Feeling the weight

I've written about hard subjects before, just take a look at my previous posts about anxiety, panic attacks and the EU referendum! But this is one of the hardest, maybe the hardest, at least for me. It may not seem that way when you read it, but this is a blog post I never thought I would have to write, about a subject I never thought would affect me. But affect me it has and it has hit me hard. I'm annoyed at myself because it feels like it's mostly my fault.

How thin do I look? I can't have been healthy!

I am close to being overweight, almost 11 stone, when for most of my adult life, I've been around 9 stone. Now I don't want to go back to that weight as I think it was unhealthy. However I reckon I have put on a stone and a half over the past year or so, I feel unhealthy with it and I should lose that. Luckily I can fit into most of my clothes still because I wear leggings, but I can't wear my jeans anymore. If I carry on like this, I'll have to go up a dress size. I have no excuse, but I have reasons. To try and make sense of why this has happened, to come to terms with it and hopefully do something about it, I'm writing this blog post.

I will have to go back to my childhood to explain. I was never interested in bad food: fast food, burgers, takeaways. I prefer simple food, simple ingredients, unadulterated meals. I'd choose a salad over a McDonalds. I don't like sauces, not even ketchup on my chips. I'm more interested in fruit and veg than sweets and cake. In fact, the first time I was off school sick, it was because I ate too much fruit! Even now, I can't walk past a fruit bowl without being tempted. When I was a teenager, people used to joke I was anorexic and I took it as a compliment. They'd pick me up, exclaiming how light I was. I was proud of it! But I never courted it. I just wasn't interested in food, never was. I'm still not really interested. I eat to live.

I love fruit, all fruit, even exotic fruit like snakefruit (right)

Things changed when I turned sixteen when my anxiety hit and I started having panic attacks. My life spiralled out of control. I went from having little appetite to having none at all. I still don't really have an appetite as such. I developed an eating disorder where I found it difficult to eat. It was both a symptom and a way of coping with my mental health problems, trying to control something when I couldn't control anything else. I stopped eating altogether at one point because it was easier than fighting through what I called the upchuck reflex. My friends had to forcefeed me when I started shaking uncontrollably. Since then, I haven't had a normal relationship with food, not liking eating in public for instance. My appetite, what there is of it, is the first thing to go when I'm ill, mentally or physically. When I can't eat fruit, I know it's serious. It's become a canary in a coal mine for me.

Now I have a handle on my anxiety, which used to sap my appetite, I have to deal with one. I must have had one before my anxiety hit, but that was more than 20 years ago and I don't remember. So when people learn to manage their appetite from childhood to adulthood naturally, I've had to deal with it all at once, which has been a bit much.

This is me under there!

However, apart from sugar cravings during that time of the month, I've been managing pretty well. That's why putting on so much weight is a surprise to me. It started before lockdown, before I knew I had endometriosis, which makes me bloat. My weight shot up on medication for my balance problem, but it went back down when I stopped taking it. That was the first time I went over 10 stone. I'm now on medication for the endometriosis and putting on weight is a side effect, but not to this extent and I'd prefer to take the tablets as the benefits outweight the weight gain. They've stopped the sugar cravings for one!

Due to my balance problem, I don't sleep well; I often wake up in the night and I sleep very shallowly, so anything can wake me. Sleep problems can make you put on weight, or more prone to putting on weight.

Me asleep(ish)

I'm not a great one for exercise and with lockdown, I'm currently only going in to work once a week; my cycle commute is my only real exercise, which was enough before, but it seems no longer. I will have to start exercising properly, which will be hard and I'll have to be careful what sort of exercise I do because of my balance problem. I definitely need to improve my cardiovascular health. The other thing is when I exercise. It takes me an hour to even get moving every morning; to say I'm not a morning person is an understatement. Vertigo upon waking due to my balance problem makes me groggy, so exercising before work is out. I'm knackered after a day working and exercise will knacker me further, for the usual reasons, but also my balance problem makes most physical things tiring. So I'm going to start at weekends and see how I go.

When I could fit in a dress like this

I don't eat unhealthily, but I do rely on ready meals and frozen meals at least once a week. The weird thing is, I eat the same thing as my brother; he has larger portions and eats more chocolate bars than me, but exercises less than me; even on our lunchtimes walks, he dawdles, whereas I try to keep the pace up; and his weight has barely changed.

Stress can do weird things to the body, to the hormones and goodness knows we've had enough stress lately. But I thought I was coping with 2020 okay, surprisingly well given my history of anxiety, including all the mental whiplash when things kept changing and first I was going to go in to work 2-3 days a week, then 4 days, and now one day a week. I had a few wobbles in the beginning, but maybe underneath I'm not coping so well.

One of my favourite photos of me, with my nephew Thomas

So between my endometriosis, balance problem and anxiety, which all cause the insomnia, that may be the reason behind my weight gain. This means it's not as much my fault as I thought. But the biggest cause is probably my age. I noticed a difference in my metabolism when I entered my 30s. I guess I can't eat what I'm used to eating without consequences anymore. So even though I haven't changed my diet any over the last few years, maybe even being a little healthier, I'm going to have to now. However with my history of an eating disorder, caused by the need for control, I'm going to have to be careful. I'm cutting sweet things out of my diet, which is no hardship, it's been easy over the last few days. I mostly eat them when I'm bored or watching TV. But I'm going to miss my Mum's flapjacks and scones. Then I'm going to build up to fewer carbs like bread (which I adore), pasta and rice. But I know it's bad to cut out food groups altogether, so everything in moderation. I will try to eat more vegetarian meals as well, I tend to choose them off the menu anyway. So all signs point to the fact that changing my diet should be relatively painless.

Turning 30

The first step has been getting over myself, stopping feeling sorry for myself and thinking this is temporary. I'm going to have to do all this as the trend in my weight has been steadily increasing; it's only going to go one way and will continue that way unless I do something. I have to lose the identity of my younger self who could eat anything and stay thin. I should also eat more slowly: due to my eating disorder, I ate fast to beat the upchuck reflex, otherwise I would have ended up eating nothing. That habit has stuck and I don't need it anymore.

I'm going to have to strike a fine balance between the problems exercising with a balance problem and changing my diet with an anxiety issue, but I'm up to the task. I'm the little girl who stopped biting my nails because I hated the way they looked, just like that. I decided to stop, so I did. I'm the teenager who stopped drinking alcohol because I knew I was drinking to drown my anxiety, so after my third hangover, I stopped. I now only drink on special occasions like celebrations and then only a few sips to be social. I got over a breakdown and am managing my anxiety. I've dealt with two chronic illness diagnoses and live with the symptoms daily. I can beat this too. All I need is an incentive like I've had before and one look in the mirror at the body I don't recognise anymore and one walk upstairs which makes me out of breath, that's enough incentive to be getting on with.

The most body confident I've been, taken by Dave Amann

The emotional impact of the EU referendum

Brexit grief

There's been a lot of talk about the physical aspects of the referendum result, what it means politically, financially and nationally, but what does it mean to one person and their mental well-being? Everyone, leave and remain voters alike are worried. Some leave voters are regretting their decision and they have to live with the guilt. Some are staunchly stubborn, believing they made the right decision. They are the ones who voted on sentiment to the detriment of the facts. All the leave voters who are defending their decision, their reasons can be refuted now, through politicians backtracking or the realisation that what was promised isn't actually feasible, such as with immigration, apart from that is, those who voted for independence. You can't argue with patriotism, I know because I'm a patriot.

Grief

In the wake of the result, the five stages of grief by Kübler-Rosswere were doing the rounds amongst my echo chamber. It was very apt as I'm grieving; I'm in mourning for a world that's now gone. It may not feel like it at the time, but with a general election, nothing really changes if a new party gets in or if we get a new Prime Minister. The faces change, some policies change, but pretty much everything stays the same. If things do change such as privatisation of services, such as the loss of post offices and pubs, we have time to either fight it or get used to it. But with leaving the EU, though they said nothing much would happen for two years, it feels like our whole world has changed over night; I went to sleep in one world and woke up in a new one.

Charlie Brown

Of those 5 stages of grief, acceptance wasn't included. However I'm all of the other four, fluctuating between them which has been exhausting. I would like to stay in denial, no matter how deluded it is, as anger is destructive, bargaining is useless as we're all helpless now; our part is done; and depression is unhealthy to say the least. But I would also like to add one more to that model: anxiety.

I have written about it before: I have lived with anxiety for half my lifetime now. One of the main causes is the fear of uncertainty. Not knowing what's going to happen is a real problem for me. Anticipation is my worst enemy. Once that's over, I'm fine, for example when I have to speak publicly; once I'm speaking, I'm generally fine, but beforehand, I'm a wreck. So as you can imagine, having nationwide uncertainty is my worst nightmare. The only thing worse would be to have worldwide uncertainty such as when, around the time I was first suffering with anxiety, 9/11 happened; I'll save universal uncertainty for the sci-fi epics.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Denial

On Friday the 24th of June, I was in a state of shock, teary, angry and anxious. On Saturday, I refused to deal with it and buried myself in denial, distracting myself with TV and films all day. So when it came to going to bed, it hit me like a shockwave. A tidal wave of anxiety hit. The flood gates opened. Sorry about those metaphors, but it's no exaggeration, it's what happened. I had a sudden and total panic attack, the worst in months, years even. I didn't get to sleep until 2:30am, keeping my brother up for hours until I felt stable enough to be alone; I was in a very dark place, fearful that what happened in Bruges was going to happen again: days of panic attacks all day every day, not eating or sleeping. I didn't want to go through that again, put my loved ones through that again, not being able to work so putting my colleagues through it again. I didn't want to be a burden, so you can work out where my mind took me and why I didn't want to be on my own. I was fine the next day, though extremely tired, and I'm fine now, but who knows with the days, weeks and months ahead how I'll react to the as yet unknown developments.

I Voted RemaIN

Now, a week later (is it only a week? It feels much longer), I still find myself, when I let myself think about it, with tears in my eyes and emotion taking over; just those "I voted RemaIN" stickers and badges and signs can set me off. So I don't think about it. I'm not burying my head in the sand and hanging on to false hope, because that way lies disappointment and I don't think I can take any more disappointment. I'm struggling as it is. Acceptance would save me from no end of grief. But why should I submit when so much is still up in the air? Why should I accept a result that was based on lies? Why should we consent to something based on such a tiny minority that even Nigel Farage wouldn't accept, before he won?

Nigel Farage

Anger

Disclaimer: I'm not angry that we (meaning Remain) lost. I'm not angry that Leave won. I'm angry that we all lost. I'm angry that a campaign full of lies, of false promises that have all been rescinded or reconfigured, of emotional and sentimental manipulation has won. I'm angry that Farage is parading his smug superiority all over the place, offending the EU. I'm angry that Boris basically campaigned for something he doesn't believe in to become the Conservative leader and therefore the PM and now he realises it's a poisoned chalice and that he has no support he isn't going to run for it. His statements about where to go from here prove that he wants what the EU offers without being in the EU. I'm angry that the hatred, infighting and blame culture has continued and has bled into the general population. Most of all, I'm angry that Cameron called the referendum in the first place; it wasn't needed, we weren't qualified to decide, he was just palming the decision off on someone else, shirking his responsibility, just as he has by resigning, as he didn't want to make it himself and was placating the dissenters in his now starkly divided party. It's destroying the Labour party. It has done what the BNP and UKIP have always wanted. And Cameron has blood on his hands; if it wasn't for the referendum, Jo Cox would still be alive. That's where my head is at right now.

Jo Cox memorial

I thought I saw myself as British first, English second and European third. But my reaction has proven it's not so clear cut. We may still be part of Europe, but we'll no longer have any real say in what happens. We've gone from being one of the biggest players and the most powerful to not having any power at all. We'll be the wallflower of Europe, there but not there, or even worse, not invited to the party at all. I've always been very proud that our little island is so prominent in the world of politics, economics and culture, but that position has been rocked by what we have done. When you're part of a team, one that you've been a part of for many years, that has done good work, but you've realised isn't working like it should anymore, then you shouldn't just throw it all away, throw away that history and undo all that hard work. When you're an integral part of a team, you must know the effect your departure would have, not just on the team, but on you too. We're starting to realise that yes, we put a lot of time, money and effort into the EU, but what we put in was more than paid back. No one seemed to realise how many European funds, grants, rules and regulations benefited us. It's going to affect research, joint projects and industry standards. It'll affect science, universities, industry, the list is endless. The effects are unquantifiable.

Anger from Inside Out

Facts that either no one thought about, barely mentioned, buried, put their heads in the sand about or no one took any notice of: we'll all have to have new passports, we'll have to go through the much-longer non-EU queue in the airport, number plates will have to change, we'll need a border here in Calais, Scotland will leave, Gibraltar will leave and there will be trouble in Ireland. The promises made will not be kept just like with every other political campaign. No one thought anything would happen this quickly, ignoring the unsurprising immediate hit to our currency, losing the cost of the NHS for an entire year in mere hours. Areas of England are asking for independence, not least the capital. So the idiots who made protest votes, revenge votes to stick it to the government, naive votes citing ignorance, those blindly saying that this is only short term, that there will always have been difficult short-term impacts and we just need to hold out for the long-term benefits, don't realise that it will be too little too late.

Bargaining

Even if we can call a second referendum, even if the politicians ignore the vote and remain anyway, even if Scotland can declare the referendum unconstitutional, the damage has been done. We will never get the money lost back. People have lost jobs. Reputations have been destroyed. Cameron will always be the one who broke us and the EU up and potentially lost Scotland from the UK. We've lost the United Kingdom and made sure Britain can no longer be called Great. I blame Cameron totally for this. He made us make a decision he didn't want us to make, but the nation didn't decide the way he expected us to. He was a coward and a coward again for resigning. That is why we should never have had this referendum in the first place; we weren't qualified to make this decision. We not only have a lack of knowledge and understanding, but we can't be objective. Take away all the supposed facts, contradictions, confusion, manipulation and downright lies, it was sentiment, pure and simple that caused this. It is criminal as votes were stolen.

Pleading kitten

The worst thing though is that foreigners who have chosen us as their home, second generation and third generation immigrants, anyone who even vaguely looks like they aren't British have become a target for abuse. The campaign and the result have shown that the (tiniest) majority of this country are self-centred and selfish, voting for the independence of our nation from the EU, not because we were being dominated or forced to do things against our will, but because we didn't want to be part of something bigger than ourselves anymore, that we're turning our backs on people that need our help, because we've chosen the lazy cowardly option, instead of standing up for ourselves and others and try to change the EU, we've simply left it and walked away and it's going to tear it apart. Instead of fixing something, we've consigned it as rubbish. We could never have walked away quietly. It was always going to have a worldwide impact. We fixated on ourselves, as a country and as individual people. We didn't know or care or want to think about what impact it would have on anyone else.

Disgust from Inside Out

It's allowed people to express their xenophobic and racist views as they feel they have been validated and legitimised now, racial abuse and hate crimes have increased since the referendum. It temporarily made me lose my faith in humanity, something that has been unshakeable up until now. Some people voted leave in the erroneous belief that all the immigrants will now have to leave, others because they were mislead by the leave campaign that we will be able to change our immigration policy. We can, but it means we'll probably have to leave the single market. The EU have said so as we can't pick and choose. We can't have the best of both worlds. So to reduce immigration, we'd have to suffer increased prices on products, which I doubt most people want and would be far more impactful than immigration to our daily lives.

There are areas which voted for leave the most that will be among the most negatively affected, economically and regulatory, by leaving the EU. It's a hideously broad generalisation, but one that is being reported in the media a lot, that the richer areas voted the most to remain and the poorer areas the most to leave, but with the inevitable economic uncertainty and highly potential recession, they will be hit the hardest by leaving the EU. Why did no one think of all this when they voted? In the same way, the stats show more young people voted to remain and more older people to leave. It's the young people who will have to live with this.

Sadness from Inside Out

Depression

I live in a bubble, a bubble of librarians who practically all feel the same way as me. I work in a university, which feels the same way as me. I work in a business school, which as a whole feels the same way as me. Having like-minded people around me has been a huge comfort to me. However it all feels false now. At parties, at work and at school, we all gravitate towards people we know, they introduce us to people they know and the cycle continues. Unless you make a conscious effort, in real life or on social media, you will talk to people who think and live like you. I am no longer in a bubble; it has been popped by those who voted leave. That bubble has been shielding me and even if I try and recreate it, there would be no point. I have seen and heard what's on the outside and I can no longer go back. I think you could say a small part of me is having an existential crisis.

Bubble burst

The emotional impact is not about the fact we're leaving the EU, it's more complicated than that. I've lost my home; I've lost the people I thought I was sharing this home with. I'll never look at other people the same way again, thinking did they vote leave and if so, why? It was an Auden "stop all the clocks" grief moment; how can you be walking around like nothing has happened, laughing and talking? Everything else seemed superfluous. Every conversation I have had since seems to lead back to the referendum, whether it's about Game of Thrones, Gilmore Girls or what we're having for dinner. If we had referendumitis before the vote, what do we have now? I have thought, like many people, about leaving, moving to Scotland like many Americans have threatened to move to Canada if Trump becomes President. But this is my home, though it doesn't feel like it anymore. There's no longer solid ground beneath my feet and everything's uncertain. Our world is changing, I woke up to a new world last Friday and it seems to be changing every day. The emotions I've been feeling are not because of the referendum, but what the referendum has revealed. The loss I'm feeling, it's the loss of a nation I thought I knew, but clearly didn't know at all.