Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas all!! :)

Not going to lie, I love christmas, presents, the christmas spirit... but it's this time of the year that both the social anxiety (family get-togethers) and ED thoughts hit pretty hard!
Here's hoping for a better Christmas this year and not letting negative thoughts ruin things.
Hope everyone has some good times planned and is not struggling with their own thoughts too much over the Christmas break to stop their enjoyment :)

Out of the comfort zone

Just a quick post to say I'll probably be AWOL for the next two weeks as I'm going out bush with work, leaving tomorrow. I have no idea what kind of access to the internet I'll have (probably none!).

It will have its benefits though - I likely won't be able to complete my goal of 100 km running for November because of this (Currently at 40 km, probably doing 10k tomorrow), but I WILL be able to complete the goal of getting out of my comfort zone for the entire time. I will have absolutely no control over the food I have access to, and likely will have no chance to exercise at all (Unless I do situps in my sleeping bag or something!!). I will also know NOBODY at all. Kind of an eating disordered / social anxiety person's nightmare, right?? Exactly why I should be doing it! Plus I get $...

I'm flying to the capital of Australia (Canberra) for this, so hopefully if I'm lucky I'll get a short amount of time to sightsee, as last time I was there I was 2 years old :)

Anyway, I will be back to stalk everyone's two week's worth of blog posts soon! Ciao!

Oh - I was going to mention, for those of you in the US - check out Earndit, it's a site that rewards you for your workouts. You get points for everything you do and then can cash them in for rewards - there's clothes, food and stuff. I've been a member for a while and have heaps of points but can't cash them in because most of the stuff is US only. I'm staying a member though because one day there might be something I can get, haha - and then I'll be rolling in the points!

Perfectionism.

I'm bored, and I hate it. I hate having nothing on my to-do list that's productive to do. I've been on holidays now from university for a week and a half. I've got my haircut, been to the doctor's, got my car fixed, moved into my brother's old room, cleaned, baked, went grocery shopping, went window shopping, played The Sims 3, and socialised.

I have a long list of other things to do but most of them are exercise related, and it's supposed to be a rest day. I don't actually feel like having one, but I didn't have one for the entirety of last week and last night at kickboxing I was feeling kind of unfit and almost overtrained, and when I got home my shin hurt.

I feel good today but I'm taking last night as a sign to rest up... but I feel guilty for it, ugh! I'm not sure it's eating disorder related though - I think it's perfectionism related.

I was reading a blog the other day where someone talked about perfectionism and I looked up the exact definition on Wikipedia and the entire thing describes me, to a T!:

Particularly these points:

"people who strain compulsively and unremittingly toward impossible goals and who measure their own worth entirely in terms of productivity and accomplishment"

procrastination, fear of failure, the all-or-nothing mindset

Perfectionists can suffer anxiety and low self-esteem. Perfectionism is a risk factor for obsessive compulsive personality disorder, eating disorders, social anxiety, social phobia, body dysmorphic disorder, workaholism, self harm, and clinical depression as well as physical problems like chronic stress, and heart disease 

<--- hello! Personally suffered from low-self esteem, eating disorders, social anxiety AND depression in the past.

It's interesting, reading that made me wonder if I'm actually able to relax properly, the way a "normal" person might. The first day of my uni holidays I was all over the house, unable to relax, couldn't sit still, and was mad that I slept in (7.30 am). "I've wasted half the day!" I said to my mum. So what? It's not like I needed to be anywhere, or really had to do anything.

Then I tried to "drag out" the things on my to do list that I needed done over my four month break. (Isn't that a ridiculously long break?) But it's been a week and I've done 90% of them already. I feel lost without things on a to-do list that must be done, especially on a rest day. This is how I felt on Sunday until I went for my run, then I felt infinitely better, because I had DONE something, I had achieved something for the day - I had worked out.

I feel horribly guilty if I go one day where I haven't achieved anything at all. Why can't I just spend a day relaxing, watching TV, reading and doing absolutely nothing without it just being a chilled out affair?????? THAT makes me mad.

I look at my to-do list daily to try and find something new and productive to do, but all that's actually on it now is lazy stuff like "sort out pile of magazines" and "read a book" (or exercise related ideas).

I'm one of those people that simply could not go on a holiday where the idea is to chill out by the pool and tan. I would seriously go crazy. I need to be doing something all the time, busy, seeing the world.

To give an example, here are the lists I currently have (just the ones stored on my computer / blog):

Study schedule

Things to do on 4 month break

Things to do today

Things to do this week

101 goals in 1001 days

November goals

Stuff to bake

Stuff to blog

Stuff to buy.

I imagine I'm not alone in this, though. I imagine most people who have suffered an eating disorder, depression or anxiety in the past probably feel similar. 

The question is, how do you change this thinking so that you can relax and be happy with not being perfect at things? I've always been one of those people who is OK at everything - never really bad at something, never really great at something and I guess that I just want to find just one something that I'm really good at. Maybe if I find that the perfectionism will calm down?

---------
EDIT: I apologise for the fact that a lot of my blogging lately is so negative!! I am generally not that negative a person, just a couple of things I've been thinking about lately needed venting... and I thought others might be able to relate. Positivity returning at some point, hopefully.

Also, I'd love to see more people join up with me on dailymile, if you have accounts. My dailymile account here. I get quite a kick out of seeing different people's workouts and learning from what they do.

Things that make me happy

I'm feeling pretty down... again... story of this week. So I decided on doing a post of things that make me happy to try to cheer myself up.

The fact that all the rooms in my house still have those awesome glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the ceilings, and they still work after 20+ years. I hardly remember to look at them these days, but when I do they cheer me up.

Skinny cow icecream cookies :)

Eating random dinners with all sorts of stuff. Like, vegetarian sausages wrapped in turkey, and mushrooms spread with vegemite.

Eating lunch in the form of brown gloop. 

Mixing stuff with raspberries up so it turns pink!

Taking stupid photos of myself, so then I can look at them and laugh at how dumb I look.

People who dress like this in races :D

Pretty flowers, and photography in general.

Sunsets, the beach.

Kicking some butt! (Or getting my butt kicked)

Chocolate, in all its variations.

Dumb jokes on the back of toilet doors. The bit I thought the funniest is: "Don't fight for femmenism, fight for equal rights!" to which someone has replied "Fight for spelling!"

And the most important? Friends.

Yes, I have sacrificed my friends for the sake of my study this year. And you know what? It was stupid. I've burnt myself out because I've had little to no time with my friends, I've spent every weekend studying and this semester I just couldn't hack it. The only me time I've had is watching TV and exercising. I have literally said no to EVERY SINGLE INVITATION this year. It has turned me into a recluse, brought back social anxiety symptoms, and made me focus even more on food and diet, something I want to get away from.

So having completed absolutely no study today because I just can't face it, I'm now going to drive 3.5 hours to a dropzone where there's currently a big party, and see the friends I've been neglecting for way too long. Some things should come before study, why did it take me so long to realise this?

Yes, I've got three exams this week. But I just can't take it anymore, I need relief!!!!

(I am kinda going to listen to lectures on the car stereo on the way, but still!!)

Procrastination in many forms...

It's study week for exams, so naturally there is loads of procrastination through the form of delicious foodstuffs, exercise, and... there is always so much stuff to tidy up! (Don't forget the blog I am writing right now...)

I don't know what it is with me this semester, I think I've kinda broken or something... but I just don't have the motivation I had last semester. 

The uni has shortened all the semesters, so instead of two weeks off, we have one. Instead of a long mid-year break, it's only 4 weeks. So basically the entire year of teaching is squished between March and October, and then we get an insane four months off. Don't get me wrong - I'm seriously looking forward to those four months!! But it means I've been super stressed for the other eight, with little break in between, and I'm sooo over it. Anyway...

One of those weird apple-apricot-oat muffin-brownie things, covered in yoghurt mixed with peanut flour. It kinda made an icing!

Baby poo pudding. Well, it actually looked more baby poo coloured in real life... this was avocado, banana, spinach, cocoa powder, protein powder... and probably other stuff, I've forgotten now. It tasted better than it looks!

I finally jumped on the bandwagon and had a sweet potato with almond spread & greek yoghurt. Now I see. I understand!

Finished my Justin's Hazelnut Butter and of course had oats in a jar... bittersweet moment.

Peanut flour mixed with the last of my greek yoghurt.

As much as I dearly love blogs that are full of foodie pictures and exercise stuff, and as much as I want to include that in mine, I don't want it to be all about that stuff. I've never been part of "mainstream" or "popular". I've always been on the outskirts. So I guess I kind of want my blog to reflect that. 

I'm not a goth or emo or anything like that, I guess it's more that my social anxiety has led me to become more isolated than I would like to be, and while people seem to like me, that's as far as it usually gets. OK, gone off on a tangent there!!

I would like to actually write more often though. Probably after exams. I have three - Chemistry, Anatomy & one that is pretty much social / environmental / biological etc determinants of health, but has a much longer name.

All right I'm going to have to stop writing now and actually start studying.

Oh.. PS. Thanks for all the great comments on my last post :D

Feel the fear and do it anyway?

This is probably going to be a long post, as well as a difficult post to write - but it's picture heavy, if that's any consolation. I don't really have many (any?) readers that this will matter too haha, but that might change one day??

There are two mottos I try to live my life by:

1) Feel the fear and do it anyway.

2) Try everything once, twice to make sure.

So the reason behind these two stem from my High School days... where I suffered from severe social anxiety disorder. Now, I do still suffer from it, but I can FUNCTION. Yep. Part of it means I'm always trying to hide who I really am, for fear people won't like me and will reject me. This means:

• I don't let on my opinions about things very often.
• I "agree" with people so to not cause conflict.
• People never really get to know me easily, so while I can make acquaintances very easily, I struggle A LOT going from the acquaintance stage to the friend stage.
• I have never, ever, in my entire life, organised a social outing, party or event - for fear nobody will come, people will say no, etc.
• People often say I'm a "mystery", and while sometimes that can be a good thing, how can anyone ever get close to me when they don't really know me?
• I struggle with eye contact, and feel really uncomfortable.
• I stutter, stumble my words, talk too fast so they all get muddled, and it makes me sound ridiculously dumb.
• Being the centre of attention is my idea of hell.
• Someone watching me do something makes me extremely uncomfortable.
• People in authority make me nervous, and I have an inferiority complex around them - this is kind of the same with people who I think are "better" than me.

And some of the things which used to plague me which I can now handle?

• Just getting up every day to go to school, especially if my one friend was not going - in which case I would hide in the toilets at recess and lunch.
• Oral presentations. I would rather have failed than do them - and did.
• Meeting new people.
• Parties.
• Speaking up in class (although I do get very red)
• Making phone calls
• Small talk

So I have changed a lot... this is due to the fact that I am constantly trying to fight my way out of my comfort zone, constantly trying to face the fear and do it anyway. But I just can't seem to get to the point of what I'd consider normal yet. I guess that's why I'm writing this... sometimes when I write things all out, it makes it seem clearer. At the risk of turning my blog into some kind of journal or diary, I will stop there and live by a motto by facing a fear right now (posting photos of me on my blog). This scares me because I don't want anyone I know in *real life* to find this.

So, here's to opening up about myself... which really freaks me out :(

FACING MY FEARS.............

I like to travel, mostly by myself. Here's me in Vietnam this year on a motorbike ride. (If you go to Vietnam, just try to NOT get on a bike... they hassle you on every corner ;))

This is in New Zealand, where I went hiking on a glacier. That's another thing about me - I love adrenalin (Part of facing the fear!)

In Europe - The Louvre.

In Kuala Lumpur.

Black Water Rafting in New Zealand.

Bungee Jumping in New Zealand.

Zorbing in New Zealand (Going down a big hill in a plastic ball filled with water)

Sand dune-ing?

Europe

Dune buggy-ing

Kickboxing. This is the first thing I did to face the fear when I first saw a therapist in school. She asked me what things I wanted to do but fear was stopping me, and kickboxing was one thing. I started that year and have done it off and on since.

Skydiving. I've since done in 560 times... I don't like to tell people about it because it embarrasses me when they're impressed (???)

Bushwalking. Something I try to do at least one or two times every winter.

The last couple of days I've been in a huge funk. So I went for a long walk to think about things, and as I was thinking about them this was something I thought of - stop hiding who I really am. So I thought I'd begin that by making a blog entry with pictures of me and some of the things I do, and some things about me... it doesn't matter that not many people read this, it doesn't matter that nobody I actually know in person reads this, it's still a step....

Here's a happy picture of me just to make things a little more positive ;P