The kindness of strangers...

Throughout the organisation of the CCCBC row to London one thing I've been struck by is the willingness of people to help out! Yes, there have been plenty of occasions when multi-million pound corporations have refused to offer just one of their products, or the media has been disinterested on the basis of my unwillingness to display shocking photos of my former self, but for every one of those occasions there has been a moment of joy when someone has given up their time or resources to help our cause.

For that reason, we as a crew would really like to thank the following people for their ongoing help and support. Have a flick through and you'll be amazed at the selflessness of these people, many of whom have never met us...

Nick Watts selflessly offered his services as a highly accomplished PR manager to help spread the word about our event.

 Stitch Rowing have provided us with bespoke kit including unisuits, fleeces, caps and trackies.

 Carl Morris designed our fantastic logo for the event and is also cycling the whole way with us to ensure our safety.

Fuller's pubs have kindly given us £300 to help with the cost of transporting the boat back and hiring a suitable support vehicle. They are also holding a launch event at the Head of the River in Oxford and a finish event at The Dove in Hammersmith. Their logo is printed on our kit as official sponsors.

The Food Doctor not only invited us to London for a nutirtion consultation to help us get the most out of our training, but also sent a hamper of balanced, nutritious snacks for us to take with us.

The Stafford branch of the Soroptimist society gave us £50 which will be used to fuel the support vehicle.

Bounce sent us some great protein balls to help repair our muscles after each day.

Maxitone gave us some Promax high-protein fruit drinks.

Nuun gave us 60% off their yummy products to help us hydrate in training.

Additionally:
- Absolute Sports Nutrition: SiS 'Go' Electrolyte powder
- Martin Mottershead butchers: BBQ for one meal
- Stafford Motorhomes: reduced hire of our support vehicle

Without all of these people the event would not have turned into the success we are now hoping it will be, and we are truly humbled by and grateful for everything they have done!

180km. 4 days. PAIN!

    About a year ago I had a crazy idea. That is, crazier than my usual ideas…

         I had been volunteering for Beat for a couple of years but had recently increased my awareness/media work, and so decided it was about time I dabbled in the fundraising aspect to my Young Ambassador role. Simple, right? But the problem with having an anorexic personality is that I’m a perfectionist: I didn’t want to do something easy; I wanted to step outside my comfort zone, push myself to the limits and do something which had never been done before.

        That was when it dawned on me. Rowing had been the main factor in helping me maintain my recovery at uni – due to the need for good nutrition to build physical strength in order to succeed – so it seemed fitting to combine the two. As a small club, we didn’t have the resources to cross the channel or row around the British coast, but I realised we could plausibly row 180km down the Thames from Oxford to London, which no all-female crew has attempted before! I suggested it to the rest of my crew, fully expecting it to be taken as just another of my wild ideas, but was pleasantly surprised when they all immediately replied saying they would love to! I’m still not sure whether that was the start of something great, or bad news because it meant that from that point on there was no turning back.

The squad taking part.

        Rowing is a really good way to meet people in other year groups and also form a really close friendship group – seeing each other at 6am every morning on the river means you inevitably become attached to each other. This close bond and camaraderie has equipped us well for the gruelling training schedule we have had to undergo in preparation for the event because it has enabled everyone to support each other through the pain of icy mornings on the water, hours at a time spent on the rowing machines and murderous circuit sessions. Our closeness is also the thing which we will be relying on most during the journey to keep us motivated and upbeat throughout, despite the inevitable excruciating muscle ache and horrific weeping palm blisters.

        The theme for Eating Disorder Awareness Week this year was ‘Everybody knows somebody’ – a phrase which has really rung true in discussing individual crew members’ reasons for taking part. As I discovered when we were asked to give a crew interview, nearly every one of them has been exposed to eating disorders either personally, or through family and friends! Francesca (20) summed up her motivation, saying:

“Watching my sister fight her ED means I have not been shielded from the real difficulties sufferers face - not just in their minds, but also from the stigma society holds against them. Every painful training session seems worth it if it can help to fight for better treatment for sufferers of EDs.”

        With a matter of days to go before the launch, we are all quickly becoming a complex mixture of excited and terrified, and so would really appreciate any support we can get – be it financial or in cheers from the river bank along the way (get in touch at esther.rich@ccc.ox.ac.uk if you’d like to know the timings).

If you’d like to help make our pain worthwhile, support us at: www.justgiving.com/londonrow

    Anyone in the London area is also very welcome to come to our finish party at ‘The Dove’ on Hammersmith Bridge – 3.30pm on Wednesday 26^th June.

'Mess'

‘We’re putting on a play. It’s about anorexia – but don’t let that put you off!’

        On Saturday night I dragged my boyfriend along the 50minute tube journey across London to Battersea Arts Centre to see a play called ‘Mess’, written by the hugely talented Caroline Horton. I didn’t know a huge amount about the play – simply that it was about anorexia and had received great reviews – but since working with Beat, my default setting has been set to responding with an immediate “I’ll be there!” to anything referring to eating disorder awareness.

         The play opened to a collective guffaw at the hilarious entrance of Sistahl (played by Seiriol Davies), who served throughout the play to lighten the mood in order to get across a serious message whilst maintaining the audience’s enjoyment. The audience was then taken on a safari of emotions, from the heart-warming commitment of the main character, Josephine’s, friend (Hannah Boyde) in willing her to get better despite struggling to understand her affliction, to the painful struggle of Josephine herself fighting the pro-ana and pro-recovery voices in her head.

        The topic of anorexia, in fact mental health in general, is so often tainted with stigma to the extent that society shies away from discussing it. It was refreshing, therefore, to be presented with the stark reality of the life of an anorexic, which is more often than not kept hidden away behind a screen of normality. I believe that ‘Mess’ will have gone some way to helping those who saw it develop a better, and truer, understanding of eating disorders, and force them to challenge the stereotypical view of ‘why don’t they just eat?!’. 

        For me, however, it was 70 minutes in which I once again felt the camaraderie and solidarity of the shared experiences which I had not found to this extent since my own hospital treatment three years ago. The ‘in jokes’ surrounding GPs’ incompetence in the subject, therapists’ claims of ‘making progress’ without defining said progress and choice of a ‘Go Ahead’ bar over cake made me feel able to laugh at the topic without at all making light of it – a balance which I think is exceptionally hard to achieve but was done impeccably by Horton!

        My boyfriend’s only criticism was that he worried the ‘unfinished’ ending could risk undoing all his hard work in persuading me that full recovery is possible, but I absolutely loved the fact that Horton (or rather Josephine) refused to allow the play to end finitely! Yes, I agree with my boyfriend that giving a sufferer the mindset that recovery will never be complete is dangerous because it suggests it is OK for them to fall into the trap of acceptance rather than determination, but I saw ‘Mess’ as a way of raising awareness in those with little knowledge of eating disorders: not a way of treating those who suffer from them! Therefore it seemed apt to stress that the mental turmoil of an eating disorder does not stop when the patient is released from hospital – it takes far, far longer! Years after supposed recovery (in the eyes of the outside world) I am only now beginning to reach a point where anorexia is almost wiped out.

        All in all a perfect mix of humour and emotion which cut right to the heart of anorexia and portrayed the mindset incredibly believably. I can only hope that Horton and the company bring ‘Mess’ back for another tour so that I can send everyone I know to go and see it! 

For more info, go to: http://www.carolinehorton.net/

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!!