There’s nothing shameful in life being a double edged sword, we can write and if it touches someone, or it helps them to feel less alone then what a gift we’ve found in amongst the chaos.
hospital; a rant about poland syndrome
Poland Syndrome is a rare congenital birth defect. In boys and men it usually presents as missing chest wall muscle, a concave lopsided chest, sometimes a shorter arm, leg, hand. It can be different in different folks. In girls and women it sometimes, like for me, only becomes apparent when you hit puberty and suddenly your breast tissue only grows on one side.
This was the time I was nervous about an operation until a rainbow chummed me…
Edinburgh Marine Gardens and Zoological Park was a sprawling amusement park, the first of its kind in Scotland, which contained a domed music hall (The Empress Ballroom), bandstand, rollercoaster, ice rink, billiard hall and outdoor cinema and theatre plus a small zoo with lion cubs. It lived along the shoreline from Kings Road in Portobello to where the Seafield Cat & Dog Home is now. It opened in 1909 and 3 quarters of a million people visited in its first year. Portobello had a train station at the time, along with trams and was a popular return holiday destination for families.
The amusements had a 3 tier rail ride, joy wheel, mountain slide, maze and river caves. The Ballroom and band court held daily all-star variety shows by the vaudeville and music hall groups singing, dancing, magic and comedy. It also featured a very Victorian and deeply racist Somali Village, where you could come and stare at families who were brought from Somaliland to carry out their day on display. At the time ‘human zoos’ or ‘ethnological exhibitions’ were tauted as educational entertainment but in reality they were a colonialist dehumanisation spectacle similar to the circus freakshows, popularised by the hugely famous Barnum circus, that toured western countries. A freakshow would exhibit ‘freaks of nature’ - those with biological rarities, heavily tattooed or pierced folks, along with those performing shocking and dangerous acts like fire breathers and sword swallowers
The park closed at the beginning of the first world war, all demolished except for the music hall which was commandeered as temporary accomodation for troops.
My kid’s dad and I got keys to a 1930s bungalow which looked out over the car sales spots that now live on that stretch above the prom, that had once been home to the music hall and seaside vaudeville, on the day that our son was born. An old boy called Eric had lived there with his family since the house was built. There were photos of them all in the garden and their daughter had come to hand over the keys, she got all emotional thinking about growing up in the house, happy a new family had bought the place. I spent the first 2 or 3 months of being a new mum trying to project manage a bit of a renovation, with new plumbing, plastering, pals helping to paint rooms, new flooring and all sorts. We split when our boy was 2 and me and him finally moved out and into our flat in Portobello when he was 3.
Those first few weeks of being a new mum were stressful and weird. My entire body was different, my hormones fighting to do things parts of me weren’t able to do. I’d had a necessary elective c-section, something everyone seemed to think was their business. I had to have it because of previous surgeries (another tale for another day, all about how we store trauma in our gut). I’d been kept in hospital an extra day and my bladder and brain had fallen out when I was numb from the tits down. I was eventually sent home to my folks place with a catheter to drag around for a few days. I also was given an industrial breast pump as my milk hadn’t really come in. And finally she gets to the point of the tale. I have a condition called Poland syndrome. You wouldn’t know to look at me now but for the whole of my teens and for the first few years of being a parent it was painfully obvious to me. I didn’t get a name for it until 2019 (my kid was already 6 by then) when I had to get the first of my annual mammograms after my mum had breast cancer, which runs in the family.
Poland Syndrome is a rare congenital birth defect. In boys and men it usually presents as missing chest wall muscle, a concave lopsided chest, sometimes a shorter arm, leg, hand. It can be different in different folks. In girls and women it sometimes, like for me, only becomes apparent when you hit puberty and suddenly your breast tissue only grows on one side.
Both sides of my family are short big boobed women. So the difference was very apparent. Nowadays I think girls are offered ‘corrective’ surgery as soon as the issue is made known with follow up surgeries if required but when I was a teen they made you wait until they thought your boobs were fully grown before you could get NHS treatment. And I know it’s not something that is universally available at all, it’s a postcode lottery in the UK and in other countries an incredibly expensive surgery or not an option without travel.
Spending the entirity of my teenage years with one massive boob and a tiny one on the other side had a huge psychological impact on me. I felt like a freakshow. A vaudeville side-show. It affected my posture, the clothes I wore, the activities I tried to avoid at school, I would skive off PE and any sports as often as possible so I didn’t have to change in front of anyone or take off baggy jumpers and cardigans. I would stuff extra padding into the left side of a wonderbra, which come with removable pads to sit under your boob to maximise their pertness. But I used one a size that just made my chest as even as possible and I wore other layers on underwear on top to try to hide under them. I avoided boys for a long time. I was/am awkward as fuck anyways!
“I’ve had a bunch of operations on my poor tits and ass for Poland Syndrome and Crohn’s Disease. There was this one time that I was about to pass out, high as fuck from pre-meds and my anaesthetic and I said, in a kinda posh English old lady voice, “I’m used to a whole different type of theatre, darling.” And I passed out hearing them all laughing.”
I finally got surgery when I was 19. I struggled through a couple of relationships feeling incredibly self conscious and with extremely low self esteem. I look at photos of myself back then and I was a beautiful wee mad thing but I really did not feel it at all in any way. I reached for many unhealthy coping strategies and now realising my neurodivergence all these years later, a lot of the more impulsive damaging behaviours have context.
I think I spent most of my teens and the years after surgery when I still numbed out that low esteem and getting into horrible damaging relationships with men in a state of passive suicidality. I really did not care for myself anywhere as much as a healthy confident human should and I got myself into a lot of toxic and dangerous situations. I’m no victim, I lived through them all despite the state of my mental health and lack of self care. But the lack of information about what the condition was just made me feel like a total freak and subconsciously I continued to punish myself for that. The surgeon I spoke to as a teen hadn’t given me much information at all about what the condition might be, that I wasn’t the only person in the world to have it or any mental health support to deal with the self hatred that lack of knowledge brought with it. And of course this was all before smartphones and instant access to all the information so I had no way of researching and finding out for myself until all those years later when a doctor at the breast screening clinic just said ‘Poland Syndrome’ in passing while checking on some mammogram images.
In the hospital for ‘corrective’ surgery I felt vain, selfish and guilty as I was in a ward with women who were getting breast surgery for cancers. I felt like I was there for ‘cosmetic’ surgery. At the time it was still the fashion with the women the tabloids brutalised and objectified to have big fake boobs. All the magazines we read as teenagers laid into these women as fake bimbos, as dumb shaggers. There was such a pervasive idea that women with cosmetic surgery were second class citizens, zero respect offered but miles of objectification and judgement as the male gaze and misogyny rule. We built up women like that only to treat them like they were lacking in intelligence and only capable of being sex objects. Lad culture reigned and with it big boobs meant you were a thick slapper. Feminist pals would talk of cosmetic surgery as falling for patriarchal demand and not as having ownership of your autonomy. Even after having the surgery and now having 2 big boobs I felt that I had to hide under clothes. I regularly saw people talk to my chest instead of my face and it horrified me.
After the surgery in my teens I was pretty self destructive for a number of reasons but I didn’t have the condition on my mind 24/7 any more. I felt a lot less self conscious for a long time although I still usually covered up and often lacked the confidence to dress the way I really wanted to to express myself. I think there was a brief time going out of a Saturday night when I’d dress up and feel good but I was surrounded by peacocks I thought were creative and interesting people but really they weren’t and they took advantage of me in many ways which is a whole different story which I’m also sharing on here soon (for anyone who’s been reading these for a while you’ll know I’m talking about my abusive predatory serial rapist ex and his pals and anyone else, trigger warning). The condition faded from my thoughts for a good long while, only reignited again when someone spoke to my chest or made some comment about my body or plastic surgery. It only really came back as an issue in pregnancy.
As a pregnant woman I received 12 pieces of literature in different forms all about how breastfeeding is best. Not a single one of them makes any mention of the fact that some bodies will not produce enough milk to sustain a baby, not one mentions that elective sections and not going into labour might affect things, not one makes any mention of how to protect your mental health as a pin cushioned exhausted sleep deprived new mum if you just cannot breast feed. Not a single one.
None of the midwives I saw shared any knowledge at all about irregular breasts or the possibility of being unable to breastfeed either. I spent the first 8 weeks as a mum, with those stitches permanently attached to an industrial sized hospital breast pump, or if on site at the new place speaking to the plumber, plasterer, flooring guys I had a portable pump with me. It was constant. My son also hadn’t really latched on. My boobs never got rock hard and full of milk like so many new mums moan about. I’d spend hours pumping and only get 10ml of milk. I felt like a failure as my body hadn’t been able to naturally give birth and wasn’t capable of sustaining my baby. I was absolutely shattered and felt like I had very little support. My mental health was in the toilet for a lot of the time despite being one of the lucky ones that bonded straight away with my baby.
Attempting to breastfeed and I guess the changes in hormones from pregancy meant that once again my boobs were completely different sizes. The right had grown and dropped and the difference was probably greater than it had been in my teens. I again just hid away, wore baggy stuff, didn’t let anyone see me naked.
This lasted a few years until a therapist I was seeing suggested maybe visiting the GP about it again after I told her the whole story. And so the week before lockdown I had a breast reduction operation.
In January 2021 I made a self portrait, kinda of my boobs being reborn through my velvet curtains, as a wee lighthearted way of dealing with my experiences. I also just pushed myself to write about it and I shared it on instagram. I’ve since archived all my posts to start again and to be able to share this space and my exhibition in a more concise way for my scattered brains. But I wrote a lot of what I’ve said here. I think it might be the boldest thing I’ve ever done for myself. I found it to be so healing. I’m so glad I just laid it out and shared experiences online when I first made that image as it opened up so much for me.
I had zero idea so many folks with first hand experience, either with the condition themselves, parents of children with it or charitable organisations looking to empower those with it and to spread knowledge of it would get in touch. I also find lots of the folks I work with through my wedding photography are health care workers and for them to read it and hopefully talk to colleagues about it feels very important.
Let’s skip past the whole pandemic situation for now and just say that the last year or so, as I’ve unravelled so much of myself through accepting my neurodivergent brains and letting all sorts of past trauma surface I’ve been making naked self portraiture to really regain my autonomy from all the traumatic experiences. I’ve been swimming topless in the murky sea at Portobello. Reclaiming the waters from the Victorian freak shows and dancing on the sand in honour of all the vaudevillians of the past. I’d fucking start a topless darts team if I could aim better.
Creative play has saved my life. I’d urge everyone to make time for it in whatever capacity they like. Creativity is innate in all of us, society just slowly tries to educate it away. A free, solo expansive never ending source of healing, growth and adventure and we often overlook it or leave it on a long list of some other day.
Here’s a link to the first of many black ans white self portraits made at home, developed and printed in a darkroom cupboard in my flat. There are more recent ones in the exhibition too.
NOW LOVE exhibition runs at Agitate Gallery on William Street in the West End of Edinburgh until 8 March, the gallery is open Tue-Sun 12-6
Thanks for reading, tell anyone and everyone you know who ever works with women’s boobs in any capacity!
x
Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage
Meet Cori, of Makeup by Cori who is taking part in my ‘Unhelpful Words’ project… Cori is a big fan of Bill Murray, puns and she tells really very incredibly lame jokes. These are facts.
I promised to gather the troops and launch an attack on the stresses of wedding planning. So we’re easing in gently to this whole sharing thing with a wee bit from Aunty Cori about self care in the planning stages and the nervy hours before the ceremony.
This is Cori of Makeup by Cori (highly recommended FYI) taking part in my ‘Unhelpful Words’ project… Cori is a big fan of Bill Murray, puns and she tells really very incredibly lame jokes. These are facts.
Peep some magic from when Cori and I collaborated on an editorial shoot a wee while back >>
I promised to gather the troops and launch an attack on the stresses of wedding planning. I think all makeup artists and hairdressers are therapists as they tend to have heard it all before and have great advice. So we’re easing in gently to this whole sharing thing with a wee bit from Aunty Cori about self care in the planning stages and the nervy hours before the ceremony. Here’s what she had to say…
““In terms of self-care, if you’re feeling that things are starting to get on top of you then take some time to work out what’s causing you to feel like this. If I’m feeling low, stressed or overwhelmed then I find that it really helps to remove myself from a situation and take some time to myself and try to remember what’s important. Also, talking to people helps.
I’m currently working hard on not feeling guilty about taking time to relax (even though it’s my favourite thing to do)! It’s ok to do nothing and you should make time to do it, whether it’s just having a lie down, reading a book or sitting in your pants all day eating ice-cream and watching trashy TV – don’t feel guilty!
On the wedding day, delegation is the key! You want to sit back and relax so make sure your bridal party know what the schedule is and what tasks they need to do before you walk down the aisle. It’s really important everyone knows when they’ve to be in the makeup chair and when they need to be ready.””
Things that help me when I feel overwhelmed include taking some time to scribble down how I feel to help process it as it often turns out to be past experience triggering stresses. I like making crap collages or printing photos as cyanotypes as I find tactile things calming and they usually end up sketching out my anxieties. I also go for a wander on the beach, jump in the North Sea, go to the modern gallery to stare at some paintings for a bit, make a list of small achievable tasks and pick 3 for that day and leave everything else to later. I’m planning on getting better at naps.
There’s a whole heap of other advice and some chats about sustainable wedding planning, body positivity and all sorts coming soon from some ace humans, so sit tight…In the meantime, here’s some stuff I’ve been watching/reading/listening to lately that’s helped me chill the fuck out…
I’m obsessed with Brene Brown. I recently revisited her original tedtalk on vulnerability and there is a Netflix special about her, go watch and tell me her earrings aren’t prawn crackers…Anyway, I’m deep into her book, Daring Greatly, which I’m loving. It’s like having a coach with a spit bucket and towel by your side at all times.
Raw Milk : A podcast which is great for self employed creatives but I think also has some really useful episodes for helping those navigating the stresses and anxieties of planning a major event like a wedding. In particular, there is some great advice about prioritising when you are facing burn out or your mental and physical health are struggling to keep up with deadlines.
The episodes Navigating Anxiety, Depression and Procrastination as a creative entrepreneur and Connecting to your Spirit through creativity with the painter Satsuki Shibuya discuss learning to say no, learning to recognise your own patterns and what you need to do to cope, how to organise around your strengths and reverse engineering the big goals into small achievable tasks as a way of dealing with overwhelm. I’d recommend these to anyone, they’re not as dry as they sound!!
Also, if you enjoy comedy gold featuring pop stars from the naughties I’d recommend paul _ danan _ official on instagram cos it’s actual genius.
And dinny even get me started on my new addiction of swimming in the Firth of Forth cos that’s a whole big rant in itself…so I’ll no doubt write that soon.
x
More Wedding Ponderings
You’ll find more thoughts on confidence, emotions and choices amongst other important things on our wedding journal. Hop over and have a read — if there’s anything you think you’d like to share, or have us talk about, get in touch.
This is not the ‘about me’ info you are looking for
I’m currently sitting at a very different place for me than ever before. I’ve come out of the other side of total burn out - work-wise, mentally, physically too. I’m doing a lot of reassessing, figuring out what my honest goals and wants are, looking at the big picture. The last 3 years have been a proper rollercoaster and I’m gonna overshare about that in the hope that it maybe explains who I am a bit more honestly.
OK, so I’ve probably been holding back from this big old rant because it’s gonna be brutally honest and it makes me feel vulnerable but I just need to find my baws and bash on because it is totally honest and there’s no wee ‘oh hey, I love pizza and beach walks’ bullshit that really matches just spewing out the truth so you can really see who you get when you work with me. I ask you to be your authentic self in front of my scary camera lens so I’m gonna do the same here…grab a tea, this will take a while…
I’m currently sitting at a very different place for me than ever before. I’ve come out of the other side of total burn out - work-wise, mentally, physically too. I’m doing a lot of reassessing, figuring out what my honest goals and wants are, looking at the big picture. The last 3 years have been a proper rollercoaster and I’m gonna overshare about that in the hope that it maybe explains who I am a bit more honestly.
3 years ago my kid’s dad and I split after a very unhealthy and unhappy time. I’m pretty sure I went through undiagnosed post natal depression. I’d had to have a planned C Section because of previous surgeries and my milk didn’t ever come in although I spent the first couple of months of my kid’s life attached to breast pumps while trying to project manage a renovation and keep my business going from my mum’s spare room. I grew very resentful of my body which I’ve never had much confidence about but now I didn’t have any in it’s abilities either.
I left that situation with incredibly low self esteem, lots of unnatural anxieties and stress, I’d lost sight of who I am and was working at avoiding dealing with anything. Initially, I felt a huge sense of relief paired with a bunch of anger at some of the fallout and isolation I found myself dealing with. I felt pretty lost and I was also stuck in the house we’d renovated for around a year afterward, surrounded by failure and memories I was desperate to move on from, while we had a ridiculous and incredibly stressful legal battle. That winter my kid had recurring and terrifying nosebleeds, waking up covered in blood and needed blood tests for Leukemia and all sorts. Thankfully, he was fine. It was not a relaxing time, everything was feeding my fear of loss.
The following year my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer and began chemo. This was sandwiched by my dad having emergency treatments in hospital. I shot a whole heap of wonderful weddings that kept me going but I was struggling to keep up with all the other parts of running a business. I shot 10 weddings in the 6 weeks between selling our old house, buying a new flat and packaging up/unpacking with the ‘help’ of a 3 year old. Then, a few months later, just after my mum’s treatment ended with positive results we lost our friend, Scott, to suicide.
“I’d sometimes sink into a dark place and either isolate myself or go out and get wrecked and lost being busy with work or whatever else I could do to avoid just feeling those feelings. However, this time around I didn’t have the choice. All of the things that had happened all hit me at once and I just buckled underneath them all.”
I really lost it when he was missing. Kind pals drove me around the coast road trying to find him, texting some pals who were doing the same, desperately hoping it wouldn’t turn out to be true. He had been there for me over the last wee while and was honest, hilarious, cheeky as fuck and supportive despite his own struggles. He means a great deal to me and many of my pals. I have never allowed myself to grieve before. I suppressed most negative emotions. I’d sometimes sink into a dark place and either isolate myself or go out and get wrecked and lost being busy with work or whatever else I could do to avoid just feeling those feelings. However, this time around I didn’t have the choice. All of the things that had happened all hit me at once and I just buckled underneath them all. I had really pushed my own resilience past my limit. Being a self employed solo parent pushed me into asking for and accepting the help I needed. I had to be ok, I had no choice other than to face everything and work through it. And it has saved my life and is making me a happier, stronger and more confident person. I’ve learnt so much from these past few years.
Therapy has taught me so much about myself, my patterns and where they came from. I’ve always struggled to really feel my emotions in my body, if that makes sense. I have had suspected Crohn’s disease in the past which lead to several emergency operations. Those happened at a time of great stress. Since therapy, I can feel when there are knots in my stomach, tension in my back and neck. I notice when I’m clenching my jaw. I hadn’t really been very aware of that before except when I was very ill with Crohn’s. I’d tried very much to avoid it. Sea swimming was a wee epiphany for that. I’ll go on about that in more detail soon.
While I started therapy and had to allow myself to sit with and experience all those negatives I was still trying to work, get my kid sorted for his first year at school (not lose it too hard in front of him), and work as best I could. I talked a lot to friends. I am lucky to have some very very good friends. But most of the time I spent with them involved sitting in my favourite bar drinking too much wine as I wept through my feelings and stories. Acting like a real prick to someone kind when I’d had too much to drink one evening earlier this year made me realise just how unhealthy some of my ways of coping or unwinding had become. I think we can all be guilty of allowing what start as fun ways of de-stressing to become unhealthy and toxic patterns. That just helps us avoid negative feelings instead of processing them and seeing that they too are transient and hold value. I’m going to write more soon about how much I’m loving finding some self confidence and feeling more present through being sober.
It’s not an easy process going through therapy and some times it is dark as hell and quite lonely. But I would recommend it to everyone. We all carry so much crap around with us, which we project onto those we love or we people please or we isolate or overcompensate or fall into habits, addictions or have thought patterns that are unhealthy and hold us back from really living. I’d say to anyone struggling with anything, whether it feels like a small recurring thing that niggles at you or you know you have some brutal trauma that you haven’t worked through, ask for and accept the help you need. It won’t be easy but you will never regret it. Research, read up about your feelings and experiences, learn that you aren’t alone in any way, challenge the patterns you rely on, talk to people you trust, change your experiences, process why you feel shame for just being human, give yourself time and rest to process it all gently, don’t pressure yourself to think whatever it is will resolve instantly. Don’t put it off until you reach crisis point. Therapy can be preventative, confidence building and explorative, it’s not just for those in the real shit.
“When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up and say, ‘Damn, that really hurt but this is important to me and I’m going in again’ my gut reaction is, ‘what a badass’.””
That quote above, I read it recently and I thought ‘I love that and those kinds of people, I totally agree’ but didn’t even think to apply it to myself. So i’ve written this and now maybe I can!! I hope I don’t sound like some smug preachy asshole, I very much don’t feel like one. I’m saying all of this because the whole process has made me reassess everything, including my work. it has made me face most of my deepest fears and I’m still here. Not perfect but growing, accepting and trying. I am also still guilty of sometimes sabotaging myself and holding back. I want to involve the positives I’ve learnt in my work, to grow communities, to share the dark so we can really value and enjoy the light. It all goes to inform how I live and work. Tiny changes. Here’s my manifesto for the future.
I want to share as I rebuild - I want to keep exploring my own creative voice. I won’t reduce myself for anyone - I am not too much and I don’t feel too much. I am passionate about the things I love and that is a wonderful thing. I want to enjoy my work and to feel really enlivened by and grateful for all my shared experiences. I want to keep sharing the hard stuff incase it helps support someone else in kick starting whatever they’re blocking themselves from. I’ll keep on sharing my experiences and lessons with honesty, try to quit sabotaging myself, manage my time in healthy ways. I’m gonna keep on talking about having body confidence, trying to live in a more sustainable and kind way, what I’m learning from the self care my therapist and experiences are teaching me, the books and resources I find helpful…
I feel really positive and calm just now. I know that I’ve still got plenty of battles to fight - rebuilding a business that’s been a little neglected while I work through all of this, learning healthy ways to manage time, finding a space to work from out of our home so I don’t feel isolated and making sure I don’t fall back into old patterns…but I feel a new confidence that it’ll all work out how it should. I’d love it if you came with my on my wee journey.
I’ve left comments on incase there is anything you want to share directly here. And my unhelpful words project is still open to anyone. Just email me to arrange to take part. See my previous blog posts for more info on that.
Thanks for reading and I really do love pizza and walking along the beach.
x
Do the Earth a favour, don’t hide your magic
Audrey and I worked together in a previous life at Electric Circus. I’ve photographed her beautiful face while chatting to her beautiful soul many times too. So it is really great that she is one of the first few folks to participate in my Unhelpful Words portrait series.
“Do The Earth A Favour, Don’t Hide Your Magic”
First published pre-pandemic, which feels like about 5 lifetimes ago…
So last time I started a wee introduction to sharing some stuff from yer actual genius wedding industry suppliers with a wee bit about how Cori from Makeup by Cori deals with anxious times. Next up is Audrey Barnes.
Audrey and I worked together in a previous life at Electric Circus. I’ve photographed her beautiful face while chatting to her beautiful soul many times too. So it is really great that she is one of the first few folks to participate in my Unhelpful Words portrait series.
When i asked Audrey a few questions about dealing with anxiety and stress when event planning, inclusivity at weddings and the like, she sent me just the best answers that she’s going to have to be a blog post all on her own cos (although she said I should) I don’t want to edit that shit down….so for now, here’s a wee introduction to what she does now and why she took part in the portrait series. Her super helpful and insightful event chat will be coming soon and you’ll find it totally useful, I promise.
Hey! I’m a wee tech and creative industries nerd, with a background in events, content creation, design, organisational strategy, and intercultural communications – championing equality and inclusion where ‘ere I go!
You can find me at workshops and events, as an organiser, facilitator, and/or visitor. Or, hanging out in the digital space, writing about, cheering on, and celebrating the ways we can bring joy to more folks in the world.
My unhelpful words portrait – aside from being a wonderful opportunity to collab with one of my favourite creatives – was a message for us all on being gentle with ourselves, in world that pushes us for constant productivity and perseverance. That’s why I chose the word ‘Resilient’ – a word that gets thrown around a lot by “motivational” folks, and those congratulating others when they accomplish great things despite the odds.
While often there’s good intentions behind comments made to those who have been resilient, there’s a wide-spread neglect that accompanies it. A neglect to explicitly recognise the dark side of resilience. That is, the impacts of keeping going without rest, and experiences of trauma – whether they be rooted in internal or external sources.
For example – you may know, or be, someone who experienced bullying. Yet, kept going, and made a life. Perhaps succeeding spectacularly (in whatever way success manifests for you/them). People who know what was overcome may shout “Wow! So resilient!”. Seeing you as strong, and a person to turn to for advice and/or support, since you come with wisdom as a result of your journey. This can be very unhelpful when we don’t slow down to check in, recognising that the memories and impacts of things remain, weighing down possibilities for genuine joy and health.
If you have a resilient friend who you can turn to, that’s so friggin’ wonderful! But make sure you recognise the cost for them – they need rest, compassion, and a person to turn to, too. If you are that person, be kind to yourself. Remember “don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm” – good boundaries and the timely saying of “no” is a gift to all around you.
We all have mental health, we all have times of struggle and I think the more we make discussing our mental health commonplace the better for everyone, wherever they’re at. Aye, so…email me if you’d like get involved in the portrait project.
Busy times around here with stuff and things…But what Audrey says about stepping back and slowing down to check in with things is totally true and something I’ve been making a wee bit of time for in amongst all this photographing and typing and pacing about my beach as I do…I’m reading Inward by Yung Pueblo just now and it’s blowing my tiny preoccupied mind. So insightful and I feel zen as heck after a few of his words about letting go of past emotional pain and learning to fully understand ourselves. Follow him on instagram and get in about his stories as he posts daily ‘3 thoughts’ stories which are just the bees knees.
Jeezo, I could rant on, I have much to say and share but I need to pace myself cos we only just talked about that.
x