Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's an Instagram filter...

After writing my last blog, I started to wonder if I’d shared too much. On the whole, the blog has been really well received and has been read by people all over the world (including 3 people in Australia, 4 people in Thailand and 3 people in the UAE, amazingly.) However, I was very open (perhaps too open) about my struggles with mental illness and I’d be foolish to deny that there is a chance this might impact me negatively later in life. Unfortunately, there is still a massive amount of stigma attached to mental ill health and with 80% of employers now apparently googling potential candidates, it does open me up to the possibility of being turned down for opportunities based on one person’s negative interpretation of my public image.

There is a fine balancing act that must be adhered to when ‘exposing’ yourself to the general public online. Social media can be the best marketing tool out there. After all, no one else posts on your blog/twitter/Facebook/Instagram/misc. other social media that I’m not cool enough for, but you. From a potential employer’s perspective, this makes everything you write a much more accurate portrayal of your personality than anything you could possibly say at a job interview.

Of course this isn’t quite true, as we all know that social media content is highly censored. And by censored, I don’t mean posting less expletives! I mean the filters we apply, the perfect selfies that we post that took 19 attempts to get right, the images of the perfect family, the pictures of the date night at that fancy restaurant, the photos of an epic shopping spree. This is what we, the general public, get to see. What we don’t see is the unedited pictures with our three chins (dare you venture to the dreaded recently deleted photos folder), the children who cried for the whole family day out and sat still only long enough for the picture to be taken, the fight that took place before the date night because she took 3 hours to get ready and he’s raging, the bank statements that are hiding in a drawer to avoid confronting the crippling debt that that new Michael Kors bag is the product of*. We only see what others want us to see.

And this is why I decided to post my blog. Because if you scroll down my Facebook timeline and flick through my Instagram photos, what you will see is a largely happy and comfortable life. And those images are not a lie but they certainly don’t tell the whole story. So maybe I have shared too much, and perhaps one day that will come back to haunt me. But isn’t it a refreshing change to know the truth? To see the harsh, unfiltered, uncensored reality in all its glory and to know that maybe, just maybe, you are not alone in this model perfect, contoured cheeks, selfie filled world. 

*These do not apply to me personally. I have no children, my husband is surprisingly patient when it comes to my beauty regime and the closest thing I have to a designer handbag, is the Fulberry (fake Mulberry) I bought for 20 euros from a 'looky looky' man in Marbella. 

A mindful life

It has been a long time since I last posted a blog (almost 2 years in fact!) Lots has happened in that time -  the biggest change for me being a move from our beautiful flat in leafy Langside to a brand new 3 bed home in Uddingston. I now live in the suburbs and am officially old. Life became very boring and very busy. As of January 2015, I am now CTA qualified which means no more studying (I do keep threatening Neil that I might go back and do my diploma in legal practice or a masters one day but I think he may divorce me if that were to happen and he’s quite useful to have around so I probably won’t.) Studying has been replaced with dusting and Saturday morning hangovers have largely been traded for hoovering and taking the cat out in the garden.

Although lots of things are different, there are a few things that have remained pretty static, and not all of them are necessarily good things.  I’m still (much) heavier than I should be, the cat is still a little shit, Neil is still messier than I’d like, my family still has more issues than vogue, and I’m still battling a mental illness.

I’d never really spoken publicly about my anxiety disorder until earlier this year, when I gave a talk at work on mindfulness for mental health awareness week. This was really well received and I had so much positive feedback from people, some of whom I’d never even talked to before. I’ve been thinking about writing about it ever since but had never quite gotten around to putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, as it were.)

I’ve suffered from a combination of depression, anxiety and panic attacks since I was 20 years old. The first panic attack I remember having was in the now defunct Somerfield on Byres Road (now Waitrose for anyone not familiar with the continuing gentrification of Glasgow’s West End.) It came on out of the blue and I was terrified. I honestly thought I was going to die. I went through a phase of having frequent panic attacks for about a year after that but then didn’t have any for another 8 years. Until February of this year when my world was turned upside down.

I became ill very suddenly with crippling anxiety. A day off sick quickly turned in to a week, and before I knew it, I had been off work for almost 2 months. I could barely function enough to brush my teeth, let alone leave the house. I was so afraid of everything and became overcome with obsessive thoughts that completely engulfed me, to the point where I had to be sedated by a doctor. The awful thoughts (these varied from fears of the house falling down to worries about the cat being kidnapped – sounds ridiculous and it was) were coupled by the terrible physical symptoms I was plagued with. Headaches, numbness, chest pain, muscle tension, upset stomach, nausea, palpitations, insomnia, trembling, dizziness. I had them all. This culminated in a particularly awful episode where I locked myself in the bathroom, convinced bugs were crawling over my skin, and set about scratching off all the skin on my hands (queue hideous scars that not even the miracle bio oil could make disappear!)

Luckily, through a mix of medication, counselling and mindfulness meditation, I gradually began to get better and returned to work, on a phased return, at the end of April. My employers have been incredibly supportive, which has aided my recovery greatly.

It’s not been the best few months and I’m still not completely better: I don’t know if I ever will be. I still have days where the anxious thoughts come, my body dyed with the colour of my own thoughts, and nothing is clear to me. I have other days where I feel sadness for no apparent reason, or worse, feel nothing at all. But practising mindfulness has encouraged me to make peace with my obsessive thinking. Because as powerful as they feel, they are just thoughts. I am not having a heart attack, I am not dying. I am not crazy. I am just me. And that is okay.