and therefore for them to be spread around on Tumblr and other, similar websites.

In the programme, “Skins”, a fictional UK drama on Channel 4, we follow the lives of multiple teenagers throughout two years of sixth form. This has never particularly sank in for me until now as I type, having received my GCSE results less than a week ago and being at the fragile age of 16 facing sixth form or college to further my education.

Nearly every character in this drama had something “wrong with them”, either in the form of a mental illness, an unstable relationship or drug abuse. Yes, every character, as if mental illness in teenagers is compulsory and something everyone goes through as if as a hormonal phase.

Hannah Murray played the fictional character Cassie Ainsworth, who struggles with an eating disorder, suicide attempts and the abuse of illegal drugs. She was only sixteen herself when she applied for the role, wearing a watch around her ankle and unusual clothing style and was immediately cast. Is this really what a growing mind should be subject to? Exploitation of her thin frame; remembering full scripts of melancholy lines relating to negative aspects of life, trivialising illnesses that kill 1 in 5 sufferers ,all whilst studying for A levels?

The programme not only showed mental illness, but encouraged and promoted it. In one memorable episode, Cassie showed her love interest how she got away with not eating at home by completely showing a pro-ana tip. But that was just the tip of the iceberg, as every episode had more than one negative quote: now a black and white photo radiating through Tumblr, poisoning the minds of everyone that comes into contact.

“I didn’t eat for three days so I could be lovely” and “I stop eating until they take me to the hospital” are just two of the horrible quotes that came from this show. Promoting unhealthy means of weight loss and the unhealthy need to be ill and striving to be this way. This character, and indeed actress was only sixteen! She shouldn’t have these thoughts at this age; and in an ideal world: never.

The show not only promoted eating disorders, but suicide and drug use. “[Do you remember when] you rode in the ambulance with me when I tried to kill myself? … That’s what love feels like.”

Excuse me, what?!

When they did delve deeper into the eating disorder problem, they used unrealistic references to inpatient care. They made it, once again, fun and made fear foods of Anorexic patients almost laughable. Cassie smiled and shrugged away the fact that she could eat a certain food. I watched this in secret merely months before I was rushed into hospital, threatened with a section, forced onto bedrest for an entire month and quickly transferred to inpatient care for a 5 month stay. In all honesty I left with a worse mind-set than when I entered. Inpatient care is traumatic. It is an every-day struggle: surrounded by nurses, NG’s insisted and forced when a meal was refused, patients and close friends of mine attempting suicide and being violently restrained. It was not the façade that the media portrayed it as, with peppy quotes of hiding weights in underwear. In reality patients are weighed in hospital gowns without any underwear at all, not even suspicious hairstyles. I could fight this out until my voice has all but disappeared; I am so desperate to defy these LIES.

Perhaps what angered me most about this character and her portrayal, was that the show created an unnecessary “therapy video” which they uploaded to YouTube and other video websites. This showed Cassie sitting outside telling people in less than three minutes, that she “hated her thighs”, and that she “liked people who don’t smile”.

Why?

Were the creators of the show aware that their quotes had thousands of “reposts” and “likes” in such a negative aspect? That their character was a main promoter of Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia, suicidal thoughts and depression?

Did it seem rational and moral to create an unrelated video to fuel the horrors on the dark side of the internet?

I need you to know that this is so wrong. That these are all lies. That programmes like these should not be made, and yet they continue to be made every day: creating more and more lies. Lies lies lies lies lies.

Using Mental Illnesses as Adjectives

You may have seen this poster around on the internet: I certainly have, countless times. Yet it seems with thousands of “notes” on Tumblr, the message still isn’t getting across to us as a society.

So, simply why are mental illnesses used as adjectives?

Saying that someone “looks so Anorexic” or that your “OCD is coming out again” is just wrong. Looking like a mental illness is not possible. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is just that: a compulsion and an overwhelming need to do something that doesn’t just go away and come back. Depression does not appear for one day then lift as if it were a momentary haze. It is all consuming.

How would you feel if you were sitting on the bus and someone made a distracted comment that “the weather today is so cancer”? Disgusted? What about if someone were to say that “the weather today is so depressing”. Would you even acknowledge it? It is the SAME.

Think about if someone asked you “what have you got to be so asthmatic about?” but yet we can ask “what have you got to be so depressed about?” or “why don’t you just eat?” Mental illnesses are as important as and perhaps even more severe than physical illnesses. They consume and take lives. Anorexia kills more people than some forms of cancer. Suicide remains the most common cause of death in men under 35, with 90% of people having committed suicide able to be diagnosed with a form of mental illness.

So why is it so often is disregarded?

I can’t even begin to describe how many times I have heard these comments carelessly thrown around in day to day life.

You “almost had a panic attack”? Did you? Really?

You almost lost control of all of your senses including your own bladder control. You were sweating and violently shaking. You were wheezing as tears burned in your eyes and the room span around you. You felt as though you were actually going to pass out or die. Really? Well I face this every single day, time after time for the tiniest things. Sometimes even without a reason.

Take a moment to think before you speak. Seriously.

I sound like a middle aged mother advising her five year old child to stop bullying another. It’s really quite embarrassing that our society needs told.

——

Have you encountered anything like this? I’d love to hear about your own experiences in the comments below.

The Beginning of The Glitter Fight

So: this is my very first post on this blog and I’m very excited at the possibilities and opportunities that this could lead to.

The blog is called The Glitter Fight as I plan on fighting against the romanticising and sugar coating of mental illness, particularly in the media. I need to get the message across that mental illness is not fun or quirky. It should not be a desired trait to put onto your about me page. It is disgusting and painful and really serious, with Anorexia Nervosa, one of the most romanticised mental illnesses (mostly on the blogging platform Tumblr), killing more people than some cancers. One in five. Is that really so beautiful now? Would you want to have cancer?
There is a personal reason for why I have created this, after fighting my own battles with a lot of different mental illnesses. I have just turned 16, yet already I have been suffering from severe Anorexia Nervosa, anxiety and panic disorder, depression and self harming for more than 4 years, spending time in a secure inpatient centre to nurture and save my frail body. Mental illness is ruining my life and has left me a shell of what I once was. It disgusts me that people could aspire to feeling this pathetic and desperately alone.
Please join me in my battle against the wrong views of society. I would love to hear your stories too to feature them on the blog and raise more awareness: so please get in touch.
Together, all be it very slowly, we will change society’s views.
Thankyou.