Why Do I Have This Blog Anyway?

Ros Limbo — Sun, 20 Dec 2020 12:47:04 +0000

I don’t know.

No really, I don’t know.

I started blogging in 2014. Back then I just wanted to write so I switched my pen for the keyboard. I still had the dream of becoming a fulltime writer. I imagined that one day HuffPost would publish my work and my life would be changed forever.

But then my life did change forever: I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and put on medication.

A side story before I continue. Like most people growing up, everything I knew about mental illness I learnt from TV. I remember watching 90210 and being introduced to the character called Ern Silver. Erin was a hot mess. She drank excessively and would have random outbursts. As the show progressed, it was revealed that Erin had bipolar disorder. From that point on my perception of people with bipolar disorder was that they were highly unstable, alcoholics and could not be trusted.

And then karma…

In the beginning, I wasn’t expressly told that I had bipolar. I found this out when I decided to read the letter my psychiatrist sent to my medical aid. I was furious. How dare this lady compare me to an unstable alcoholic! Couldn’t she see that I had a stable job and by my standards I was functioning just fine.

Being the Aquarian that I am, I confronted her on my next visit. She allowed me to rant, which I did for a good 30 minutes. After that she sat me down and explained what bipolar disorder was. She then went further and gave me examples of how I exhibited these symptoms during my visits to her. So moral of the story: don’t go confronting professionals without doing your research.

My life changed. I went from being “normal” to being what society sees as unstable and possibly violent. I started to notice the many biases people had towards those living with mental illness. It frustrated me because it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t true. People living with mental illness are only unstable if they are not granted access to proper medical care (a topic that deserves its own blog post). Many psychologists believe that people with mental illness are more likely to harm themselves then harm others.

So I guess that’s why I started this blog. I want to show people that a lot of what you see on TV concerning mental illness is not true. My dream is to create a space where others feel safe to talk about their mental illness. So going forward I promise to be more consistent with my writing. But more importantly, I will be more intentional about discussing mental illness biases on this blog.

And with that, have an amazing festive season.

Happy holidays:

The post Why Do I Have This Blog Anyway? first appeared on Ros Limbo.

The Invisible Prison of Eating Disorders

Ros Limbo — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 21:22:59 +0000

I have lost almost 10kg over the past three months. And getting there took drastic measures.

And not the ones you may be thinking about.

When you have an eating disorder, losing weight can be tricky. My psychologist told me that for those with eating disorders, there is a fine line between eating well and feeding (or starving) emotions. When the thought of healing my relationship with food crossed my mind, I was scared. I was scared that I would have a few days of progress before falling back into the black abyss that sees me binging and purging for days on end. Part of me wondered if the risk was even worth taking. “Weighing 80kg is way better than having your face in a toilet pot” is what I constantly told myself.

But in July something changed. All the reasons I had to justify my abusive relationship with food were gone. I now lived by myself. There was no pressure to eat certain foods at certain times. I no longer needed to hide the food I turned to for a binge. Nor did I have to run the shower so that no one would hear me get sick. I was alone. Alone with my fears and my thoughts. There was no one left to blame, nowhere left to hide. There was only me and the demons of my mental illnesses.

I realised something had to change but I knew I couldn’t do it on my own. I signed up for a six month-program created by a close friend of mine. The aim of the program is simple: see food as a source of nourishment and not as an enemy. I’ll be honest, if this thing was done by anyone else I probably would have quit after the first week. By my third day in, I was having withdrawal symptoms. I call them withdrawal symptoms because I don’t know how else to explain the burning sensation in my throat or the constant nausea I experience when I do not binge and purge.

I stayed on the program because the person guiding me through the process created a safe space where I did not feel pressured to do anything. A space where I was listened to and my feelings were allowed to exist without judgement. For the first time I was encouraged to play and experiment with food, to spend time with food and see it as a creative outlet.

Y’all the process has been a hot mess at times, but here I am. There are days when I force myself to sleep because the urge to binge becomes so strong. There are days where I find myself exercising for over two hours to “burn off” the calories I had consumed. However, on most days, I spend hours in the kitchen cooking or baking. I’m not at the point where I can eat what I bake because I fear I might trigger a relapse, but the fact that it no longer makes me anxious leaves me so excited.

I’m a long way from recovered. If I’m honest. I think I will always be on the round to recovery. But I’m okay with that. As long as I keep moving forward, I’ll be okay.

The post The Invisible Prison of Eating Disorders first appeared on Ros Limbo.

Namibian blogger - Ros Limbo

Why Do I Have This Blog Anyway?

The Invisible Prison of Eating Disorders