Lots of people when struggling with their mental health with say they are “fine, just tired”. But ‘tired’ can mean so many different things: 🧵

• I don’t really know what I’m feeling

• I feel sad, but if I talk about it it might make me feel more sad • I am anxious and if I say out loud what I am thinking it might come true

• I don’t want you to know how I am feeling because I want to put on a brave face

• I am exhausted from battling my thoughts 24/7

• I am depressed and doing anything at all feels very difficult

It’s #EatingDisordersAwarenessWeek, so let’s talk about eating disorders and suicide - one of the many reasons they can be fatal:🧵 Suicide is the second leading cause of death for people with anorexia after cardiac/organ failure. Up to a third of people with eating disorders will attempt suicide, and 1 in 5 deaths in people with eating disorders is by suicide. 1/

As a therapist and someone who has had a lot of therapy, here are my top 10 things to know before starting therapy: 🧵 1. It’s a two way process.
Therapy is an active process and it does require work on your part too. Sitting passively isn’t likely to get you very far. It can be difficult to trust somebody new but in order to get the most out of the process, you need to be an active participant.

Things I wish I knew about healing from mental illness: 🧵

- learning about yourself and your recovery is an ongoing process and there’s no end date for when it needs to or can stop

- roadblocks and difficult times are often the times when you will learn and develop the most - it’s okay to celebrate where you are now, even if it’s not where you’d like to be

- comparing your progress to others will not serve you, you are on your own journey and path

- if you’re holding yourself back, it might be because you’re scared, not because you’re not trying

As it’s #WorldSuicidePreventionDay, it’s important to share some of the signs that somebody might be having thoughts or plans to end their life. 🧵 These might include:

• giving away possessions that are important to them
• organising affairs such as paperwork or money
• making or changing a will
• starting to withdraw socially
• appearing low or flat in mood OR seeming more content or relaxed than usual

It’s #SuicidePreventionAwarenessMonth, so let’s talk about eating disorders and one of the many reasons they can be fatal:🧵 Suicide is the second leading cause of death for people with anorexia after cardiac/organ failure. Up to a third of people with eating disorders will attempt suicide, and 1 in 5 deaths in people with eating disorders is by suicide. 1/

I talk a lot about the treatment that helped me start anorexia recovery, but not as much about the things that have preserved my recovery since I was discharged. I have been relatively well for around two years now, and I feel like there’s lots of reasons for that: 🧵 1. Journalling. Not so much actively doing it anymore, but reflecting back on all the ones I made in treatment (that ended up inspiring my book). I look back over them a lot as a reminder about all the things I learnt and how far I have come.

As #EatingDisordersAwarenessWeek draws to a close, I want to leave a bit of hope. Mid 2019-mid 2020 was one of the worst years of my life. I was completely consumed by my anorexia, at risk of losing my job, barely able to function and absolutely miserable. 1/ It got to the point where every night I would fear that I was going to die, while simultaneously wishing I would so I didn’t have to wake up and face another day where my life was controlled by my eating disorder. I felt like I had no future and no hope. 2/

Lots of people have ‘disordered eating’, who don’t meet the threshold or criteria for a diagnosable eating disorder, but those people deserve freedom and space to heal too. Disordered eating might look like: 🧵 - Having ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food categories and not allowing yourself to eat ‘bad’ foods, or feeling very guilty when you do

- ‘Dieting’ or ‘eating clean’ during the week and then bingeing at the weekends

Sincere thread for people who aren’t sure about why nurses are striking:

Nursing is one of the lowest paid graduate jobs in the country. A newly qualified nurse will go in at £27k a year but with significant debt, having worked for free for three years prior to qualifying. 1/ Whilst the ‘average’ nurses salary is quoted as being £33k, over 40% of the nursing workforce are band 5, whose pay is capped at £33k. There is a perception that nurses pay keeps increasing incrementally for the duration of their careers. 2/