Foods for Thoughts.

I have a very weird relationship with food.

A few years ago I started gaining a lot of weight without any change to my diet or exercise level.

Around this same time my constant nausea spiked higher than I had ever experienced before (I have suffered with what can only be described as "morning sickness" for about 10 years now, it doesn't effect my life too much as I've learned how to deal with it but occasionally you will find me throwing up in to the nearest public trash can...I love that for me.)

I love eating, and I'm pretty good at it in a social capacity. If I'm out and about with friends or family, it is most commonly around a table, eating. If someone else controls the food, I'm happily eating, but when I'm in control things tend to go a little obscure.

For starters, I only tend to eat once a day. To make matters worse, on a typical work day this isn't until about 9pm and it tends to be something I've ordered because those New York City cliches I picked up run deep!I am constantly running on empty and because I have done this for so many years now, my metabolism feels pretty much nonexistent and I am never hungry. I have lost count of the number of instances coworkers have pointed out that they have never seen me eat.

A doctor a few years back was obviously very distressed by this. She informed me that this was the reason I was gaining weight, my body was constantly starving and holding on to every single pound. This didn't make much sense to me at the time, but I do notice that when I force myself to eat breakfast for a span of a few days or weeks I start to drop the weight quite constantly.

I digress.

This post isn't about weight.

This post is about my brain.

Recently I've been reading a lot of blogs and articles about the idea of food truly being the fuel our bodies need. As mentioned a few posts back, I suffer from anxiety. I constantly feel like my body is working against me, and I want to trial the idea of using food to help combat this.

Today I decide to base my grocery list around foods that were recommended to help combat anxiety. These items are pretty aligned with a that of a typical healthy diet (vegetables, fruits, fatty fish....you know, all the stuff we have been told for years and years is the key to health, groundbreaking) but there are also some items I wouldn't normally purchase. Things like Brazil nuts (rich in Selenium, which is a supplement I used to take a few years back), pumpkin seeds (A good source of mineral zinc), dark chocolate (can I become that person who only eats a small square a day to reduce stress, let's find out!) and kimchi (fermented food is apparently great for the brain, who knew!)

I plan to combine all these items with a commitment to eat more regularly and pay closer attention to keeping my body fueled. Fingers crossed these two combined will help me find that extra gear I've been swiveling around blindly looking for.

A few years back Kylie Jenner was mocked pretty mercilessly for branding the upcoming year her year for "realizing stuff." She pointed out that everyone around her was spending 2016 figuring shit out. Well I turn 26 this week, and I've decided to channel some Kylie energy and brand my 26th year (Technically 27th year, but you get the idea) my year of realizing stuff.

Let's see how this goes.

Netflix and Panic.

A Dordyline panic attack live in action. (With added "She cries at everybodies party..." comment from random friends mother at the end.....this was my life)

I was an incredibly shy child.

I bawled at the very thought of a Happy Birthday serenade, I crawled on the floor to avoid visitors, I ran away from sleepovers early in fear, and I worried daily.

I never understood my emotions. My family labeled me dramatic, I bottled it up and the world kept spinning. I didn't know how to properly communicate the hefty weight that lived in my chest, or the wind that constantly blew though my head muddling the sound of the world around me. I didn't know how to explain the worry that twisted my organs into balls of bloody matter trying to burst through my skin.

I didn't know how to let anybody know, so I just cried and got on with it.

As I grew, this constant fear and worry manifested itself in peculiar ways. Instead of a mysterious presence running rampant within my body I would try and tie it to tangible things. I would google the likelihood of dying in a car accident, of being doused with acid, or losing mobility of my limbs. I would research how you take care of a sick relative to feel prepared for a future that may arise. I would google how to prevent SIDs in the children I didn't have and wake up my (now ex) boyfriend with a groan...

"I turned the brightness down! How did you even know I was awake this time?" I would complain while furiously smashing my keyboard looking for answers. He would angrily pull my computer away and demand I go to sleep before rolling over and dozing off, most likely to the sound of my accelerated heart smashing against my ribs.

At times, it consumes my entire life. My obsessive compulsive tendencies take over my mind and body, counting steps as I walk and massaging my cuticles in order under the table or during long Uber rides. Counting keeps my mind calm, it keeps me guilt free that if something happens I will not be at fault, because I did my counting.

I'm 26 (well, almost) now, and I wish I could say I was learning to cope, but that would be nothing but a fallacy I want myself to believe. Heck, just this morning it crawled into my Monday....

"Only three pumps of bubble bath? You only want your parents to live for 3 more years" The cloud appeared forcing me to dump 50 full pumps of bubbles into my bath leaving my body slimy, but my brain satisfied.

I used to cope by living a life filled with interesting and obscure stories to keep eyes off my mind. I would roam around town desperately searching for people and experiences to fill the time in between panic attacks.

I loved spending a blurry hour or two in a dive bar with a few friends before running outside, sticking my hand in the air and falling into a yellow cab heading for another adventure.

"Sing-Sing"

"Goldbar"

"The corner of Orchard and Grand"

I would command before staring out the window as New York City wizzed around outside. Three seconds later I would jump out, brush past sidewalk smokers and push my way through a crowd to find my friendly faces.

I would go and go and go some more until I was forced to stop, disappearing fast and quick to cry and worry and overanalyze every thought and emotion I had ever felt.

"Where did you go last night?" My friends would push as I laughed it off with an air of mystery.

"I swear you are doing porn..." A friend once pushed, after I would not explain where I had run off to the night before.

How do you tell someone, who doesn't understand, that every now and then you need to explode in order to rebuild yourself to somewhat resemble a person?

How do you explain that the mysterious week you didn't answer any texts and completely dropped off the grid, you were actually alone in your apartment sitting around waiting to go to sleep again.

How do you pull someone into an experience you don't even understand yourself?

When you find out, let me know.

I have taken up painting pictures while listening to audiobooks to calm my mind....I have no actual artistic talent, but hey it sure keeps my mind busy.  

Run Forest, Run Forest, Go Forest.

I've decided I'm going to start including whatever song I'm listening to whilst I'm writing these entries...partially because sometimes it is representative, and partially because it will annoy my mum.

Tonight I've been thinking a lot about anxiety, well actually for a while now. It's something I've been really struggling with. I'm not sure why exactly it has been plaguing me so bad as of late, but I've noticed myself shutting down a lot more in reaction.

As a person, I'm very on or I'm very off.

If I'm in the mood I'll be the biggest social butterfly in town, flittering about without a care. Sometimes it last for months, and I spend all my time in flight. Sometimes it only lasts for a week and then I'm uninterested in it all.

But sometimes I'm completely off. It's as if someone physically shuts me down. I break plans, I flake out, I run away. I almost go into autopilot. I get up, go to work and then scuttle back to my bubble as fast as I can. It's not a sad time though, as I honestly feel as if I very rarely feel sadness...it's just a time where I crave space, and have you ever tried craving space in New York City? It's rough. Often I turn to running, because although you are constantly surrounded by buildings,people and stray rats....at least your body feels like it's free. Have you ever ran so far that your heart seems to suddenly become real, as if it was just dropped into your chest with it's beat pounding against your ears? So far that your limbs feel so foreign it's as if they aren't even sewn on? It's my favorite feeling.

It sure beats the anxiety, that feels awful.It's as if I can't really breath that well at all.There is a constant tightness in my chest, and although I like to believe I fake it well, I'm always on edge. Have you ever seen something you didn't want to? Or gotten bad news that almost felt like someone punched you in the stomach? That's what it feels like...times 4.

In these times there are only a handful of people I want to be around....My mum's a good one, she constantly puts up with my mood swings and feeds me pie and peach cobbler until I feel better....or my ex-boyfriend, who as much as I hate him sometimes, always seems to know the right things to say.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you know me in real life and I happen to periodically disappear, it's nothing personal. I'm just being a hermit crab, actually once my friend Brooke decided that a hermit crab was most likely my spirit animal....lame right? but I guess it does make sense.

Life is weird man.

I feel like I talk about these things a lot on here, and that's mainly because writing things out honestly makes me feel a little better...running for the mind? It's like a weird therapy that I just happen to publish on the world wide web for my dad to read when he's bored, ignoring work and sick of checking his golf handicap every 3 seconds.

But just FYI it is the lowest it has ever been in his life....

He's quite proud of that.