Chi Chi! Make Clothes That Fit Me!

Readers of this little old blog will know that I am totally cool with who I am. I love to wear pretty clothes, strike a pose and show fellow fatties that you can look as amazing as I do no matter what your size. I feel I have particular authority on this because I am not what the fashion world would describe as a "good fat" [also named "acceptable fat"], I am somebody who does not have an hourglass figure, a flat stomach or a pretty face. I'm stumpy, rough around the edges and proportioned like a Sophie, not like a fruit. And so when I find beautiful things to wear that will fit me properly, I'm about ready to shout it from the rooftops.

On Thursday night I had the urge to splurge. I knew there were pretty dresses out there, I just needed to find them. Something a bit sparkly, a bit special, something which made me feel like a million dollars when I swished and sashayed and paraded around in all my sequin glory. Several good friends recommended Chi Chi, and as I scrolled through the dresses my eyes grew wider and wider.

Chi Chi Curve is like the holy grail for fat women who want to look like princesses, in my opinion. The dresses are BEAUTIFUL. The hefty pricetag suggests that they're an investment in quality, but I was happy to make a compromise and buy something beautiful and magnificent for a bit more than I'd normally spend, because... Well, because I'm shallow. And clothes absolutely have the power to make me feel pampered and wonderful.

You can imagine how wonderful I felt, then, as I began to look through the tabs and tabs of beauty and magnificence that I had opened, and I realised that each and every single one of them stopped at a 24. I would not be able to squeeze myself into one single dress that Chi Chi had to offer. I mean sure, the styles of some 24s might fit me, but that is beside the point - I am by no means the largest person who wants to wear showstopping clothes, and yet anything from Sophie-sized upwards is made to feel less deserving of glamour than any of their slightly smaller counterparts.

Do brands not understand how frustrating this is? Do they not recognise that this is a real problem in society? Why are people who have more fat rolls than the societally approved number told that they no longer deserve to wiggle into something a little less comfortable but a little more fabulous? Chi Chi - why don't I deserve to see your clothes? Why did you decide that somebody like me was not worth dressing?

And just to let you know, Chi Chi, I had opened HUNDREDS of pounds worth of tabs. Think a pound for every pound I weigh. And because your sizing restricted me from buying anything on your website, I decided to give my money to a company who respected my body. That's the thing with us 'superfats'; in a world with very few choices, we tend to focus our expenditure on one brand at a time and bring a lot of custom their way. Something to think about.

If you would like to rectify your mistakes and include me and my friends in your sizing range, I urge you to get in touch and I would love to spread the word to my fellow fatties.

Until then, sorry. If I'm not good enough for you, you're not good enough for me.

All images taken from ChiChi website

I Didn't Know I Had PND. #savethenhs

Here are some significant numbers for you.

Five - Michael was born on the fifth day of April.
Six - I met him on the sixth of April.
Seven - He did not breathe for seven minutes.
Four - I wasn't allowed to hold my baby until he was four days old.
Nine - he was nine days old when he came home. We were so thankful - we were told that if he lived, he'd be in for at least six weeks.
One - This was how many times I successfully breastfed my son.
Zero - This was the amount of skin to skin time I got with my son. 
Two - This is how old my son was when I found out I had PND.

I won't go in to my birth story because it is long and complicated, but here is a link to it on my old blog. Up until probably six months ago, I had been very adamant that I would never have another baby and couldn't even watch tv/speak to people online who were talking about pregnancy and childbirth. It caused me too much anxiety, and too many flashbacks.

Post birth, I had the usual appointments but I'm hazy on the details. I remember perching on the edge of a blow up bed with a health visitor, probably the day after Michael got home, because we had just moved in and didn't have any furniture yet. I remember the next visit, which I might even have written about on my old blog, with a different lady who told me she was so shocked at what an irresponsible mum I was. I remember smiling, keeping it together, even laughing as Michael peed on me before being weighed, then collapsing on the floor when she left. Crawling to my baby's Moses basket, lifting him gently out, fat tears landing on his head as I held him close to me and whispered "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I am the mum you got". I remember the next time that midwife came round; a furious James made sure he was home, determined that the reason I had been victimised was that I was a "young mum" (age 22), and lo and behold she was nice as pie.

And then the visits were done. When he was 8 weeks old I was climbing the walls (and very poor because SMP is awful) and phoned my area manager to let him know I'd like to come back to work. I returned when he was 16 weeks old, the day after he started weaning in an attempt to manage his reflux (it worked). I had no medical contact, really. I didn't get him weighed unless written to and asked to do so. I plodded along, working and being a mum. I got a second job over Christmas and cried when I got sacked days before the big day, being told "you're spreading yourself too thinly and your baby must miss having his mum around". The guilt. Oh, the guilt.

But, oddly, all of this seemed par for the course. We all get weepy. We all feel immense guilt because that's what happens when you're a mum, right? We all want the best and punish ourselves when we can't reach it?

PND was first mentioned on Michael's first birthday. Every present he opened, every bite of his cake, every jovial song was punctuated with a memory that stabbed me in the heart. I couldn't stop dwelling on the skin-to-skin I never got. The breastfeeding I couldn't manage. The fact my tiny baby had been sedated for an MRI. His swollen ankles because he kept wiggling and  ripping the wires out of himself and they kept having to make new holes in him to re -insert them. The shaved patches of his hair to make room for more wires to be inserted. His cracked and purple skin that hurt him and cracked again when he opened and closed his hands, because he was post-term and I didn't fight them when I knew they had my date wrong. Every time he smiled, I looked at him and saw sorrow; he could have had such a different start if it weren't for me and my body. I excused myself to the bedroom, where James found me crying and we talked about the possibility of PND. I looked in to it, but thought it sounded more like PTSD. From that moment, I began to see my feelings towards my birth and Michael's first year as healing, not punishment. We had been through an ordeal together - it was almost as if I was allowing myself to feel pained by the memories as a way of accepting that it wasn't my fault.

Fast forward to 2015 and I was put on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication. I was no longer crashing into pits of despair, but I became very self aware and realised I had been operating at what felt like about four notches below normal for as long as I could remember. I was no longer overwhelmed; I couldn't feel anything. I was aware of nothing but a quiet buzz and I couldn't decide if it was worse to feel everything or feel nothing. The few moments I did have of 'feeling' were because I was worried. I had been to a&e thinking I had appendicitis and discovered my anxiety was causing me real physical issues, and I found myself unable to manage my fears and stresses. This wasn't normal "I'm finding it difficult to get all of the things I need to do done" and getting a pills chucked at you to chill you out for a couple of months, this was all-consuming. I couldn't go on living my life. I never wanted to die, I just didn't have the energy to live. Socialising was out of the question. Somehow, I managed to carry on working and completing my university work while James took the reigns on parenting for a while, and we worked out systems so that we could manage my anxiety better together.

And yet that buzz was still there. It felt like I echoed on the inside. Like something was inside of me, tugging downwards and never letting go. Pills had zero effect on me (and to be honest I'm still trying to find something that makes me feel different - I am beginning to think that maybe feeling that way is just who I am and will never change) so I finally managed to get referred for some counselling (after trying and being told there was no help available for almost a year).

It was there that I was told I had PND. I said "no, that isn't possible. I never wanted to hurt my baby", naively believing that PND was the media portrayal of mums throwing babies down stairs or smothering them. "I don't feel like I can't love my baby", I said, believing media portrayals once again, "it's like I love my baby too much".

And it all went from there. I probably did have PTSD because of my own physical trauma during birth. The NHS literally saved mine and Michael's lives that day. But as soon as I started realising that PND could overwhelm you in ways that wasn't just feeling disconnected or even hateful towards your baby, I was able to allow myself to be a better and healthier mother.

Here are some significant numbers for you.

Five - Michael was born on the fifth of April
Two - the NHS saved two people's lives in that very room on that very day. 
Eighty five - the percentage of new mothers who suffer from PND. Each of these women rely on the NHS.
One - there is only one NHS. Without the NHS, this story would not have been possible. At the end of every paragraph of this post, this story had the potential to end had the NHS not been available to me and my family. This country would be lost without it and it baffles me that it's validity and necessity is even called in to question.

#savethenhs

The Five Stages of Body Positivity.

It has been shouted from the rooftops of every body positive blogger: body positivity does not happen in one day. You don't wake up in the morning, suddenly 'healed' of your sadness and ready to shake what your mama gave you in the face of anybody who dared bring your appearance into question. Bo-po is a 'journey' in a sense, but one that doesn't necessarily have an ending - it may not even have a definitive beginning for you. Similar to grief (though the exact opposite in how it feels), it is something that can only be really processed in a manner of steps or stages.

Stage one: Immersion

It's impossible to really believe in something without doing your background research. The way I did this was to follow the blogs of other plus size women. I began with following plus size fashion (or fatshion) bloggers and was completely in awe of not only their confidence, but just their contentment. They were very matter of fact: this is my body, here it is in this pretty dress. They didn't focus on the flaws, and that was what really got me raring to go.

Stage two: Interaction

Reaching out to the people who are inspiring you is vital, because if they speak to you indirectly through their writing then imagine how they can affect you one-on-one. Interact in other ways than social media, too: attend events or seminars, swap business cards, join groups or clubs. Interaction is the only way to progress naturally from stages one to three in my opinion, and is also a helpful sounding board for you to bounce some of your own thoughts and ideas off in a safe and healthy way.

Stage three: Participation

Get out there! Start practising what you have admired in others. Throw on a pretty dress and a swish of lippy (if that's your thing!) and tell the world how proud you are to be you. This doesn't necessarily mean you *are* body positive. This is a key stage that I have also been known to refer to as "fake it 'til you make it". Essentially, this is joining in with the immersion stage; you become one of those people who inspire others. In my opinion, this is the stage where your feelings increase ten-fold, and you really begin to believe in yourself and your abilities.

Source

Stage four: Exploration

I think it's important not just to educate yourself on that which applies to you, but to appreciate the journeys that other people are taking. If you're plus size, look beyond that and read about other peoples' experiences who are different from you, so that you can become their ally. Body positivity, contrary to the name, is not just about the body to me. It is a wholeness of mind and body; in other words, until my body and mind aligned I was not able to feel body positive. Expanding your knowledge and reaching out to others is the way to keep your mind healthy.

Stage five: Continuation

And as I said at the beginning of this post, your journey will never end. There is no day where you sit down and say "There. I have reached body positivity". At this stage it's important to remember that we all have down days. Days where you feel uncomfortable in your skin are absolutely okay and normal, and it's about letting yourself know it's okay and looking back at the previous stages for ways to refresh yourself. 

Source

I believe I'm somewhere between stages four and five at the moment, with five being a stage that goes on for as long as you want or need it to - and will continue to be there for you to always return to.

Dealing with Anxiety in Children.

I have noticed a recent increase of traffic on my posts regarding Paige's anxiety problems - a background check here and here - and, remembering how difficult it was to find any resources when we were in the pit of this problem ourselves, I thought it'd be helpful to put together some of the old tips and tricks we tried.

I'd like to point out a couple of things first. Obviously, if your child is suffering badly then please consider professional psychological help. Paige was at the stage where she was having panic attacks and not eating, and changing schools was just the first option - if the problems continued, we would then move on to a child psychologist because we knew that the problem was her, not the school. On to my second point though - it turns out it WAS the school. She is still a child who worries and over analyses things, and we will always keep an eye out for triggering situations and signs that she is beginning to obsess just that bit too much, but since moving schools we do not face the same problems we did previously. We have been very lucky. So these techniques are not things that we use today, but they are things we have tried in the past and had relative (but not complete) success with. Remember, these are coping techniques and not solutions. Also I am not a professional. These things worked for my family, they might not work for yours.

The worry story.

We used to have Paige tell us two stories. First, she would tell us the worry story. An example of hers would be: "I will get to school. I will find out there was homework I didn't know I had. I will have to tell the teacher I didn't do it. I will be in trouble and be humiliated." ... We would then say "Okay, that was the worry story. Now let's decide what the true story will be". In that situation the true story would be "I will get to school. The teacher won't have set secret homework and not told me about it, so there will be nothing to get in trouble for. I will have a good day filled with playing with my friends and no reason to be humiliated".

Educate your child on anxiety.

We felt like it was really important that Paige understood what anxiety was (in terms she could understand - she was 7 back then), because we didn't want her to feel afraid of her body. We explained that all humans have a fight or flight instinct, and that when we have anxiety our bodies are trying to run away to safety. We explained that it wasn't a negative: it was about her body looking after itself. We explained that it happens to grown ups too, including me, and that her worries all came from 'what if' thoughts, not physical things which could hurt her. It was so important that she knew that we understood and that we didn't think there was anything wrong with her. Her body was already out of her control, and she didn't need to be worrying about what we thought of her too.

Personify their anxiety.

This was a technique we read about, which Paige didn't actually find useful - I thought I'd share it here for parents of children who it may help. The theory was to make their anxiety a character. Give it a name, draw a picture etc. It would make it less 'unknown' and scary, and also they could say "Clive is talking to me again" (if they decide their anxiety is called Clive. Not that I'm sure why they would). Paige didn't really 'get' this one, because I think it was too hard for her to believe that it was a person, but I can totally see why this technique could help a lot of children.

Write it down.

Honestly I'm not sure if this is a good one or not. Our problem was this: Paige would get home from school crying. She wouldn't eat. She would be screaming on her bedroom floor until 10/11pm when she finally passed out. She wouldn't eat breakfast. She would cry on the drive to school and then physically be pushed through the door while the teacher pulled. So, for us, just getting her to do normal things like eat, sleep and go to school were our priority. For this reason, we had her write things down. I understand that this can be another obsessive trait so it's obviously one to be careful with, but we had her write pros and cons for her day, as well as list the things she needed for school the next day and the things she was worried about vs the things that would actually happen (using the Worry Story listed above).

Face your fears.

This was the hardest one, but the one we had to keep doing and doing no matter how much she told us it hurt her. There were mornings Paige would make herself vomit so she could ask to stay home, and she would say hurtful things when we forced her to go in. We had to remember that avoiding her problems would be more damaging, and we had to remind her repeatedly that we were sending her to school because we loved her, not because we hated her.

Have your child involved in change.

We realised that things wouldn't change without a huge lifestyle change in our case. Paige was being bullied, the teachers were very unsympathetic and kept telling her to just get on with it; this was clearly not the place for her. So we talked about how to change it, decided to find a new school for her and had her involved every step of the way. We de-registered her from her old school and had her home educate for a month while we visited local schools, bringing her with us each time. As luck would have it she fell in love with the first school she saw, which was walking distance from our house, but we made her view others just in case. This way, although she was very nervous on her first day and went back to crying and worrying, she knew in the build-up it was a school she loved and by her third day there were no tears whatsoever. We found a school with emotional mentors for the children which has been fantastic. Your child is feeling out of control and it's so important to give them as much power in managing their own anxiety as you can.

To finish, I'd just like to say that although I have titled this post 'Dealing with Anxiety in Children', there's no reason that you can't try these techniques on yourself. Best of luck!

How to Handle Competition in a Positive Way

To start this post, I'd like to point out that competition is not an inherently negative thing. In fact, it could be argued that there are no negative situations - it is your reaction to them which counts - and if you are viewing competition as a negative then maybe that reflects more on your attitude and mindset than the situation itself. If you approach competition as a negative it will consume you, and you will become bitter and resentful. So, in order to remain mentally healthy and an all-round positive person, take steps to challenge your negativity and view competition as the positive source of inspiration it can be.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself

Why are you feeling negative about competition? Do you feel threatened because they are doing something better than you are? Do they have an edge that you just can't grasp? If competition isn't a good thing, then you're not up to the challenge. Get there.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer

The best way to dampen a negative fire is to pour positive waters on it. What I mean by that is simple: make nice! Tell your competitor what an inspiration he or she is to you. You don't have to end up best friends, but you may end up learning from each other and stepping up each others games. Plus you will probably discover that your competitor has a lot of admiration for what you're doing too.

Up your game

If somebody is a threat, you need to use that as positive motivation to adapt and improve. Your earnings could potentially be minimised if somebody else is selling what you have to offer, so this is the perfect way to really think about your USP and bank on it. If there were no competition in life, none of us would ever have a reason to get any better.

Consider a collaboration

It's not possible in all situations, but sometimes competition can fizzle out completely if you use it as an opportunity to say "hey! I'm talented, you're talented. Let's do something talented together!". Besides, even if your competitor says no, you get to be the bigger person because you suggested a positive outcome to a potentially negative situation. And that's got to feel pretty rad.

Perspective

Let's be honest: is it the worst thing in the world if somebody else is doing what you're doing? So somebody gets more blog hits or has a more successful hashtag than you - will it kill you to let it slide? Put your loss into perspective, use the tactics listed above and dust yourself off. Start over.

I'm not saying it will be easy. Goodness knows sometimes I need to give myself a stern talking to because I allow myself to get consumed by taking shots, or even taking pleasure in 'winning' at the expense of the loser. But there is room for everybody to do their thing in this world, and a bad attitude can only lead to bad decisions. Allow yourself to see the positive in every situation and you can't help but feel good, too.

You're Going to Hear Me Roar.

Over the last couple of days I have had some amazing messages from fellow bloggers, reaching out to me and commenting on the impact I have had on their own body positive journeys. I have been called "vital to the movement", and the lovely Kathryn even said that she felt that 2016 would be "my year". Comments like this are just absolutely amazing, and exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing. Positivity is funny - I made you guys feel good, which made me feel good, which motivated me to make you all feel even better about yourselves. And that's exactly how it should be. Get stuck in the positivity cycle!

When I got dressed today, patting myself on the back for a few days of awesome feedback and happy comments, I wanted to feel like a powerhouse. I grabbed a shirt I'd bought from Yours. I remember trying the shirt on, dismayed that it didn't fit properly but hanging it up in my wardrobe regardless because I didn't want to say goodbye to that gorgeous bejewelled collar. But today I didn't care. It didn't matter that I had VBO. It wasn't important that my arms were drowned in fabric to accommodate for the shirt fitting across my stomach. I wore jeans, also from Yours, with slits in the knees - totally outside of my usual comfort zone of fun dresses. I finished my look with a skull necklace James bought for me and a topknot. I felt fierce. And then, in the car, I blared out Roar by Katy Perry and totally revelled in the fact that this is definitely going to be my year. I was fearless, fabulous and totally out of my comfort zone. And I absolutely loved it.

Here's to you stepping outside of your comfort zones. Here's to posting pictures where your arms are drowned and your eyes are closed, where your hairstyle is different from your norm, where your lipstick is faded, where you're halfway between two expressions. Here's to 2016 being your year. 

I am a champion, and you're going to hear me roar.