Life After Suicide

Hello, hello!

Whoa there, another post about depression / suicide / dealing with these taboo topics…yup, I’m afraid so! I don’t know if any of you watched it but there was a brilliant programme on the BBC last week, called Life After Suicide and it really got me thinking so I thought I’d share my thoughts with you. (Incidentally, I caught the show on iPlayer and it’s there for another 22 days.)

The programme took us on a journey through the after effects of bereavement by suicide, through the eyes of Angela Samata whose own husband took his life 11 years ago. She talks about her own experience and also meets others who’ve been affected by loved ones taking their own lives.

It was interesting to me for obvious reasons and one such reason was talking about the stigma that is STILL attached to suicide. When my mum died, my grandmother, (dad’s mum) told me to lie about what had happened. Clearly she was ashamed of the situation but luckily my dad wasn’t and enforced an “honesty is the best policy” approach. I could blame it on the fact that past generations had a very stiff upper lip, but I know that many people in later generations also feel this way about suicide.

Outside of these obvious things though, the programme stimulated a lot of thoughts that had just never occurred to me. If you watch it, you’ll find one of the people Samata speaks to vocalising her anger at the fact that her husband has left her with all of the things he couldn’t deal with. Not only that, but she now also has to deal with his death and all of it on her own while continuing family life for her children. Well that just plain old never occurred to me; I never stopped to consider that my dad had to deal with so much more than I did, because there’s a whole heap of stuff that happened that he shielded me from. I never went to the open inquest; he did. I never identified the body; he did. And I most certainly didn’t have to arrange the funeral, but guess what? He did. 

Somehow, the amazing man that he is, he managed to do all of that with virtually no support from family or friends. He just stuck his head down and fixed our lives, all the while dealing with another huge worry which surfaced in this documentary: “What if my girls follow their mother’s footsteps?” Being one of the girls, I’ve never really thought about that either because I know I’m not about to take my own life, but watching all of the people in this documentary talk about exactly this fear really hammered home the fact that this is very real and many people carry the burden of this fear forever as a result of another’s actions. The most significant revelation that’s come from this is the beginnings of an understanding of why he and I feel so very differently about the events of the past.

There really is very little support for people who find themselves left behind after a suicide. As my dad has said to me, no social workers called, no nanny state took care of us, there was almost nowhere to turn. Luckily, there are some organisations which exist to help people affected and one such, which featured in the programme and also in my dad’s life, is SOBS. SOBS is a support group for normal people who find themselves in this situation and like any support group, they provide an open forum where people can express themselves but that’s the only one I know of and it was the only one featured in the programme. What else is there?

This remains something that annoys me on an almost daily basis. Once you have found the strength to tell people what’s happened, often you’ll find they know someone else who has been left behind in the same way. Depression is a real illness and suicide is a very real killer. Nearly 6,000 people committed suicide in the UK in 2012* so that’s thousands of people impacted and left behind in just that one year; yet when it happens to you, it’s surprisingly difficult to find support. The internet goes some way to combating this but it’s not enough. So here’s my plea to everyone reading this – please be open, please point people in the direction of others who’ve been through the same when they reach out and please, please don’t ask anyone to lie in order to save face. As in an situation when you’ve lost a loved one, people who are left behind following a suicide just need love, support and ideally someone to speak to who’s been through it and come out the other side.

Thank you.

Now go and watch the programme because I’ve barely scratched the surface of it! x

*Samaritans Statistics Report 2014

If you’re struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide, here are some organisations which might be able to help:

Maytree Sanctuary
Mind
NHS
Depression Alliance

Going Hormone Free

Ok, I’ll say it right upfront…this is probably not a post for the guys, but hopefully you figured that out from the title.

I don’t usually like to speak too much about feminine issues because quite frankly, I’m a bit prudish when it comes to that sort of thing. While I’m happy talking about sex all day, if someone even mentions to me that they’re on their “P”, I get all squeamish and wish the ground would swallow me up. Well, actually I wish it would swallow them up because they were the one to make me feel all disgusting and weird.

Anyway, I digress. What I was heading towards before I ran off track, was that I wanted to talk about hormonal birth control, or rather a lack of.

Before I start, I want to preface everything that follows by saying that I absolutely believe that hormonal birth control has a place in this world. I was on it from the age of 15 until I was almost 29 and if I hadn’t used it during those years, I think I’d be one of those tired-looking, broke young mums with at least 6 kids by now. From when I was 15 until when I was 22 I used one pill consistently, never once forgot to take it and had no problems at all.

At that time though, my body decided it’d had enough and so I changed my pill. Then I changed again, and again, and again. There were a few more changes and eventually I ended up back on the original one.

Here’s my first important point: Sometimes people tell you things about your body that you know aren’t true. One of those pills made me depressed. I mean seriously, woke up crying, wanted to cry all day, went to bed crying, depressed. I got no help from the doctor but miraculously, once I’d figured out the likely problem, I changed my pill and was no longer depressed within a week.

I’ve also had pills which have made me feel really ill. I’ve been tired, achy, miserable, bloated, dizzy, etc, etc. The list really does go on. So, if you are trying out hormonal contraception, I urge you not to accept any of this and to keep going until you find the balance that’s right for you because not all pills are created equal.

Anyhow, that’s what happened around that time. Then, when I was 24, my doctor suggested I try the Mirena coil, which is essentially a hormone filled coil that works similarly to the implant you can have in your arm. You can have this in for 5 years and never need to worry about a thing.

It was no better than the pill was for me but once it was in, I figured I’d stick with it. I stuck with it for nearly 4 years. Oh yes, I stuck with it through the appearance of tiny lumps all over my chin / cheeks; rough, dry skin; spots; constant aches in the gut region; depressed episodes; tiredness; unpredictable monthlies…the lot.

I thought it was my best option and I still maintain that for me, for most of that time, hormonal contraception was the best option.

I spent about 2 years umm-ing and aah-ing about what to do and whether or not to have that thing removed and go hormone free but I was scared. Really, really scared. I’d heard so many horror stories about epic breakouts of spots, boobs shrinking, weight loss, weight gain, awful monthlies, mood swings, lethargy, etc, etc.

Finally though, I bit the bullet because I was feeling so rough anyway and curiosity really got the better of me, so I had it removed.

What a revelation!

Here I am about 3 months later and I feel better than I have in years. My skin is calming down, lots of the bumps have gone and the dryness definitely has. I get fewer spots, I ache less, I sleep less, my monthlies are predictable and pain free, my moods have levelled out. It’s gone so well that I wonder why I was ever scared!

So here’s my real message in all of this…

Different things work for different people. Before my coil, I read horror stories about the procedure to have it inserted. In reality, it was mildly uncomfortable and I ached for a day. Before I came off the hormones, I thought I was going to turn into an acne-riddled monster. In reality, I’m still exactly the same but feeling more alive and looking a little better. Don’t pay attention to the noise of the horror stories because nobody really writes about things when they’re easy or go exactly to plan so you all you hear is the bad stuff.

If you want to try hormones, go for it. If you think they’re not working for you, here I am as a real person saying that even after almost 14 solid years of flooding my body with hormones, it adjusted quickly and I feel better than I did for the majority of that time.

I hope that if you’re thinking about what to do, this has helped you realise that usually what your gut tells you will be right for you, is the thing that really will be right. Take a gamble, try it out and hopefully you’ll be pleasantly surprised! x

Jawbone UP MOVE – Fitness Tracking for the Unfit

My prediction is that sales of fitness trackers are up massively year on year for the month of January. This time last year, this wearable tech was still quite niche with most of us thinking this would be a very short-lived fad. We were thinking it could be the Tamagotchi of the twenty-tens…for adults. Something people would play with for 5 minutes and then throw onto the discard pile along with their resolutions to make this the year they’d finally shift those extra pounds.

So far though, it seems to be more of a mobile phone; something that’s spawned a whole load of new brands trying to beat the ever popular Nokia 3210 (Fitbit). Everyone wants one and often they’re not really sure what they even do. Think about those 3210s for a minute; did you want one because you urgently needed to make calls on the move, or did you want to be able to play Snake and thrust your cool new tech in your friends’ faces? This is what’s happening with fitness trackers.

It’s January, we’ve all decided we’ll be happier, healthier, better people this year and since it’s now 2015, we can’t possibly contemplate doing this without a new gadget of some description. In comes the fitness tracker! (Cue round of applause)

Oh wait, what?

Fitness tracker. But that would mean I’d have to, like, get fit or something. My resolution was public declaration to show the world that I know I’m fat, it wasn’t an intention to fix it! Maybe I should get one anyway…

And so my journey began.

I did quite a lot of research into the various fitness trackers out there because most of them are pricey enough to make me think twice before impulse buying. In the end, I settled on the Jawbone UP MOVE because it has an accessible price point of £39 and it seems to have all of the functionality I need.

I haven’t turned into an athlete just because I purchased a device to track my movement and consequently, I don’t need a sophisticated tracker to tell me that. What I wanted was something to make me aware of just how sedentary my life is and how varied my sleep patterns can be. It’s working.

Every day my steps are monitored so I now know that on an average day working in my local office, I do a fraction of the exercise I assumed I was doing whereas on an average day working in London, I manage far more exercise than I had realised. This is great because I have a starting point and a real indication of how much more I need to move on those local days in order not to turn into a sloth.

I can also track what I eat with this little gadget which is useful for those who are calorie counting. I was already a fan of MyFitnessPal for that though and guess what, the two integrate! 

Basically, what I have is a little gadget I clip on to my tights or trousers in the morning to track my steps and then I press 1 button at night so it tracks my sleep instead. It’s so easy! There’s not even any charging. By charging, I mean that moment you have to separate yourself from the device for a few hours for the first time and then you never go back to it. I’ve been wearing this little Jawbone pal for about 7 days now, which is pretty much the longest I’ve ever played with any toy.

In the meantime, my friend who invested in a Fitbit is sat there staring at her wrist telling me she has no idea what the flashing lights do or how it works. She tried to track her sleep but it didn’t work and she can’t find any proper instructions. She’s 23 and works for a forward thinking software company, surely she’s meant to be able to figure it out!?!

If you’ve read this far, thank you for putting up with my waffle. I hope you can understand that what I’m trying to say is this; if you think you want a fitness tracker but you rarely do anything to warrant one, why not start with the reasonably priced Jawbone UP MOVE and see how you get on. By the time it’s battery dies in 4-6 months’ time, you’ll know whether you’re ready for the big boys or not. It really is the fitness tracker for the chronically unfit and I love it 🙂

What’s the Right Diet for You?

Hello, hello!

So, who’s been watching the BBC Horizon special, What’s the Right Diet for You? It’s a programme looking at why different people over-eat and therefore what might work for them as a diet. They’ve taken a sample set of people and run them through a series of tests to calculate what sort of eater they are.

They’ve broken down the group into 3 subsets, which are:

• Emotional Eater
• Feaster
• Constant Craver

They’re fairly self explanatory by name and the BBC have also created an online test you can take to approximate which of these categories you are likely to fall into. You can find the test here.

I have taken the test and found myself to be 39% Feaster and 61% Constant Craver. Essentially, this means that I’m likely to have a genetic disposition which drives me to continually graze, with less interest in / ability to sit down and eat big meals.

Genetic or not, it certainly rings true that I do constantly graze. Where it’s gone wrong is that most people I know tend to eat square meals. What this means is that I end up doing both!!! The recommended diet for Constant Cravers is the 5:2 diet where you fast for 2 days a week and eat normally (with a healthy spin) for the other 5 days. Given that my bf has just started doing this anyway, I may as well give it a bash.

The idea is that it’s much easier to control your cravings for 2 days a week than it is to try and do it, yet fail every day. Knowing you can have that treat, but you just need to wait 2 days is far easier than eliminating it altogether. It should have clicked sooner but it didn’t. Every way I think about it, this option suits me much better than constantly telling myself “no” as I reach for a snack every 10 minutes!!!

So here I go again in my quest to find a more balanced lifestyle that allows me to shed a few lbs. And no, they didn’t say exercise was the key to weight-loss, they said reducing your calorie intake is the way forward. So you exercise nuts can jog on (geddit!?!) x

Juicing for Wellness, Days 4 & 5

Homemade Vegetable Curry

I may as well have just walked into a confession box because what I’m about to say isn’t good. I fell off the wagon big time yesterday. I was hungry, it was the weekend, I wanted to eat something familiar. I’m sorry!

In the interest of being open and honest, I may as well confess that yesterday morning I ate a couple of chocolate biscuits. Then at around 3pm I ate a burrito. It had pork, rice, guacamole, sour cream, pinto beans, peppers, cheese and a heck of a lot of flavour in it. It completely flouted the diet rules but it tasted sooooooooo good! It also gave me the motivation to buck up my ideas and get back on track. Well, that plus my bf watching me and telling me that I want to be healthy, not full of sugar.

So for dinner last night I had a corn on the cob and another bowl of my tomato and garlic soup. I’m back on course. Go me!

Today has been somewhat challenging as it’s been my first day back in the office and things are a bit slow after the Christmas break so I’ve had lots of time to think about food and stare at the chocolate bars and biscuits in the kitchen. On the plus side though, I’m feeling better than I’ve felt in months now that my cold is clearing and I’ve had some rest and good food for a few days.

Today’s menu has been much better:

Breakfast – strawberry, raspberry and blueberry smoothie made with just fruit and water

Lunch – tomato and garlic soup

Dinner – vegetable curry

Snacks – an apple, a clementine and some lemon & ginger tea

It’s not very juicy, I admit but it is bloody healthy!

I’ve posted the recipe for my homemade vegetable curry over on another of my blogs. You can find it here. It’s pretty quick and easy to knock up even on a school night and it’s bloody lovely. Not only that but there’s enough left for tomorrow night too. You’ll notice if you read it that I even experimented with the cauliflower rice that everyone’s talking about at the moment. It was pretty darned scrummy, if I do say so myself!

Happy eating, everyone. Just remember that falling off the wagon doesn’t matter, it’s about making a gradual change to improve the quality of what you consume. It’s not a race! x

Juicing for Wellness, Day 3

I did it, I went home and I weighed myself. I was expecting to weight about 11st 7lbs as I feel like I’ve been putting on even more weight recently so it was a pleasant surprise to weight in at 11st 1lb. That’s basically half a stone less for me to lose 🙂

So, the update on the juicing and the life with it. Here’s what happened on Day 2 following my blog post that day.

Breakfast was the carrot, apple and ginger juice which was pretty delicious.

Lunch was a change up. Instead of juice for lunch, I made a tomato and garlic soup, the recipe for which I found in a different version of the juice plan I was following. It was a smidge on the bland side but it was decent enough that the bf joined me in having some. You can find the recipe here.

Tomato and Garlic Soup for 2

We took the dog on a couple of walks yesterday and my energy was a bit low so I snacked on an apple and some grapes throughout the day and drank a fair bit of fruit tea.

By the time dinner came around, my cold had got the better of me so I had a chicken breast salad. My chicken was flavoured with paprika and cooked in a tiny bit of olive oil, my salad was without dressing. The leaves and avocado tasted better than ever because I was so deprived of food!

You’ll notice that my juice diet has strayed a little way off the juice track so I tried to bring it a bit more under control today, (day 3) but I was out and about so it’s been another compromise.

Breakfast – blueberry, raspberry and strawberry smoothie made with just fruit and water

Lunch – juice from Fuel juice bar, made with carrot, celery, apple and ginger

Dinner – chicken, mash and low-mayo coleslaw with a side salad, (we went out for dinner)

I’m not sure if it’s the cold/sore throat or the diet or both but I’ve been feeling mighty tired. My tummy is still bloated, I ache and all I want to do is sleep. I’ve added meat back into my diet in the hope that eating protein-based meals as well as juicing will help me pick myself back up but it’s proving challenging. I just want to snoooooooooooze! Still, I must keep pressing on because I don’t want to be this size and feel this unwell all the time. I CAN DO IT. PMA!

Until next time…  x

Juicing for Wellness, Day 2

Carrot, Apple and Ginger Juice

I’m still alive!!! I honestly thought at one point yesterday that I might die before I got to post today because I was so hungry and so tired.

As promised, this is an honest account of my juicing experience so here’s a run down of what’s happened in the last 24 hours.

Day 1:

Breakfast – Carrot, Apple and Lemon juice
This juice was bloody lovely and when I posted yesterday morning, I really thought I could do it.

Lunch – Cucumber, Apple, Kale and Parsley juice
By lunch time (12pm) yesterday, I was blinkin’ starving and this juice just did not hit the mark. As separate ingredients I like all of the components but as a juice, this was green yuk. It wasn’t the worst I’ve ever tasted but it did nothing to entice me to drink it either. I was ready to give up, I was grumpy and I had to re-evaluate.

Re-evaluation
As always with me on any sort of diet or healthy eating plan, I find that I am instantly grumpy and dreading the rest of the programme. With a cold as well as what felt like a starvation plan, yesterday was unbearable. I took a cold, hard look at what I want to achieve and came up with these priorities:

1. Health – I’m fed up of feeling tired, looking tired and having a pregnancy bump sized bloated tummy
2. Weight Loss – I have clothes I can no longer fit into. This is new to me and I HATE IT
3. Sustainability – Yo-yo dieting just isn’t a good idea, what I want is to change the way I think about food and actually use food to nourish me, not just to feed my sugar cravings

Once I’d prioritised, I looked at my options again. I could juice for weeks on end, making food the enemy, feeling grouchy, probably bingeing on junk along the way, OR I could make the plan work for me. Now let me share what I had for dinner…

Dinner – Corn on the cob, lightly cooked broccoli, spinach and Brussels sprouts with garlic and chilli, with a handful of black grapes for pudding.

I also had a “snack” juice yesterday, made with pineapple, yellow pepper and ginger which was pretty darned tasty.

I made it through and the way I did that was by tailoring the plan to suit me. My dinner was still just vegetables and it wasn’t particularly satisfying but it took away some of the hunger pangs and still contributed a lot of goodness to my eating plan.

This is how I’m going to do it from now on. I’ll juice in the morning, as I have done again today. I’ll probably have juices as snacks too and the rest of the time I’ll eat. I’ll eat like a vegan and I’ll get to my goals, taking this like a marathon rather than a sprint. What I realised is that this is about control; it’s not that I can’t have the Maltesers sitting on top of the book case, I’m choosing not to. In the same vein, I can choose to eat well but without just living off juices that leave me feeling like I’m missing out.

I still have no idea of my weight but I *should* go home today where I can check that out and report back. In the following posts, I’ll share any fab recipes I encounter which I think could help others trying to do the healthy thing.

Anyone else on a similar plan? x

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead…Well Not Quite

The Weapon of Choice

Happy 2015 everybody!!!

I have to say, my year has got off to an excellent start as I sit here typing away with a gorgeous, snoring Beagle lying next to me 🙂

Anyhow, this isn’t just a generic happy new year post, I thought I’d conform to what society expects even more than that. This is a “welcome to my new year detox” post! Oh yes, it’s January and I thought I’d make it a challenge by starving myself. I mean getting healthy. Not starving myself, getting into a fit, healthy place.

Seriously though, the bf and I watched a docu-film on Netflix the other week, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and it was all about one chap, (Joe Cross) and his quest to sort his life out. He wanted to change things up, stop relying on medication, lose weight and generally feel more alive, and he brought a few people along with him too. Now, we’ve all seen these documentaries before and we’ve had juice diets rammed down our throats just about as much as we possibly can but something in this film just made me sit up and realise that I CAN DO IT! I really can.

I’m not fat per sé, but I am packing quite a few extra pounds at the moment which I wouldn’t mind losing. However, that’s not my main motivation. My main goal is to stop looking and feeling sooooooooooooo tired. It’s got to the point of ridiculousness and I know for sure that the food I’m putting in simply isn’t up to scratch. So I’ve set myself the challenge of turning that around before the spring comes. I have heaps of fun things going on so I need energy and I need it now.

Starting today, I’m on a juice diet. A hard hit of nutrients! Any avid readers will be pleased to know that I have a new juicer, following the disaster that was my Jason Vale detox back in May. (Read all about it here) There are no hard and fast rules to what I’m doing, I’m just juicing from now until whenever and I’ll be charting my progress along the way.

To join me, you can grab some juice recipes from Joe’s website, here. I’m currently on my first juice, 4 apples, 4 carrots and 2 lemons and it’s actually bloody tasty. What I like about this plan is that I’m not limited to 3 measly juices per day so every time I’m flagging, it should be juice time. My aim is to give you a real person’s run down of how juicing fits into daily life and just how low the lows are and how high the highs are.

Day 1 – 10.45 am – It’s a bank holiday, I can totally do this. I’m bloody starving but there’s a dog here to distract me and I want that healthy glow. Weight is currently unknown as I can’t find a scales anywhere in the bf’s house but I’ll check that out tomorrow.

I’m looking forward to this as the start of the best year ever! x

Insomnia; Friend or Foe

Hello!!!

Apologies for the lack of recent blog activity, I seem to have been busy living that thing we call life. I say living, I mean I’ve been working my bottom off and spending my spare time sleeping / vegging out!

Right now though, I am on holiday and I swore to myself I would post while on holiday.  What I had envisioned was a lovely, photograph-heavy post, written in the sunshine. What’s actually happened is my insomnia is back with me and I’ve decided to post at 4.30am while the world around me is dark and asleep.

Not surprisingly then, my post is actually going to be about insomnia. It’s a strange thing, this not being able to sleep despite being super tired. I’ve always been a light sleeper and never been an 8 hours a night type of person but the insomnia has only reared its head in the last 5 or so years and I’m really not a fan.

Well, I say I’m not a fan but sometimes, like now, the middle of the night can be really productive. I get books read, writing done, planning done, etc. But then I’m exhausted, my wrinkles are deeper and my eyes more tired the following day. I can easily function for weeks when I suffer this curse but the enjoyment disappears from things because I’m constantly having to battle the scratchy eyes and pounding headache.

People who don’t get this, just don’t understand. They ask questions like, “Did you try closing your eyes? You can’t not sleep with your eyes closed”. Yes I tried closing my eyes, I’m not stupid! Then I tried a sleep mask too because once again, I’m not stupid!  It doesn’t seem to be socially acceptable to suggest that perhaps I am a superior and more complex being than they are, despite them suggesting that I am the utmost simpleton.

Insomnia seems to be divisive, there are those that do and those that don’t, with no bridge of understanding in the middle. I’m honestly not sure whether it’s just a pain in my backside or whether it adds an extra dimension to my world. It’s not necessarily a dimension I ever felt was lacking, but nonetheless, it’s another differentiator between me and Joe Bloggs.

I’m keen to hear from fellow non-sleepers…how you do tackle this beast and what do you think of it? 

Right now, I can hear one of my Schnauzer brothers awake in the next room. If there wasn’t a human in there with him, I’d have a playmate to see me through. Maybe he’ll read this post and “sleep” in my room next time! 

Day 1 of my James Vale, Juice Master 3 Day Detox

Things on this blog have been a bit serious for the last few posts and it’s been ages since I did any sort of review so I thought I’d jump back on it and try something new. With a hen do coming up this weekend, I’ve decided that I need to run some sort of detox program to try and get my body back to looking and feeling good. Given my past history of failure at these things, I’ve decided to try a 3 day detox.

I’ve downloaded Jason Vale’s 3 day Juice Master detox app and I’ve actually got as far as starting it. According to his motivational video, I’m already doing better than most because I’ve bought the food and started the detox. BOOM! This is the kind of information I need to hear to keep me on the straight and narrow.

The Shopping List

However, the people who said I wouldn’t be hungry LIED. These are the same idiots who say their bloating decreases, their energy increases and they love it from day one.

I’m struggling, it’s 2.30pm and I’m thinking of going straight to bed post evening juice when I get home because I am THAT tired and hungry right now. I even cheated and ate a satsuma…a whole satsuma! My teeth loved the opportunity to chew something 🙂

Then I ate an apple. Just now I ate an apple because I was feeling light-headed. I’m really not sure these diets factor in the extreme eaters like me. WHOOPS!

To be fair, I think it’s been extra bad for me today because my juicer overheated last night so one of my “juices” is full of bits as I had to resort to the blender. Tomorrow’s menu looks much better as there’s a fruit smoothie and there’s ginger in one of the juices which is pretty much my favourite flavour ever! Not that that makes me any less hungry right now. What I’m currently thinking is that might just eat the components of the juice for dinner. No juicing, just actual huge chunks of food. I can’t get more bloated than I am right now and it should fill me up enough to allow me to actually do some exercise which has to be a good thing.

Watch this space to see if I’ve fallen off the wagon by this time tomorrow… (think thin, think yummy smoothie, think bikini, think…oh sod it!) x