Life as Cerys

  One of the biggest difficulties I face with my bipolar is feeling like I am constantly contradicting myself. Managing hypomanic decisions when in a depressive episode feels overwhelming and creates a lot of anxiety, especially as I often find myself back-peddling on decisions and letting people down. But the lack of decisions made in a depressive episode then leads me to find myself frustrated, bored, and irritable when my mood is elevated. This means I always feel like I’m fighting a pattern of contradictory behaviour. I recently had a lower mood episode, finding myself struggling to get out of bed before nine even though I went to sleep at eight-thirty the night before, not wanting to walk the dog very far, struggling with motivation to clean the house. The side effects of my quetiapine do not help in this regard, causing constant fatigue, memory issues and brain fog. In a depressive episode, it genuinely feels like I cannot get my brain to work in a normal way, instead disso...

  Whilst Christmas brings enjoyment, excitement, indulgence and treats for many, Christmas to me has always brought an element of anxiety and significant self-criticism. This post is to help myself, and hopefully others, understand the complex experience myself and others with mental health problems and/or eating disorders can go through at Christmas My combined issues of Bipolar and Bulimia means that I have a rollercoaster of an experience every festive season. Christmas is one particular time of year that has a tendency to trigger a manic episode - or at least hypo-mania - due to the excitement that Christmas brings. I would probably explain the mania at Christmas as an enhanced version of how I felt as a child on Christmas day but prolonged for weeks on end and often detrimental to my mental and physical health. This year feels a little bit different with Covid and the tier restrictions we are facing. My feelings towards Christmas 2020 are less hypomania in the sense of happine...

Sharing body positive drawings, doodles, articles and posts does not make me positive towards my own body. Being ‘body positive’ has not aided me in finding any solace or comfort in my own shell, but instead I seem to encourage others to love themselves as though it is going to miraculously make  me  love myself.  Every day I thank my body for sustaining me, especially in recent weeks and months, but yet I still refuse to stand and look at myself in the mirror. I can’t actually remember the last time I went into a shop, tried on an item of clothing, and left the changing room with a smile on my face to buy the item. However, I do remember the years of standing in a changing room, an ill-fitting dress squeezing or hanging off my body, my eyes blurred with tears as I whimpered back to my mum that it ‘just doesn’t look right on me.’ After years of truly detesting myself and punishing my body for its natural fluctuations, I decided it was time to become ‘body posit...

28/06/22 Edit: Whilst this is no longer my current life situation, having dropped out of my Masters - something which I still struggle with accepting - this blog post, as it is my first, is still important. The message still remains: that I am forever learning how to live life at my own pace. I think this is especially important to keep as a post after my recent blog with Rethink Mental Illness discusses finally trying to come to terms with my 'success' and timeline being different to others. If you had told me in 2019 that I would have have made the conscious decision to leave paid employment to focus on my mental stability, wellbeing and recovery, I probably wouldn't have been surprised. But at the time, when I chose to start a Masters and continue to pursue a career that wasn't suitable for my wellbeing, you couldn't have told me otherwise. I guess there is nowhere better to start than with some reflection, even if it means you have to look back at your mistakes....