Why the taboo on Prozac is sooooo last century!

   Unlike a lot of people in today's society, I will happily admit to taking anti-depressants. A mental illness is just that - an illness, which needs treating! If I had a physical ailment I wouldn't think twice about taking the medication, so I don't understand why there is such a taboo on medication for mental illnesses! We haven't mastered the cure for cancer yet, but we are fortunate enough to have discovered chemical solutions which can, for example, block serotonin re-uptake to stabilise moods. It's a simple, scientific formula like any other drug - so why should we feel the need to keep it a secret?

        I may have recovered from anorexia, but the underlying biological (arguably genetic!) mechanisms which triggered the corresponding depression haven't gone away. In order to maintain a stable, happy lifestyle (and more importantly cope with the pressures of studying for a degree!) I still need a daily dose of fluoxetine - otherwise known as Prozac.

        Yes, Prozac is portrayed as the drug that celebrities turn to when life gets a little too hectic. But the misconception is that they do so for attention, or to join a craze, when in reality it shouldn't be so surprising that they often become depressed when they lose control of their own lives to the media.

        The last couple of days haven't been great - I've started to feel down and the body/food-related thoughts and temptations have been creeping back in. Today I tried to work out why that might be, when I've been doing so well for so long. It suddenly occurred to me that I picked up my latest prescription on Monday but haven't yet taken it to the pharmacy! Unbelievably, after just 4 days without the medication, I am reminded of just how much difference it makes to my life!

        Of course, there will be sceptics reading this and viewing me as a drug-dependent hypochondriac, but the truth is these drugs WORK! They have a medical purpose, and they genuinely help. I'm not dependent - I'm following doctors' advice. Once before I made the decision to stop taking them because I was worried that this would be how I was viewed, but I later realised I wasn't ready. The body and mind let you know when they can cope on their own and mine couldn't. Since restarting the course of treatment I have regained my optimism about life and ability to deal with difficult situations without turning to the formerly automatic, self-destructive coping strategies.

        So, if you or someone you know is on (or should be on!) anti-depressants but you still have doubts, re-think your attitude today. In an age where same sex marriage and international adoption have become the norm, there is no valid reason for the continuing taboo on mental health issues!

Writer's Block

    So..... in the 2 hours I've been sitting at my desk I've written 162 words, some of which are in the title which was already given to me! Today I have to write 1500!! Why is it that no matter how urgent an assignment is it's SO hard to muster up the motivation?!

    Obviously Netflix and facebook are FAR more interesting than dyscalculia and brain imaging, but even with a pressing deadline I can't inhibit the wandering mind and just focus on the job at hand. Is this a student affliction, or does it continue into your career?! How would the world keep going if the people at the top had this problem? (Or do they, but they have someone lower down who isn't allowed to?). Someone, somewhere, HAS to get the work done!

    Two theories:
1) Things I CHOOSE to do can be done in no time, but the minute someone tells me I have to do something, the brakes come on.
2) When I don't have a clear-cut plan for an appealing task, I will subconsciously find excuses not to do it (I have to send that rowing email... I have to get back to that sponsor... I have to go and buy snacks to fuel my work... LOOK! I've been productive with my day. Except my 'productiveness' hasn't been channeled where it needs to be).

    This whole blog took around 10 minutes to write, and is already significantly longer than those 162 words on the Word document I have running. The results are conclusive: as a human being it's not my fault - our species wasn't made to write essays, it was made to enjoy life!!!!

Anorexic Images - who need them?

Recycled this from my HuffPost profile, but I thought it would be an important article to get the blog started...

        I recently spoke to a journalist who was interested in covering my row to London for Beat. Her first question, before she even asked about what I was doing or why, was ‘Do you have any images of yourself at a low weight?’ As soon as I calmly explained Beat’s guidelines on the topic, which advise ambassadors not to provide these sorts of images, she launched into a heated speech about how she ‘simply couldn’t understand why that was necessary’ because if I was ‘claiming to have been anorexic’ I would ‘need to prove it’! I thought to myself that that is precisely the problem with the current state of the media: too many people assume they understand eating disorders by sight alone, rather than stepping outside of their comfort zone to consider the reality that they run much deeper than skin level. 

        Given the recent controversy on Twitter surrounding the portrayal of eating disorders on popular TV programmes, it is important to recognise that their basis lies in the psychological symptoms, NOT the physical alone! Displaying images of sufferers in their skin-and-bone state puts too much focus on weight loss, which is in fact just one of many symptoms of eating disorders – and actually only applies to anorexia which accounts for just 10% of cases under the umbrella term ‘eating disorders’. As a result this feeds the common misconception that in order to have an eating disorder one must be drastically underweight. In fact, many people who are diagnosed as having an eating disorder never fall below a healthy weight!

        In my own fight for treatment I was turned away because I was not underweight enough, even though I had already reached the stage of amenorrhoea.  It seems so dismissive to believe that anorexia in particular is categorised by emaciation: in my last blog I explained how even after three years of maintaining a healthy weight – and therefore by the media’s definition being recovered – I can still encounter the distorted cognition associated with the illness. The weight is simply a by-product of the thoughts, and so the thoughts are just as much present once the weight has been gained, and take far longer to work through. 

        Another common justification is that seeing such graphic images of starvation will make an anorexic ‘think twice’ about ‘what they are doing to themselves.’ Anorexia is NOT a lifestyle choice that can simply be opted out of! They are not doing anything to themselves, they are being dictated to by the malicious voice of a genuine illness. Susan Ringwood, CEO of Beat, said: ‘Eating disorders are more hard wired than was first known to be the case… people with anorexia can know they are at risk of dying and can find that less terrifying than gaining a few pounds in weight.’ The ‘shock factor’ which is experienced by the typical reader, and is exploited by the media, does not affect someone with an eating disorder. Susan continued: ‘These images do not shock them, they excite, encourage and motivate them to get as thin if not thinner than the person depicted’.

        ‘Triggering’ can sound like such a trivial word, but the truth is that presenting emaciation as a validation of anorexia not only promotes the denial of being ill because a sufferer will never feel like they look like the person in the picture – and so they can’t have the same illness – but also brings out the innately competitive side of the illness and drives the need to restrict food further because they take the image as evidence that they can (and in their mind should) be thinner!

        It is understandably difficult to comprehend the danger of these graphic images when to most people they serve as a catalyst for disgust, but I would urge anyone viewing such an image to consider it from the point of view of a person who is caught in the deadly grasp of an eating disorder. To these people, opening that magazine in which they sought a momentary escape from their own reality only to be faced with a representation of the idol who they feel they can never replicate merely reinforces the feeling of inadequacy, self-hatred and depression.

Welcome to my world!

I've been meaning to set up a blog for a while, but as with most things in the life of an Oxford student, it's been put off in favour of more pressing issues like essay crises and tutorials. I should technically be in an essay crisis right now, but have chosen to put that off this time!

Get ready for anecdotes, first-world problems and general musings from my crazy life.

Oh, and thanks for reading - love you!!