Past, present and future - From rock bottom to mental health nurse

I’ve been very fortunate to have had many courses of talking therapy throughout my time under the care of eating disorder services. These therapies played a major role in my ability to overcome anorexia in addition to supporting me through other periods of mental illness. I am therefore a huge advocate  for talking therapy and am saddened by the lack of provision for it within NHS mental health services, in particular more specialised forms of talking therapy.   Having talking therapy has benefited me in numerous ways including helping me to identify the role that the anorexia played in my life, developing my understanding of the relationship between the way I think, the emotions that arise and my behaviours in response to this. Most importantly however, therapy gave me a safe space to unload the stuff I had suppressed for so long, feeling heard, understood and validated throughout this process. I developed a strong therapeutic relationship with the majority of the therapi...

  In the last couple of months, I have experienced such a whirlwind of emotions which has led me to do a lot of reflecting and reminiscing of everything I have been through during my studies and prior to commencing them. I am the very proud owner of a first-class honours degree in mental health nursing. My achievements span way more than those obtained academically, however. Numerous people have supported me along this challenging and arduous journey and many of those understand the extent of what I have endured and overcome to be in the position I am in now, namely my family, friends and academic advisor. They have been there for me throughout the highs and lows, of which there has been plenty. They got me through the days when I did not think I could keep going.   Throughout my degree I was constantly plagued by a voice that told me I could not do it. An inner critical voice that consistently berated me, voicing that I was worthless, useless and a fool to think that I co...

  People’s thoughts and beliefs around the meaning of recovery are often very different. In my opinion, recovery is a very unique and personal journey and shouldn’t be based upon generalised outcome measures.   Whilst in the throes of my eating disorder, I could never have imagined I would one day achieve a full recovery. It felt as though the anorexic voice and the thoughts/feelings associated with it were too ingrained within me. I figured the voice would be something I would have to learn to live with. I remember listening to recovery talks and not relating to this idea that those thoughts could one day disappear. I couldn’t even remember what it felt like not having fears and anxieties around food. I’d settled on this idea of a semi-recovery where I am able to challenge the thoughts and not let them dictate my life.   When I refer to thoughts, I don’t just mean the ones associated with food. My eating disorder impacted my entire life. It influenced the thoug...

  I find the use of analogies helpful because they allow me to make better sense of my thoughts, feelings and experiences.   Freeing myself from my internal prison perfectly sums up my anorexia recovery process. I was my own judge and jailer, sentencing myself to a life of pain and misery. My experience of anorexia was like being in a dictatorship. She would tell me what to do and I had to obey without negotiation. She was demanding, controlling, manipulative and ruthless, any defiance led to punishment. I was trapped and I felt helpless. There was an element of safety to my imprisonment though. I felt hidden and protected from the outside world in the confines of my toxic bubble.   This internal prison was shame. In my opinion, shame is potentially a hugely paralysing and damaging emotion to experience, especially when it is enduring. It can be overwhelmingly painful to feel. I felt shame because of who I was, and I was not safe to show that person to the world....

  If you know me in real life or follow my twitter account then you’ll know that I do have a tendency to veer towards negative thinking and as you can imagine, this has at times been significantly worse throughout stages of the current pandemic. Ruminating on and critiquing my past and overthinking current circumstances has completely overshadowed any ounce of goodness that I may be experiencing. It is as though I do not feel there should be anything to feel positive about and it would be wrong to allow myself to feel that way.   Being a student mental health nurse has posed a real challenge to me because of my vulnerability to negative thinking and my tendency to become an ‘emotional sponge’ (Somebody that takes on the emotions of those around them). Throughout the placement experiences I have had so far, I have worked with many people who have suffered immensely as a consequence of trauma (including iatrogenic trauma), their mental illness itself, social isolation, stigm...

What is insight? I am thinking of it from a mental health/mental illness perspective, an internal insight of the workings of the own mind. In mental health care, insight is generally regarded as being a very good thing. It means that the patient has a good understanding of their illness, the symptoms and struggles they experience consequently and what helps them to manage these. It means they know when they are unwell or becoming unwell and when they need to seek more support. A patient’s insight is assessed as part of a mental state examination.   I would describe myself as having a very good insight into my mental illnesses. I have been living with them for about 12 years and in that time, I have learnt a lot about my relationship with them. Initially I had very little insight. The illnesses were new and confusing; I did not know why they were there, and I did not know what support I needed with them. At that stage I needed support and was reliant upon the expertise of others...