New Year - New ME

Well, not quite as we’re almost a third of the way into the year now and there has been no sign of my motivation.  It crept back quite quietly a few weeks back and has been quietly prodding and poking my determination awake.  I am now determined to do something positive about my appearance (long time readers of the blog know I have a lot of hang ups about how I look and in particular my weight).  I’ve always been fat, in my head this started when at about age 5 or 6 at primary school, one girl decided she’d call me fat at lunchtime.  I stopped eating my lunch for a bit and my ma wasn’t too happy with me.  It was not an eating disorder I hasten to add.  It was a response to having been called fat by a peer.  But the damage was done and that word has stayed with me for life.

I was a chubby kid, the kind of kid with ‘puppy fat’ that would go when I got older.  It didn’t.  I grew from a chubby kid to a tubbier teenager: PE was hell and the showers… well forget about it.  I was never really very feminine as a kid, or a teen.  I hated dresses and preferred jeans, cords, check shirts (thanks grunge) and the like.  Shopping was always hell, and I only ever went out of necessity.  I was a tubby girl but still had quite large boobs so still kind of looked in proportion.

Yet since that childhood lunch time, I always identified with being fat because I had to be, right?  My fellow classmate wouldn’t have said that to me unless it was true, right?  She wouldn’t have said it solely to hurt me?  I know full well she will have forgotten that lunchtime in the canteen of Holy Family infant school when she first identified me as fat, but I haven’t.  It was the first time I can remember that fat was used as an insult, and it’s a pretty powerful one too.  And one I still connect with, even when in 2005 I got to a size 12, a relatively ‘normal’ dress size and body shape… not for me it wasn’t.  being shorter of stature, I was still classed as obese – I had a bony arse for Jesus sake, but no… still obese… one person I remember saying to me ‘Yeah that’s great and everything but you could stand to lose a bit more, couldn’t you?’  and the phrase that goes through my head, said by more than one person on occasion ‘You’re too pretty to be that fat’.  To me, that says that says you can either be pretty OR you can be fat… you can’t be both, that’s not how it works.  You see it everywhere today, fat shaming of people, maybe women who have just had a child being hounded by the paparazzi as to why they haven’t got back to their pre baby shape, or a good looking guy relaxing on the beach with maybe a little paunch ‘[Insert Celeb Name Here] looks as though he has enjoyed his holiday a little TOO much’.

And when you try to do something positive and motivating, you can get shouted down about that too.  I started doing the Couch to 5K programme a couple of years ago (it was during that summer of Ireland’s woeful performance at the European championships).  David cajoled me into doing it and I really quite enjoyed it.  We’d run across Hearsall Common for as long as the programme ran for, and I felt wonderful.  I’d never been a runner ever, came last in my first ever school sports day running race, but here I was, being able to build up my running and my stamina and it felt incredible.  I was fearful of others for a while until one night a bloke called out of me ‘Fair play to you love, I should be doing that myself’.  I was on nodding terms with some of the joggers who regularly went for a run on the common.  It was going really well until one day some pricks in a car shouted fat abuse at me.  I tried ignoring it but it was too much to take; I was 6 years old again being called fat for no reason, being abused for no reason whatsoever.  I burst into tears and that ended my few months of Couch to 5K.  I was too scared to go back and do it again.  My wheels fell off my exercising wagon and that was it.

I realise this is just a big old load of rambles, but I’m trying to explain why I am how I am (I’m well aware I don’t actually have to explain myself to anyone).

So, after a trip to the GP this morning, I discovered that the NHS does a referral scheme to Slimming World – I was weighed and promptly referred.  Basically, you get 12 weeks of meetings for free…this is mega because I was actually going to join a slimming class next week when I get paid.  And my mojo is returning to put me through going back to the gym where, around the body beautifuls and the skinny girls on exercise bikes, I can try to fit in, get back on my treadmill and run like fuck…I’m going to try to run away from that memory from when I was 6, away from the car full of wankers shouting names at me but most importantly, I’m going to try to run into a newer, healthier, slimmer me.  I have NOT been pressured to do this, I feel its time to change and I feel healthier in my mind and motivated to do it.

Watch this space.

Darn tootin', pie. We can DO this.

Nb: This will NOT become a diet/exercise blog site.  I promise. 

Remember me? I'm the one who had your baby's eyes.

Blimey.  It’s a while.  Tara’s blog of despair and anxiety.  Here’s more rambling on anyway…

So, as some of you know (mainly folk I have on Facebook) 2014 has not yet turned out to be The International Year of Tara Court as I predicted in my final blog post of 2013.  In fact, the first three weeks saw me plunged into more work based drama and despair.  The Union got involved and all kinds.  And I’m still not really free of it as there’s one issue that’s still rumbling on.  But do you know what I learned?  I learned not to care.  I learned to not give one single flying fuck about it all because, quite simply put, there’s more to life.  

Yeah I had meetings where I had been in floods of tears and had had to ask them to leave the room instead of just sitting and watch me break down. 

I’ve also had meetings where I’ve been berated for the most insignificant thing that if I told you, you’d go ‘What the fuck? Are you kidding?’ (to which I’d go ‘I know right.  Fucking STUPID’).  And all through it, my resolve was getting stronger and stronger until I’ve now got to the point where nothing really matters where this is concerned anymore.  If only I’d felt this way back at the start of my depressive episode in February of last year…to be able to laugh at the ridiculousness of some situations, but then I guess everything we go through in life we learn from.

I learned from that last depressive episode that I absolutely do deserve my place on this earth.  Yeah, I might still have self esteem issues and be hung up about how I look and my weight etc, but that’s what the human race do.  We’re never happy with how we are and are always seeking to look and change ourselves in some small way (dyeing our hair) or some big way (changing jobs, retraining, getting surgery because you’ve never liked your nose).  Sure, I’m not necessarily comfortable in my own skin, but I’m coming to terms with being comfortable with who I am.  And how I am.  And my funny ways that wind up the people I love.

It was said to me last week by someone that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to claw your way back up, and in some respects this is quite true, although given that this was one ofthem who gave me a hard time over the past six months (the one who decided I didn’t need my psychology sessions anymore), I declined take it the way that this person had intended it.  But in my anxiety and despair, my suicidal feelings, the whole blackness of my condition, I’m hoping I’m clawing my way back up, cos I’m sure I hit rock bottom… I had to have…there can’t be anything more.

2013 - The Year of the Loser

So, it’s very nearly Christmas.  Here I am almost at the end of 2013 and I managed to survive.  Melodramatic, you might say, but well I suppose I’m nothing without my over the top melodramas.

We tend to enter a new year without really much idea of what’s ahead…unless you’re pregnant or getting married or something (but even then, unexpected things can happen in those most certain of events).  Last New Years Eve whilst dressed as a murderous cowboy at Tom and Fran’s house, little did I realise quite how bad a year 2013 was going to be for me.  The previous couple of months hadn’t been particularly great with the ongoing situation at work (being frozen out, talked about, moving offices, my maturity, work capabilities and professionalism being called into question by my peers) so I thought that 2013 had to be better than that.  Boy, was I wrong.

2013 saw my worst bout of depression, saw me actively contemplating suicide because I thought that the world would be a better place without me, that everyone would be better off without having to cope with this needy fat failure, this waste of space that I’d become. 

I sought help for my depression and thankfully (with a massive help of antidepressants and therapy) my head seems to be in a better place.  But those things alone didn’t just help, the support of my wonderful family, my brilliant husband David who has seen me at both my worst and my best (I’m sure better is to come too), my mam and dad who have helped me through with sheer unadulterated love (and some pretty off colour jokes about suicide from my da), my brothers and my incredibly intelligent and always hilarious niece who I love as though she were my own daughter; the sort of kid who sent me a text the other day telling me how much she loves me because she’d been reading this blog and had got upset that I’ve been so down.  She’s off to uni next year to study psychology – she could do a fascinating case study on the inner workings of her mental aunt.

I have such wonderful people surrounding me, fantastic friends who are always there for me, any time of the day or night – they’re the people who make me what I am; they’re who I aspire to be…and I really couldn’t have got through without everyone’s support: I’ve been overwhelmed with kind words from people I’ve known forever to people I barely know because we share the bond of depression.  I couldn’t have come so far without them.  I’m well aware this is becoming like an Oscar speech so I’m going to finish in a minute but before I do, I just want to say a couple more things:

My demons are not all gone.  They still exist, kind of like in a ghost trap from Ghostbusters.  I need to try and get them to the containment unit before they consume me so badly again (think Damian Karras at the end of The Exorcist – I don’t want that to happen to ME).  As The Smiths once sang, These Things Take Time and so I am still working hard on getting my head straight.

Because I’ve been busy concentrating on getting my head straight, I’ve let my body become ravaged (and ravished) by cakes and pies and Guinness and loads of other junk food.  I couldn’t do getting my mind and body right at the same time, so I shall be trying to get back into a shape that isn’t quite so round in the New Year.

And finally, just because, if at any point over the Christmas period you are feeling horrible and low and you can’t talk to anyone about it, please remember The Samaritans are there, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  They’re an amazing organisation and can really help in times of crisis. 

Thank you all so much for reading my blog posts.  I know they’ve mostly been depressing but sadly that’s been most of my year.  I will work on 2014 being the International Year of Tara Court, and if it isn’t, then it’ll all be okay as long as I continue to get better.

Merry Christmas to you all. 

Much love,

Tara x 

Wheeeeeeeeeeee..........CRASH (exploding bomb sound effect)

Edit:  This has now been resolved.  My psychologist has sorted this out for me.  I still stand by writing this post, I was NOT being over dramatic - a form of treatment that has been helping me cope was threatened with being taken away.  In these times where mental health issues are more accepted into society, funding and services for mental health patients are being slashed.  It's disgraceful.

To Whom It May Concern:

Following a particularly difficult and emotional psychology session today, you felt the need to drop a bomb on me.  I shouldn’t be having psychology sessions any more, I should have been thrown out to my GP surgery (who really only deal with IAPTS and we all know how helpful THEY are).  You told me that I was only supposed to have been supported by you for six sessions… Many apologies for my being more nuts than I first thought.  Six sessions had only just started to establish a relationship between myself and my psychologist… each of my sessions delves deep into the part of me that hates me, the part that undermines me, the part that gives me suicidal ideas – the part of me that gave me suicidal ideas at the start of this month.  I’ve been dealing with her for about 30 or so years so six hour and a half sessions didn’t even TOUCH that…

So I sat there today, as you told me, advising me you understand what I’m going through because you’ve been through it before – bullshit.  You have been through your experience, and I am going through mine.  I sat and tried to not cry, and succeeded until I left you, then sloped off to the toilets and let it out.

Mental illness can’t be cured instantly.  It’s a constant work in progress – at the start of the six sessions, I thought I’d be fixed – how wrong I was.  I’m more damaged than I first thought, and now to think I might not be able to work with my therapist again seems unbearable at this moment in time.  I don’t value myself, although I am learning to thanks to him…if his help is withdrawn, I could deteriorate – I have issues with feelings of rejection, I know it won’t be his fault but I will feel rejected if our sessions stop right now. 

It seems that someone, somewhere should’ve informed me that it was only six sessions and then adios whether you’re fixed or not, but they did not.  And now the time and the cost of my mental health is being called into question.  I can’t help being damaged, but I know someone who can help me get fixed.

Yours hopelessly,

Mini T

Hooray for SCIENCE!

Yesterday I suspended the experiment that I had unwittingly begun the previous week…I remembered to take my antidepressants.

I had genuinely forgotten to take them when I had gone to Amsterdam (as there had only been two left in the box and I hadn’t taken those with me, I’d also forgotten to get my repeat prescription before I went away).  I’ll be FINE, I thought…how wrong I was.

Turns out, I do actually still really quite need my antidepressants.  I found this out yesterday whilst queuing in Boots at Central Six, in tears because a woman in the queue behind me had a child and I do not.  I also found it out whilst on a huge self hatred trip whilst David was clothes shopping.  But mostly I discovered that I still need my antidepressants when lying in the bath on my front, staring at my wrists for about twenty or so minutes, the thoughts going around my head to the tune of ‘well, if you cut, let yourself bleed out into the bath, then you’ll fall unconscious and then drown’. 

After such a fantastic week or so including:

* Going to Amsterdam with Terry and James

* David and my wedding anniversary

* Hallowe’en (best of ALL the days) where we went to watch Nosferatu on the big screen with live creepy organ music accompaniment

* A visit from our friends Liam and Vicky for the weekend which included drinking and rocking out in full Hallowe’en fancy dress.

I was terrified that I could slump down quite so far, so badly or so quickly.  And I didn’t know why I was thinking this, could’ve been post Fab Times™ slump, a combination of tiredness and lack of antidepressants or what… I really don’t know.  But I was so scared I could think those thoughts again.  I suppose it’s a step down from actually holding a knife to my wrist like I did that first day, but the fact I analysed it for about twenty or so minutes is worrying too.

Had a session with my psychologist today and explained it all to him.  He came back with ‘So why didn’t you do it, then?’  A fair question to which I thought long and hard about the answer before admitting that I know David, my family and friends would miss me.  But even admitting that seems egotistical to me.

The results of my unintentional experiment are thus:  I’m still having major problems and need the medication still - who knows how long for, but for now they're as vital to my well being as tea, hugs, cats and love.

PS.  I’m well aware that my blog posts are not cheery reading and for that I apologise, but writing really helps me out.

PPS:  Will try to blog something cheerier soon.  Promise.  Thank you all so much for reading.

Another big ole post about depression.

Seems that all this blog is good for is me discussing my depression.  I’m sorry chaps, here’s another blog post on the very same thing.  I promise to try to blog happier stuff in the future but after yesterday’s psychology session, I had to write something.

I went along to my appointment wondering what I could talk about because I was feeling relatively good, my office nemesis has begun actually acknowledging my existence and has begun talking to me again (I’ve not forgotten what happened though and I keep myself closely guarded now, not just from her but all my work colleagues), nothing massively terrible had befallen me since our last appointment. 

RAAAAARGH!  Write something cheerier next time!!

So, over the course of an hour and a half, I felt such pain and despair, a gnawing blackness of hopelessness.  I sobbed, I bawled…I thought that dark place inside me was shrinking but in these sessions it seems to gape, dragging my good feelings and emotions deep inside.  We discussed my poor body image and low self opinion (Henry Rollins was not mentioned once), and ultimately what it boiled down to was I am fat so I am a failure which ultimately led to no-one would miss me if I wasn’t here.  I haven’t felt such raw and powerful emotion since I was first diagnosed back in February.  It ached deep down to vocalise my thoughts…and the thing is, if I wasn’t fat, I could find a million and one other things to blame my failings on.  It’s just fat comes to mind because society and the media dictate that to be fat is offensive and hideous. 

We are conditioned to believe that if you are fat, you cannot be beautiful, you are looked down on, you are worthless (the horror film The ABCs of Death shows this in the segment X is for XXL – it’s maybe a little extreme).  People judge you if you are fat, it could be glandular, it could be cakes and pies and Guinness, it could also be that you are concentrating so hard on trying to get your head back in the right place that actually you haven’t been watching what you eat, and let’s not forget that some antidepressants can make you a big ole tubster.

I was in pain yesterday, horrific terrible inner pain.  A pain not felt for months…the session preyed on my mind for the rest of the day and evening.  It left me feeling out of sorts; David had to constantly ask me if I was okay.  It was just such a powerful thing to experience and to think that I had been feeling that virtually every single day, well even before I was diagnosed and signed off work, it truly is amazing that I didn’t kill myself.  No one should ever have to feel like that, go through the pain and anguish that your mind can cruelly put you through.

I am hoping that this is a turning point for me.  I wish to not go back there ever again.  It’s painful and it’s raw and it took me aback yesterday that I could still feel that.  I thought I was getting better…seems it’s a long road. 

I know there's hope at the end of here...

Just quickly

Sorry that I’ve been a bit quiet of late.  My brain seems to be functioning in a more ‘normal’ (whatever that means) way.  Gone are the flash thoughts of suicide and self harm, still get the occasional down days and I’m still having psychological input but all in all, I’m returning to my old self.  And thank fuck for that.  I was getting pissed off with me, so Christ only knows how David and my family and friends were feeling.

I’m back doing the charity based things I love to do, the things that I actively enjoy and the things that I believe define me. 

Started back at Coventry Hospital Radio three weeks ago, and despite there being a balls up on the computer when I was playing Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe (I don’t care WHAT you think, I like it), it went okay.  I soon found myself being able to open my mouth and words falling out in shambling sentences.  Hooray!  Soon, I’ll be back shambling at full pelt.

Anyway, that’s enough of me – just a short and sweet update of how my brain is.  Still a bit wrong, but trying to function better.

And as a lovely aside here, the beautiful Fran and the fabulous Tom are getting hitched on Sunday 25 August.  I’m so pleased for the two of them, and would like to wish them all the love and luck in the world.  And thank you so much for leaving me in charge of the music.  I’m sure that if any hospital radio listeners are reading this, they’ll be praying for you.

To Fran and Tom, worra lully cupil.