Hello to all my lovely readers! It’s been ages since I wrote a blog, I have had a few people ask me when the next blog will be posted, my response has been “when I can find the words”.
As some of you have seen from Instagram or if I’ve told you in person, I hit a bump in the recovery road. I have had good days in between but I’ve been working on myself and haven’t been ready to write the words.
I described it to a few people as ‘falling down the rabbit hole’. It was the easiest explanation I could give. I fell right into the rabbit hole of depression a few months ago and I suddenly forgot how to get back out. Like jumping into deep water and forgetting how to swim. I freaked, my anxiety told me that this time, it might not go away. I felt like I had no control over my feelings or anything going on in my life. I felt a mixture of that empty, lonely, twisted depression, with a lovely dose of fear and panic that I didn’t know when it would stop. I started blurting out my feelings to random people, talking about stuff that some people don’t know me well enough to know…this usually happened while I was drunk. If you were one of those people, I apologise… I am working through some stuff and I thank you for not laughing or looking at me like I have two heads.
I even started daydreaming about killing myself (I realise daydreaming is a strange word to use, but roll with it). I stood on the platform at a tube station in London and seriously started contemplating jumping onto the tracks. In my head it was easier than what my anxiety told me was surely to come, the long long months of emptiness. It’s a scary place that rabbit hole.
Because I was feeling so out of control, I started looking for other ways I could take control. I told myself I was going to come out of the depression eventually, but how long? I wanted something to control to make me feel better. I chose food. I have always been a stress eater, I binge eat to try and fill the emptiness. Well because of my hard work doing Slimming World and exercise, I had lost just over a stone. I didn’t want to undo all that hard work but I wasn’t in the right headspace to diet, nor could I motivate myself to workout. So instead of binge eating all day every day, I ate very little. I didn’t even notice it at first, I wasn’t aware that was why I was doing it, I told everyone I just wasn’t hungry. I ignored the whisper in my head that told me I was forcing myself to be one of those people that doesn’t eat when they are sad.
I started feeling slimmer, it felt good. Then it got worse – I started to binge again, but because I had been ‘doing so well’ (I understand that it is not good but those are words I told myself) I made myself sick. The first few times it was after a binge, then I started making myself sick whenever I felt really anxious or sad. I associated being sick with a release of pain for years because of migraines, so it became my release of sadness too. I started to lose more weight and the compliments started coming “oh Jade you’ve lost so much weight, you look amazing” it made me feel good but also really ashamed, I felt like a fraud. Some of my friends found out what I was doing after they complimented me, I blurted out exactly why I had lost more weight (sorry for those that I randomly dropped that bombshell on).
These are the words I was so desperate to avoid saying to everyone. A select few was one thing, but a public blog? I couldn’t just write and leave that part out, I tried believe me. It felt like lying, like sugar coating the truth and I don’t want to do that. Mental illness isn’t sugar coated. I started this blog to help people and to help myself, so giving half truths wasn’t the way I wanted to play it.
I told myself I didn’t want to write it because I didn’t want people to judge me. However when I finally told my sister recently, she said that the reason I hadn’t told everyone, was because I didn’t want to stop. That hit me hard, because it was true! I was scared to share this side mostly because I knew if it’s there in black and white, I can’t hide from it, I would really have to stop. I’ve been feeling so much better depression wise and the anxiety has calmed down. Now it’s time I tackle this too. I need a healthier outlet for my pain and I’m going to find one, so that the next time I fall down that rabbit hole, I don’t make the same mistakes I have been making.
I’ve been eating better recently, I’m planning to start doing Slimming World and start the exercise properly again. I haven’t made myself sick in about 2 weeks which is progress. I am so grateful for my recovery journey this last year, if it had not been for that, I probably wouldn’t have asked for help so early. I could have gotten way further into this and would find it much harder to stop.
This is why I feel it’s so important to share the truth. There are some people afraid to ask for help, those who feel completely alone. Nobody should feel that way, not ever. Mental illness is a horrible thing to live with and people need to know that it’s ok to ask for help. You don’t have to fight alone.
Jade's Journey 
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