Lee Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "mental-health"
Mental Health Awareness: Body Image & Body Positivity
"Fall in love with taking care of yourself - mind, body, and soul."
(Unknown)
Many of us struggle with our body image at one time or another. We look in the mirror and don't like what we see. We criticise ourselves and believe cruel words others say to us.
Rarely do I allow myself to be so publicly vulnerable. But through conversations surrounding mental health, body confidence, body shaming, and body autonomy, it felt important to share a little about my own battles with body confidence and push outside my comfort zone - especially as we rarely talk about it from the perspective of male body image; we should, too, raise our voices in support.
October 2019 marked the final milestone in a twelve-month weight-loss journey. It was the first time in my life that I truly felt comfortable in my own skin. Monitoring my progress had become an obsession. But the anxiety still lingered in the background - by July 2020, the discomfort in myself began to resurface.
In August 2022, I was again struggling with my body image and the repercussions that may have on my physical health - both contributing to a decline in my mental health as the year neared its end. It wasn't until earlier this year that I could see myself in the mirror and feel somewhat comfortable.
Too often we are expected to feel shame for our bodies - if we don't match what society deems palatable or attractive; or in general the body something to be hidden away, dressed a certain way - always through the lens of the onlooker, viewed on their terms.
Enough! We do not require validation. Nor has anyone the right to make us feel inadequate for the mould we were born with: to mock, to judge, to shame. We have every right to feel comfortable and confident in our own skin.
We are all a work in progress from multiple perspectives - our physical form is not all of who we are. Nevertheless, we are allowed to embrace it as part of us; in fact, it's vital for our self-care. Our body is the only one we have. Through it we sense, experience and communicate; its health determines our quality of life, our longevity. We should listen to our bodies: they have a lot to tell us.
Take care of yourself today 🧡
Helpful Information and Statistics:
InfographicFacts.com - Body Image and Self Esteem
Polygeia.com - Social Media and Body Image
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(Unknown)
Many of us struggle with our body image at one time or another. We look in the mirror and don't like what we see. We criticise ourselves and believe cruel words others say to us.
Rarely do I allow myself to be so publicly vulnerable. But through conversations surrounding mental health, body confidence, body shaming, and body autonomy, it felt important to share a little about my own battles with body confidence and push outside my comfort zone - especially as we rarely talk about it from the perspective of male body image; we should, too, raise our voices in support.
October 2019 marked the final milestone in a twelve-month weight-loss journey. It was the first time in my life that I truly felt comfortable in my own skin. Monitoring my progress had become an obsession. But the anxiety still lingered in the background - by July 2020, the discomfort in myself began to resurface.
In August 2022, I was again struggling with my body image and the repercussions that may have on my physical health - both contributing to a decline in my mental health as the year neared its end. It wasn't until earlier this year that I could see myself in the mirror and feel somewhat comfortable.
Too often we are expected to feel shame for our bodies - if we don't match what society deems palatable or attractive; or in general the body something to be hidden away, dressed a certain way - always through the lens of the onlooker, viewed on their terms.
Enough! We do not require validation. Nor has anyone the right to make us feel inadequate for the mould we were born with: to mock, to judge, to shame. We have every right to feel comfortable and confident in our own skin.
We are all a work in progress from multiple perspectives - our physical form is not all of who we are. Nevertheless, we are allowed to embrace it as part of us; in fact, it's vital for our self-care. Our body is the only one we have. Through it we sense, experience and communicate; its health determines our quality of life, our longevity. We should listen to our bodies: they have a lot to tell us.
Take care of yourself today 🧡
Helpful Information and Statistics:
InfographicFacts.com - Body Image and Self Esteem
Polygeia.com - Social Media and Body Image
Follow me on Facebook
Follow me on Instagram
Follow me on Threads
Follow me on Twitter
Mental Health Awareness: Anxiety
Many may believe that suffering with anxiety is simply being worried – you know, something we need to stop being so weak and silly about; just get a grip and get on with it.
But anxiety is far from being so simplistic and easily conquerable. Anxiety is like being trapped in a war between yourself and your thoughts and emotions. It is feeling overwhelmed by everything around you and inside your own head – past, present and future. It is feeling a lack of control over your own existence, of being assaulted by a thousand interpretations of present circumstances and future scenarios, none of which you feel you can influence or avert. It is the dread that entirely consumes you. Perhaps you know why, or the thousand reasons why. Perhaps you don’t.
It can prevent you from living your life to the fullest and doing things you enjoy; it can harm your relationships with others; it can make you turn and run away or freeze you in your tracks. It is the enemy of pleasure and happiness, of peace, of time fulfilled. With it may come embarrassment and shame, due in part to the way people do not understand, and still hold on to their preconceptions of what it means to be anxious.
Anxiety manifests in multiple ways – perhaps in an inability to switch off, a constant awareness of a long list of tasks that must be accomplished, beginning a cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted; in social anxiety, leaving you on edge amongst large crowds of people, or even with your closest family and friends; in health anxiety, wondering if the slightest blemish or ache or pain is actually something sinister; in obsessive thoughts and compulsive coping mechanisms, overwhelmed by a desperate need to maintain control over your mind, your body, your environment when you feel such a lack of control elsewhere. These scenarios are just some of my own experiences. Others will read this whose anxiety manifests in entirely different ways.
In recent years, I've usually been able to recognise the symptoms early enough to combat them. Not that it's by any means easy to separate your thinking from external triggers. Nor does awareness of thinking irrationally or obsessively make it any easier to escape the escalating thoughts and emotions. More often than not, I'm able to find solace in writing and my hobbies and interests, when I’ve not slipped too far down the track to where my mind cannot focus and everything feels like noise. Being out in nature always soothes my soul; such reminders of how it feels to be free can help the mind find freedom.
Something it took me a long time to accept was that I needed to stop. That the only way to heal was to be able to pause. Far easier said than done when part of what’s causing the anxiety is feeling intensely overwhelmed by everything you need to do and think and feel and plan for. Too many of us still feel inadequate or ashamed, telling ourselves this is our "fault", if only we could be "stronger" then we could more adequately deal with these things. Until very recently, I didn't directly speak about my own experiences. I still struggle to allow myself to be that vulnerable.
In my short story, “Run”, I personified anxiety and depression as a demon stalking the main character’s soul. Unsurprisingly, it’s probably the story that has the most readers saying it left them confused. And, of course, that is partly the intention. If mental health issues were so easy to understand, to empathise with, then we wouldn't even need to talk about it, to explain it, in order to raise awareness. It would simply be self-evident; then, people may naturally treat sufferers with compassion.
Mental health has featured heavily throughout my work – sometimes directly, sometimes metaphorically – long before it became “normal” or “socially acceptable” to talk about it. But that is the beauty of fiction, and we’ve been doing it for centuries. It can help us know we’re never alone, even when we feel that we are.
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But anxiety is far from being so simplistic and easily conquerable. Anxiety is like being trapped in a war between yourself and your thoughts and emotions. It is feeling overwhelmed by everything around you and inside your own head – past, present and future. It is feeling a lack of control over your own existence, of being assaulted by a thousand interpretations of present circumstances and future scenarios, none of which you feel you can influence or avert. It is the dread that entirely consumes you. Perhaps you know why, or the thousand reasons why. Perhaps you don’t.
It can prevent you from living your life to the fullest and doing things you enjoy; it can harm your relationships with others; it can make you turn and run away or freeze you in your tracks. It is the enemy of pleasure and happiness, of peace, of time fulfilled. With it may come embarrassment and shame, due in part to the way people do not understand, and still hold on to their preconceptions of what it means to be anxious.
Anxiety manifests in multiple ways – perhaps in an inability to switch off, a constant awareness of a long list of tasks that must be accomplished, beginning a cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted; in social anxiety, leaving you on edge amongst large crowds of people, or even with your closest family and friends; in health anxiety, wondering if the slightest blemish or ache or pain is actually something sinister; in obsessive thoughts and compulsive coping mechanisms, overwhelmed by a desperate need to maintain control over your mind, your body, your environment when you feel such a lack of control elsewhere. These scenarios are just some of my own experiences. Others will read this whose anxiety manifests in entirely different ways.
In recent years, I've usually been able to recognise the symptoms early enough to combat them. Not that it's by any means easy to separate your thinking from external triggers. Nor does awareness of thinking irrationally or obsessively make it any easier to escape the escalating thoughts and emotions. More often than not, I'm able to find solace in writing and my hobbies and interests, when I’ve not slipped too far down the track to where my mind cannot focus and everything feels like noise. Being out in nature always soothes my soul; such reminders of how it feels to be free can help the mind find freedom.
Something it took me a long time to accept was that I needed to stop. That the only way to heal was to be able to pause. Far easier said than done when part of what’s causing the anxiety is feeling intensely overwhelmed by everything you need to do and think and feel and plan for. Too many of us still feel inadequate or ashamed, telling ourselves this is our "fault", if only we could be "stronger" then we could more adequately deal with these things. Until very recently, I didn't directly speak about my own experiences. I still struggle to allow myself to be that vulnerable.
In my short story, “Run”, I personified anxiety and depression as a demon stalking the main character’s soul. Unsurprisingly, it’s probably the story that has the most readers saying it left them confused. And, of course, that is partly the intention. If mental health issues were so easy to understand, to empathise with, then we wouldn't even need to talk about it, to explain it, in order to raise awareness. It would simply be self-evident; then, people may naturally treat sufferers with compassion.
Mental health has featured heavily throughout my work – sometimes directly, sometimes metaphorically – long before it became “normal” or “socially acceptable” to talk about it. But that is the beauty of fiction, and we’ve been doing it for centuries. It can help us know we’re never alone, even when we feel that we are.
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