Episode 15 Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 15 of the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby. And in today's episode, we're talking about mental health, PTSD and EMDR. All are acronyms. So let's get into it.

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm Victoria Welsby, TEDx speaker, best selling author, and fat activist. I have transformed my life from hating my body with desperately low self-esteem to being a courageous and confident Fierce Fatty who loves every inch of this jelly. Society teaches us living in a fat body is bad, but what if we spent less time, money, and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century. So how do you stop negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty Podcast. Let's begin.

Okay, so today's episode is going to be pretty heavy and I wanted to give a trigger warning. In the show notes, but before we start that, I'm going to be talking about things like abuse abuse on a minor rape, starvation binge-eating. I'm going to be mentioning a pedophile and talking about this all in relation to mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder. So if you're feeling like any of those topics could trigger you, did I say binge-eating as well? Binge-eating I guess I didn't mention that. So if you're feeling like any of those topics might trigger you, then skip this episode. But if not, then come along and let's talk about this really important topic.

So I want to be talking about living with depression. I live with depression and PTSD and what has actually worked for me, in so much as you can overcome this deep shit. And the reason why I wanted to do this episode is because one of my most recent posts on the interwebs, on Instagram, on Facebook. I had a lot of people saying, thank you so much for sharing this. This is exactly how I'm feeling. It's so nice to know that I'm not alone. And this has given me some hope. And so I thought, you know what, I'm going to put this into an episode. And I never thought I would be doing an episode like this because talking about my mental health, I want to say issues, my mental health in general has not been something that I've done. It's something that I've hidden and not purposefully. I just didn't want to talk about it. And I've realized that, you know, I talk about so many different intimate parts of my life and this is a big one.

Talking about it helps me and maybe it might help you. So I'm going to share some of my experiences and talk about the different things I did and what has worked, what hasn't worked. And of course I'm not a therapist, I'm a coach, I'm not a therapist. So what I'm sharing is my story. It's, I'm not giving you medical advice or mental health advice or anything like that. It's all for information purposes only. And if you have to pick up something that I'm putting down and it's useful to you, then great. But I'm not a doctor, okay. So just a disclaimer there. I like to think of myself as someone who is super, super fortunate and privileged. If you listen to episode two and you know anything about my kind of general life story you might know that I was brought up in the UK in a city called Peterborough, which is voted. What a city in the UK to live.

Very, not all of it is rough, but there's lots of very rough areas. And I was brought up in one of the roughest areas and we live next to a traveler site. And we lived in a counselor state and so we lived and we were very poor. We lived amongst very poor people and we were very poor, very underprivileged. You know, probably the, you know, not the poorest of the poor in the city, but not far from it. So the area we lived in was very dangerous, very, very dangerous. And one of the reasons why it was dangerous is that there were a lot of sexual predators. It felt like a lot. I don't know if, if that's a reality, but well, you know, you be the judge of that when retelling the story it felt like there was a lot of sexual predators around.

So I can't remember for certain how old I was, but between the age of 7 and 10, I know it was when I was in primary school there was a local pedophile and I didn't know that he was doing it to other people. I think he was, but he would come to our house and my mum would be at work and we, I'd come home from school with my little sister and when I would be out in the garden, he would come and expose himself to me. So I would be out in the garden playing and he would be standing in the bushes cause our garden like kinda went onto a bushes onto a field. So it was more secluded and just stand there in decently exposing himself. So the first time he did it immediately I thought I've been wrong.

I've been bad, I've been naughty. And I went and ran to my oldest sister and didn't tell her but just said I really want to do some homework. Like I needed to repent or something for the bad thing that I just up. He kept coming back and actually one day when I was walking with my friend underpass, he was stood there. I don't know if it was the same guy, but I presume so who knows. He was just at the exposing himself to me and my friend and he came back again when I remember playing on my bike in front of my house and he was just stood there watching me play and my mum noticed him and said, Victoria, come in, come in. And I hadn't told my mum what was happening. Until I told a friend, actually, this is a different friend. And she was like, you need to tell your mum. And I remember she was like a little bit wiser, older or whatever. I remember going in and telling my mum and my mum being horrified obviously. And so when she saw this guy exposing himself again, she rushed in and told my brother and my older brother and my brother chased him and couldn't catch him, which is a shame. Later, a few years later actually in the same area that underpass, someone was raped and I'm very sure that it was probably the same guy because of escalation of behavior. But I don't know for sure. Anyway, so this experience when I was between the age of 7 to 10 really messed with my head obviously. And because it happened at home, home is somewhere where you meant to be safe. And I wasn't safe, I literally wasn't safe at home and we were too poor to do anything about it.

Like we couldn't move. We reported to the police, but, you know, what could the police do really, unless like they caught him in the act and I was just terrified to be at home and to walk around the streets where I lived because he was literally hanging out in the streets, hanging out in the bushes, like in the playgrounds that were there, which were really run down and dangerous anyway, but he'd be hanging out there in the bushes. And anytime that I would hear any kind of noise in the bushes, I'd be like, Oh my God, it's him. And I'd be terrified and run home. But then a home, I wasn't safe. And so home, I became very deeply traumatized, so I couldn't be left in a room alone. So I always had to have someone in a room with me that included going to the toilet.

So I couldn't go to the toilet on my own at top of my mum, come to the toilet with me because I was so terrified. I couldn't walk up the stairs unless there was someone in front of me or they'll and also someone behind me. I couldn't sleep without the light zone. I couldn't like look out the window into the garden because I thought he could see me in the garden, all sorts of stuff. So how this happened, I don't know. I was so lucky. My mom took me to my local doctor and told him about what I was experiencing and I got to go to therapy for free. I'm just so thankful that that happened, that my mum recognize that she should try and do something because they'd been lots of mental health issues in the family and it had not ever been kind of like a solution sought for it.

But I think it was, this was like such an extreme case where I couldn't do anything and I would just be screaming and crying so terrified. And I went to see a therapist and we did cognitive behavioral therapy. And so what that was for me was testing myself and pushing myself, trying to try and do something that was scary, but not that scary. So, for example, I remember the first time after therapy, she tossed me to try something. And the first thing I did was to stand in the living room, just at the doorway of the living room. And my mom stood at the doorway of the kitchen, which was like half a meter away, so I could still see her and then like do that for a minute. I remember writing down like how scared I was, like 10 out of 10 scared.

And I did it for a minute and the next time we increased it to two minutes and next time, three minutes, next time I'd go in the room, next time I would do this and every time it would improve. And I began to not be scared anymore. But because I was legitimately not safe, I could never not be 100%, not scared because I needed to be because I literally was unsafe. And so walking around the neighborhood not only did you have to worry about, you know, getting, you know, attacked by people in the neighborhood, but also being attacked by, you know, grown pedophiles. So that was my first experience with therapy and I'm very, very thankful that I experienced that. And what cognitive behavioral therapy really helped me do was it really helped me throughout the rest of my life of understanding about fear and how powerful fear is and how unreasonable fear is.

You know, it can come from a very reasonable place, but how it just makes no sense in your head if you're scared or something. It doesn't matter if someone's like, but it's not scary. Your safe, it doesn't matter. Like you know, I was scared to even flush the toilet and it didn't matter if, you know, my mom was like, why, what do you think is going to happen if you flush a toilet? You know, it didn't, no, it didn't. It wasn't rational, right. and how you can really break down fear. Anything, any thoughts so this fear was so debilitating that I would, you know, constantly be terrified that I could overcome that such a young age and break it down into small pieces was a real self esteem builder in regards to being brave in life and trying things and knowing that I could overcome it.

And I truly do feel like this about everyone, like whatever thing that you might be struggling with, if you break it down into little things and you're kind with yourself and do the easiest amount possible. If you do want to overcome a certain fear then it is a lot more manageable than someone just, you know, trying to force you to do something and it becomes even more traumatizing. I know there was times where my sister, my younger sister would get frustrated with me, like she was really young and so, cause she would always have to be the person that would hang around with me. And she, you know, if we hadn't fight or whatever, she'd be like, I'm going to leave the room. And she left the room and I'd like, ah, my God and it made it worse sort of thing. So it's like, you know, when people are scared to swim and then someone will come and be like, chuck him in the pool and be like, that will teach them. And I'm like, no, that will give them trauma.

Yeah. So I mentioned before there was mental health issues in my household. My dad was an alcoholic. He suffered from depression and anxiety so much so my dad should never have got married or had children. Like he really should have just been a bachelor, like that would have made him happy in life. But I think he was trying to conform and you know, do what he was supposed to do, but really an old in an alternate universe. There's a version of my dad out there who never got married and had kids and is happy as Larry. So much so about my dad's anxiety and depression.

My mom had had two kids together and then my mom got pregnant with me and the thought of another child he just couldn't handle. He was just like, absolutely no way, we can't have another child. Now my mom is an Irish Catholic and doesn't believe in, I don't know now what she thinks about abortions. I think she's very kind of like touchy on the subject. But at the time she didn't believe in abortions and my dad wanted her to get an abortion to get rid of me and my mom is so soft and meek and mild and my dad was a bully, so I'm really surprised that she didn't. And so because she said no, he said, if you don't, I will kill myself. And I'm really surprised my mom did this. She said, no, I'm keeping this baby and so my dad, my dad went ahead and he overdosed on his antidepressant that he was taken at the time.

This is the first time I had my dad ever got an antidepressant. He overdosed on it and then he wasn't successful and they just took it away from him. That was the idea about around mental health at the time. It was like, well, he overdosed and he's a nuisance and don't give him any more mental health, you know, don't give him any more medicine because he's clearly, I don't know, like I was talking to my mom about this the other day. Like, what if someone is at the point where they attempt suicide, they need help. And obviously it was an abusive thing for him to do that to my mom, like ultimatum, like get an abortion or I will die. That totally wasn't cool. And when I found out about that, he did this obviously make me feel like a big bag of shit.

Now I have a different perspective of like, Whoa man, he was dealing with some really difficult mental health stuff and this is the only way that he could see to solve the problem. So I have that in my family. My dad had deep, deep anxiety, unable to go to go shopping and stores because if there was too many people, it would make them too anxious and he would store them off. At the time, I didn't interpret this as anxiety at the time. I was just like, Oh, he's such a dick. He's such a mean person. He died a couple of years ago and reflecting with my auntie, we were like, do you know what? I think that he was autistic as well as having anxiety. He wasn't able to relate with people. He was very, lots of signs of being somewhere on the autistic spectrum.

Which is a shame that we didn't recognize that while he was alive because it makes so much sense. But when you're a kid or when you're in someone's life, sometimes it takes a step back to realize, you know, they're not just a Dick. They've got something else going on, you know, it's about, it's about their brain and stuff. I remember writing in my diary, I had a diary. I still have a diary. I had a diary from the age of 10 or 11. It is fucking hilarious. There's so much shit in there. Like, Oh my God, I can't believe Rachel said that and then Irene did this and then, Oh my gosh, she thought a batch, you know, all that sort of bullshit. And there's also really sad things and that I remember clearly, I don't have my diary with me cause I'm in hundred at the moment is in Vancouver.

But I remember clearly writing a line in there saying, you know, I will definitely suffer from depression as an adult. There's no way that I can't, from all of the shit that's happening as a child. Which was quite insightful. Now I think that I was already depressed as a child. I often couldn't go to school because I was too anxious to do it because of different pressures. Like I would, I would play the trumpet and I couldn't handle going to my music lesson and things like that. But it wasn't treated like there's something wrong with maybe something, you know, Victoria's mental health might need to be looked at, was more kind of like she's lazy. And that's what I felt was, you know, I'm lazy because I don't want to do that. As well in regards to my mental health, then I was binge eating and also restricting.

Hence why binge-eating because I lived in a very kind of anti fat and diets positive household and so there was a lot of body image issues and self esteem issues going on there. So I was also doing that. So who knows why I as an adult you know, currently, I don't know if I will always have depression. I don't know if it was either, if you're always just a depressed person who manages a depression, I don't know. I don't know what the answer to that is, but I think it's a combination of the genes from my dad. You know, his mental health was, you know, an area that he should have been able to focus on, but the times, you know, meant that he couldn't or maybe it was the stuff that happened in my life, kind of difficult childhood and all that type of stuff that made it more difficult for my mental health.

Who knows, right. But that's just who I am. So by the time I was 17, I met a 30 year old guy. Creepy as fuck. And of course at this stage I had very low self esteem, you know, being a fat teenager coming from a place where at the time I was homeless you know, difficult childhood, alcoholic dad all sorts of stuff. So I was just prime pickings for a creepy older guy who went on to abuse me. So because of my low self worth and because I've never seen a healthy relationship in real life like my dad was, I mentioned domineering, my mum was the the dormant. It was kind of in my mind maybe that was my role too, to be a doormat, to be agreeable. And of course, I basically was dating the, you know, my dad, which is just so cliched.

But this guy was even worse than my dad cause this guy was actually deeply abusive. So I spent two years with this guy and where my mental health was at that time, maybe, you know, I was struggling with my mental health. And things was tough and I had really low self esteem, but he took that and being with him plunge that into the darkest depths that I had never experienced, where I longed to go back to that dysfunctional household with the alcoholic father and all that sort of jazz to begin with. He was so charming. And now if there was a 17 year old girl who told me the story about how she met this guy in the club and the guy for stars, I met him in his club where like loads of children were hanging around like literally like I was 17 in the club.

Is you go to the club, it's legal in 18 in the UK, so it doesn't seem as bad as it is, but he was, he was 30 and hanging around. Well, all these 17 year olds and he came up to me instead of saying, Oh, can I buy you a drink? He was like, can I buy you a pop? Oh my God. Like, hello, a red flag. Like he really liked treating me like a very young, young child, so that's like so fucked up. He would always buy me Teddy bears and he would want me to take Teddy bears out with me. Like say if we went out anyway, he put those, a Teddy bears in my back for me. He wanted me to dress like a school girl. He want my hair in pigtails. He basically wanted a child and he would always be like, Oh, you're so old.

You're so old. Like, Oh, you're 17. And then when I turned 18, he was just like, Oh God. Like, you know, Oh my God. Now I'm just like, what the fuck? And that's just the beginning of it. He started controlling me, very emotionally abusive. He began to be physically abusive, but in ways where I excused it, like, Oh yeah, but you know, he might've hit me but we were falling asleep and, you know, maybe I knocked him or something and that's why he punched me in the head. You know, I would make excuses for it and cause it was sporadic. It was never like, Oh well, you know, he beat me up. It was always like, well, you know, I just make excuses. Something that he did, which really, really, really fucked with me because I was very vulnerable around this as well was food.

He put me on a, a diet. I say diet. He actually, what he did was he staffed me. He would give me, he decided what I was allowed to eat and it was hardly anything, did not meet any of like the food groups. Like if I had carried on with this diet and he'd given me, I would have died from malnutrition because it was just bread and processed cheese and a tin of like spaghetti hoops. So, and if I deviated from this plan that he had for me, I would be in big trouble. Now, as we know, if you restrict, then your body will rebel and will make you focus on food because you need it. You need it to survive. And imagine that being, I was restricting myself because I thought this was a good thing. It was very kind that he was helping me lose weight because I was so fat and disgusting.

So he was being very charitable to help me lose weight in this way. So I had him controlling me and I had myself controlling me and my poor body was just like, feed me. Oh my God. And so then whenever I did have chances, say when he went to work or I went round to see a friend or spent some time with family or whatever, I would deviate from this plan and I would feel terrible about it. I'd feel terrible that I had eaten food, you know, and I would think, Oh my God, I'm so greedy because I had a slice of pizza or something and Oh man, he would do things the weekend. He would order himself pizza and fries and salad, and he would sit there and, and eat that. And I would be there just salivating. He would not absolutely not let me have any at all.

Maybe sometimes and it would be like, Oh, you can only have like the tiniest amount. And he would save it and the next day he would have the leftovers. And if he ever caught that I had any of his leftovers, he would literally count how many of whatever his takeaway he'd have, how many he had of this and he would remember. And so if I had snuck in like a chip, he'd be like, there's something. You had a chip, didn't you? You did, didn't you? You're so greedy. I'm on top of this. He was also an alcoholic. And so the times when he would pass out from drink that's when I might try and sneak food and hope that he would forget because he was drunk and think, Oh, maybe he ate it and I'd get away with it that way.

And I remember one morning waking up, he had passed out the night before with him storming into the room cause he'd passed out in the living room and hadn't come to bed holding up a bag. The takeaway bag, and he was like, you ate a chicken ball, didn't you? And I was, you know, he like burst in, woke me up and I was just like, what, what? No, no, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't. And he was just like, you're so greedy. You're just so disgusting. You can't even help yourself. And I think I was just like, yeah, I eventually had to admit it to him because he was like, I counted them and stuff. But it was just so head fucking RP to put it lightly. On top of this he also raped me. He would, one evening he got drunk and he would want me to be drunk too.

But I wasn't really a big drinker. I was always wary of being a big drinker because of my dad being an alcoholic and he was trying to force me to get drunk. And he passed out and then I went to bed thinking, Oh God, I've escaped him, force feeding me alcohol. But then he came into the bedroom and raped me. Now at the time, I didn't know that, that was rape. Like I just thought, I just have to, I just have to put up with this. I just have to, you know, at least he's not shouting at me, you know, at least he's not throwing things or threatening me. Like this was like in my mind, a lower level of abuse. And so it was a more favorable outcome than him forced drink feeding me wine, right. And it was only years later and I, you know, looking back and being like, Oh yeah, that was abuse. So yet that was this. No, yeah, that was not okay. I knew that I didn't like it, right. Or everything that he was doing. I knew he didn't make me feel good. I knew I was afraid of him. I knew that he was an alcoholic and I knew that that was not a good thing. Like I knew, but my slow self esteem didn't allow me to say I'm outta here. And of course it's very dangerous to leave abusive relationships anyway. So this is where I got the bulk of my trauma from. The bulk of my PTSD came from this two year relationship. Eventually, I got a job working in a bar. I started making more friends. I became more independent friends that he didn't know of and because the bar was very transient and things like that.

And so I was able to make friends with people he didn't know or he didn't know where they lived. He didn't know the telephone number. And one of the friends there helped me escape. The bounces from the bar that I worked at came round with me one day a day that I knew who was out and we collected a few of my things. One of the bouncers, this will maybe make you make you feel happy. One of the bouncers after we left, he was like, I went and just, I went and did a big poo in his toilet and I was like, Oh my God, that's so awful. And one thing is because this ex boyfriend wouldn't let me go to the toilet. He wouldn't let me poo which is so fucked up. And so I had to wait for him to leave the house if I ever needed to go to the toilet. I was allowed to wee but not poo. And if he ever caught me using the toilet to do a poo, he just be berate me and be like, you're so disgusting. I can't believe you do that anyway. And so there's this bouncer, I did a poop in the toilet, left the poo there, and rubbed his toothbrush on the poop. And I was just like, Oh my God, he's going to think that that's my poo. And I was like, really embarrassed, but now I'm just like, fuck. Yeah, like leave the poo. Yeah. So of course he didn't stop there and he harassed. He threw a brick through my sister's window, blah, blah, blah. I went to court and got a restraining order that didn't stop him. He came to my place of work, punched my boss stopped my sister, my sister's boyfriend, and eventually I left the city because it wasn't safe.

But can you imagine then after that experience, where my mental health was, where I was around food. I was so confused about food and so messed up around food because I, you know, him putting me on this quote unquote diets starving me I thought was a good thing because I was so out of control. I couldn't control myself. Whenever he left, I went and I got bought food and I ate food when he wasn't there. And all I thought about was food. As soon as I woke up in the morning, I remember my eyes opening, I additional remember thinking, yes, I get to eat my breakfast, which was a tiny breakfast and then it would be counting down until I'm allowed to have my lunch. And so I was like, Oh my God, I need to go to like ovary is anonymous and like Googling that and instead I went and did weight watchers, which just taught me even more how to be disordered around food. Like literally they're teaching you, you know, tips and tricks on how to improve your eating disorder, right. So that was fun.

I didn't have any support for my mental health around best time but something fortunate happened. And that fortunate thing was when I was about 21, I was riding my bicycle and I got to a roundabout and a woman behind me in a car ran me over. And I wasn't injured that badly. I'd like hurt my elbow and like bruised all over. But because of that, I was scared to ride my bike. And, and the insurance company does a thing where they send you to your doctor and then you tell the doctor what's going on with you. And I mentioned, Oh, I'm scared to ride my bike. And I just saw that was that I was never going to ride my bike again. And the doctor said, okay, we'll send you to therapy. And I thought, whatever. And the therapy that we did was something called EMDR. Now, what EMDR stands for, there's a word here that I already struggled to say , Eye Movement Desensitization. I literally have it spelled out phonetically. Desensitization and Reprocessing, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. I've cracked it. I can say that word now. And I was so fortunate to discover this. So I had to experience this, this minor trauma of being hit by a car. Well, you know, it is a big trauma, but in my life, that was like a drop in the ocean compared to everything that I'd experienced up until that point. And so I went to this therapist and he said, we're going to try this thing, EMDR. And I was like, sounds fucking nuts to me, but I thought, I don't care. I'm not paying for this therapy. And we've got 10 sessions of therapy, do whatever. And so what he did, and I'll explain more about what EMDR is, is I didn't know at the time is actually very legitimate, legitimate form of therapy.

It's not some quack medicine or whatever, but it looked like that to me when I walked in and he had a a row of led lights on this stand. And he had, he'd put pulses in your hand and you'd wear headphones. And in their headphones, it would be like a beat from one side of the ear to a beat to the other side and the lights would go left, right, left, right. And you'd be watching them and the pulse would be not left right, left, right. And what this is doing is it is processing the trauma that you're currently experiencing. So trauma is, it's something that we think is a current threat, right? So most of our experiences in life, we don't remember them because they're not eventful. So the really good things that happened and the really bad things that happened, they stand out.

We remember them. Because they were big positive emotion or, or a big negative emotion. And when we have trauma, we think that we still have a current threat. And so we can't let it go because it's not safe for us to let it go if we are still under this current threat that our brain thinks we are. And so, you know, when you're falling asleep and you experience REM, Rapid Eye Movement, your eyes are flickering left and right. That is a time where your brain is processing is what, you know, thoughts and feelings, what's happened in the day. And I like to explain it like your brain is putting categorizing things as a memory or things as something they want to remember or, or a a trauma. And so like your memory of brushing your teeth that morning that can just go into the library and one side of your brain and on the other side of your brain is where all the scary and happy stuff goes.

The stuff that you want to remember or maybe you know, don't want to remember. But it's important to remember things like trauma to keep you safe. And so REM, what EMDR does is it kind of moves your eyes left to right, left or right and it's processing. It's doing that processing that REM does, but it's guided by a therapist who helps you understand that trauma and helps you process it to get it to a point where it is no longer traumatic. So it's taking it out from that one side of the brain where it says this is trauma and it puts it into the other side where it says, this is just a memory and it's no longer a current threat and it's fucking magical. Whoa.

Let me read you this definition from emdr.com about EMDR. So I'll give you a little bit more information. So EMDR is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy, people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. It is widely assumed that several emotional pain, so no severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain once the block has removed, healing resumed. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain's information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering once the block is removed, healing resumed using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes more than 30 positive controlled outcome studies have been done on EMDR therapy. Some of the studies show that 84 to 90% of single trauma victims no longer have posttraumatic stress disorder after only three 90 minute sessions. Another study funded by HMO Kaiser Permanente, Lord found that 100% of the single trauma victims and 70% of multiple trauma victims no longer were diagnosed with PTSD after only six 50 minute sessions. In other study, 77% of combat veterans were free of PTSD in 12 sessions. That has been so much research on EMDR therapy that is now recognized as an effective form of treatment for trauma and other experiences by organizations such as the American psychiatric association the world health organization and the department of defense. EMDR therapy involves attention to three time periods, the past, the present, and the future focus is given to pass disturbing memories and related events. Also, it is given to current situations that cause distress and to developing the skills and attitudes needed for positive future actions with EMDR therapy. These items are addressed using an eight phase treatment approach.

So that is from emdr.com and what that actually looks like in layman's terms is sitting with the therapist and with the beeps or the pulses or the lights or whatever the therapist uses can just be touching your knee with their fingers after, right? There's lots of different methods. They will say, okay, let's think about there'll be preparation before this. So you're not just, let's think about the traumatic experience. It's you're in a safer environment and then now we'll walk you through the experience and they'll talk about it and you will be, your eyes will start flickering.

It's the strangest thing. So you're there if your eyes are closed, they'll just start flickering. Like you're in REM and you almost feel like you're in a dream state. It's the most bizarre, wonderful, magical thing ever. And within about three sessions, I was no longer afraid to ride my bike. I was riding my bike and big roundabouts riding around, happy as Larry. And so he was like, well, we've got more sessions. What else do you want to work on? And I was like, well, I know I get car sick and so we did cost being car sick. It was magical and that was like a small trauma. So it worked really well really quickly and we just kind of did bullshit stuff of the next, of the following 10 sessions. I can't remember what we did, but I was like, what is this stuff? And it stuck with me. I didn't have the time. I don't know why, but I didn't at the time. Think, why don't we use this to talk about the other stuff. I was could know, I could know at the time, I remember this, that therapist was like, tell me about your family. And he just said, okay, what about your dad? And I just started crying and he's like, why are you crying? And I was just like, I couldn't even say. And he's like, is it because you love your dad? And I was like, yeah, I couldn't even talk about my dad, never mind. All of the other stuff that I'd been through. So I wasn't in the stage, at that stage yet to talk about it. So I moved to Canada and luckily Canada is more of you know, everyone has a therapist and people are more likely to talk about therapy than in the UK where it still is very much more stigmatized.

And the idea that there's something wrong, you know, your defective if you go to therapy or you know, something like that. So after I'd been in Canada for a few years, I started going to talk therapy. So, CBD, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and it was it was okay, but it wasn't getting to what I really wanted to get to. And what I really wanted to get to was getting rid of the nightmares I had every single nights I wanted to get rid of, you know, someone said my name too loud, or if someone touched my elbow or if someone walked by me or someone sneezed, I would jump 10 feet in the air and be like, Oh my God, I'm screaming, I'm always on edge. And if my boyfriend at the time, like turned in bed, I'd be like, Oh my God. And my low self esteem and all that type of stuff.

And after a couple of years of talk therapy, I was like, it's not going away. And it came back to me that I had done this EMDR stuff and my GP at the time was like, Oh, it sounds like you need EMDR. And I was like, Oh shit. Yeah. EMDR. Like I hadn't taken it seriously. I was like, Oh, it's just for this like, you know, this little thing. And for travel sickness it's not actually for you know, heavy stuff. And how wrong was I? And so I luckily found my therapist who is still my current therapist and she was like specialized in everything that I was looking for. And it was also like a feminist therapy therapist. And I was just like, Oh my God, this is amazing. And we did EMDR for maybe a year, maybe doing two sessions a month.

And it was just incredible. I cannot even tell you honestly, like we'd go, I'd go into a session and I'd be like, Oh my God, I'm having this nightmare every night I'm having this nightmare, the same thing or whatever. And then we do a little bit of EMDR and you know, she would tap on my knees and so she tapped on my knees and my arm would start flickering and she'd like, just notice. And how do you feel about yourself? You know, on a scale of one to 10, how true do you believe it is that you are worthless and whatever it is I was feeling at the time and within one session, two sessions, that particular belief or thought it was like, no, I don't believe that anymore. I think that I'm great or I think that I'm, you know, I did the best that situation or I think that I was, you know, it's not my fault that I was abused or whatever it was and it was just revolutionary.

It was really, really life changing and we processed all of the trauma. Now I still go to her because I think that I always will need a therapist. I think everyone needs to have a therapist. Honestly. It's like saying, I don't ever want to go to the doctor again. It's like, well, well, you've got a body so you know, you need to look after it sort of thing. If you want it to be in the best health. And I have a brain on, I have a brain that has has depression. And so I look after my mental health as much as I can. And so I see her every maybe three weeks, every four weeks, every two weeks, depending on what's going on in my life at the time. And so now I just, we just chat, right? We just you know, just kind of standard type therapy and it's perfect.

And if I ever did experience something, experience anything traumatic or any of the traumatic things come up again, I would definitely do EMDR again. It's just absolutely incredible. It literally, I've said this word magic. It feels like magic because if you have trauma, you know, the amount of things that you're ruminating on, the trigger responses that you have, you can't, you can't help it. And people are like, relax and you're just like, I would love to, you know, I would love to not be scared when my boyfriend turns in bed. You know, I'd love to not scream in the office when someone sneezes, you know, it's embarrassing. I would love to sleep through the night and not have a nightmare. And you want that, you want to cure that. But, you know, talk therapy for me wasn't fixing it because it was something deeper, you know?

So in my work for you, you know, obviously everyone is different, but that was my experience that it was incredible. So even though I don't know if you say like, my PTSD is solved or it's done and I, you know, I've never have PTSD symptoms again. I don't know. But I know that, it's kind of like, it's an ongoing thing, right? Your mental health is an ongoing thing and my mental health is an ongoing thing and I really, really try to stay on top of it. Now, the posts that I mentioned earlier that people were responding to is I shared something which was very difficult for me to share. And that was that, so, you know, I did the show, the BBC show, Who Are You Calling Fat? So when I saw the show before it was released, it was edited in a certain way.

Now, they hadn't finished the edits, but basically it was going to stay the same as it was. I asked them to take a couple of things out and they said they were going to add a couple of other things to make me look more likable because they'd made me look like the villain. And then when they showed it on TV, they'd added in a couple of more things but made me look more, I don't know, unreasonable or unkind or you know, just not likable. 2.4 million people saw those two episodes and that was just the night. So now it's probably, you know, 3 million pluses, watched it on the replay and I got so many messages now. A lot of them were wonderful. They were really nice saying, thank you. You're amazing. You were great. You were the best thing on the show. LA, LA, LA, LA.

But a massive portion, which was what was expected. We're like, we hate you. You should die. You're a piece of shit. You're killing people. And what I really struggled with was, you know, it's not fine for people to hate me because I'm fat. That's not fine. But I was kind of like, I'm expecting that, but my views were not represented in the show in a way which was accurate. And so they would take soundbites and it would sound like I would, you know, it sounded like, Oh, I think that fat people never get diabetes. And I didn't say that in the show. But it would come across as like that. And so then people are like, she's fucking dangerous. This woman is encouraging people to get diabetes. And they'd be like, well that's not, that's not, that's not, well I think. Or there was a line that they had, I don't believe in health.

They used a snippet. I don't believe in health. Health is a social construct now. You don't hear the things I said before and after, which was that I don't believe in the way that we view health as a society where it's a binary where either you're healthy or unhealthy because health is shades of gray. Of course health is a thing. But then, you know, I've got people being like, ah, and it was nonstop. And of course I took myself off social media. I had my sister going through my messages and deleting them all and deleting all the horrible comments, but the trolls would they would get really creative and they would find ways to get in touch with me where they knew that I would see it. And so even though I was avoiding it as much as humanly possible, I was still getting bombarded with these messages about how you are a piece of shit.

Now, this all coincided with other difficult things that happened in my life in 2019. Lots of 2019 was a really shit year for me. So many things didn't go my way. Now I am a really resilient person because of all of this stuff I've done in therapy, years of therapy. I have learned to bounce back from things not going my way really easily. Like I'm a very, people would describe me as very positive very happy and all that type of stuff. But 2019 wore me the fuck down. And so then when the show came out, after a year of things not going my way, and I had, you know, all of these people telling me that I am such a bad person, that I have a bad personality, that I'm a bitch, that I'm you know, hurting children and all sorts of stuff, which is not true.

But I started to believe it. I started to believe it and I started to internalize those messages and I started to withdraw from my support network. And because I thought, Oh my God, I must be so embarrassing for them. I've made a fool of myself on TV. I didn't make a fool of myself, but this is how I was interpreting it. I've let down the fat positive community. I've made a laughing stock of the fat positive community. I think I know stuff and I don't, and I'm actually a very mean and cruel person and I started just to believe all this like these waves of messages just, just had infected my brain. And the thing is, trolls are really smart. So they'll try and come after every different thing, every different angle. So it wouldn't be just be like, you know, one thing it'd be, you know, Oh your hair is shit. And then someone else would be like, Oh my God, you've, you've not even got that many followers on Instagram or whatever. And then someone else would be saying something like, Oh your your dad would be so ashamed of you and like things like that. And it just got in, it got in and there was like a little crack in my brain because of the shitty year and they just got into my brain. And the result of that was me becoming suicidal and genuinely believing that I should die and thinking that I was a burden on my family, thinking that I was just an embarrassment thinking that no one really cared about me or, you know, I was just a nuisance sort of thing.

And thank God because of all of the work that I've done and the access I have to my therapist. Talking to my therapist. After a couple of sessions, she kind of snapped me out of it and I went back to all of the self care that I am used to doing and I was able to overcome that really quickly. Obviously, I'm still slowly overcoming that. Like, I didn't work for all of December and half of November. I still did the podcast because I wanted to. But I didn't work at all because I needed to protect myself. And luckily because I have my business, I could do that and not have too many questions being asked. Took myself off social media, I shut down my Twitter so people couldn't follow me or whatever. So yeah, so just to say that this stuff is hard, right? You can work years and years and years that your mental health and you can have a shit month or shit week, a shit day some shit circumstances happening.

And it could tumble down. Luckily because I've worked so hard at this. It was kind of like a stumble. It was like a wobble, but that wobble or could have had a very, very serious consequences. And of course it's serious anyway, just think that I shouldn't be on the planet anymore. But it's fucking hot out there, right. It's hot out. They are. Whew. So I shared that on social media. And something, the reason why I want you to share that is because I haven't often talked about my mental health and what is going on with me. I kept it very private. I would never tell colleagues like anytime that I was dealing with mental health issues, I would never like take time off work or I would try not to. I would never complain. I would never get the ask for the support that I actually needed. And that wasn't real. You know, that's not real. Like you might see Victoria as this very confident, positive, bubbly person and I am all of those things. But also I'm fighting something else, you know, day to day. I'm very happy. But I have to work at it. I have to work at it. And I am positive and also I can have days where I don't feel positive and I feel negative and that's the real Victoria. So I wanted to share that with you and share the work that has gone behind overcoming my PTSD and working at my depression and and as well, I have medications for to help with my depression and thanks Canada. Thanks Canada because Canada really helped get me to a place where I could think about going to a therapist and taking medicine and feel less stigmatized so it felt less, feel less ashamed, but you know, still did feel very ashamed because I wanted people to think that I had all of my shit together that I had. You know, I had a shitty past, but my future is absolutely 100% rosy and I don't think anyone's life is 100% rosy, right. I think that everyone struggles with feeling bad and feeling share it and maybe don't, people don't get to the point where they think that suicide is a potential option, but I'm sure a lot of people can imagine getting that, you know, to that place.

So yeah, I've been vulnerable in today's episode and even, you know, chatting now about this, before I started recording, I was saying to myself, Oh, maybe you shouldn't do this episode because people are gonna think that you summit wrong with you and that you are not professional and you are not. I don't know. You don't have it together and that you're just, just, my brain was telling me stupid stuff and I was like, no, that is due to the stick of stigma around mental health that you are believing those things Victoria. It is not true. It might be true. Some people might be thinking, Oh God, I hate it now. Now that I found out that she sometimes struggles with a mental health. I hate it. Well, you know, they're not the people that I want. Being a member of the Fierce Fatty community, right. So if you're struggling then I feel you, I feel you. I hope that you have a network around you, even if it is honestly, if you think that it's not valid. If your network is online, it is, is absolutely valid. And a lot of the times people who live in marginalized bodies, that is a place where they seek refuge. And so I did get a lot of refuge from people online and friends that I've met online who, some of them are now I've met in person because some of them live locally and some of them not. It has been invaluable just to have someone to say, Hey, you know, I've got your back, you know, or I hear you, or whatever, know that there are many people out there who support you, who want you to feel good, who think that the world is a better place because you're in it, right. So, yeah.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying about that. So a fact about me cause we're entering the episode. So I want to give you a little fact about me. I'm going to have to give you a picture for this so you can see it. But my fact about me today is that I have a wonky index finger. So you know, as a kid you suck your thumb. Well I used to suck my left index finger and then rub ribbon on my lip. And this means that my finger kind of has turned and so it doesn't go downwards. And so when I use my index finger and middle finger, if you do your English finger and middle finger, put them together and touch your thumb with both of them together, you can do that, right? So if I try that on my left hand my two fingers just split and I can't touch my thumb with my index finger. And so it means that my left index finger is like a useless finger. I can't use it to do things. So like if you're doing a button or using a knife and fork or typing on the keyboard, my finger is always up in the air cause it's basically I can't use it to do anything. So it's just hanging around, floating around in the air. I'll put a picture up on the show notes. Also in the show notes, which is fiercefatty.com/015. I'll put in a link to emdr.com so you can look more into EMDR if you want. Of course you don't have to, but it's there for you. And also if you are feeling suicidal, please reach out to someone, whether that be just Googling your local hotline that you can call or telling a friend or telling someone on the internet. You don't have to be alone, so please do that. And I'll put some links in the show notes too for you to reach out to get some support if you need it.

Oh, it's been a heavy one today, hasn't it? Thanks for for being with me. And if you enjoyed this episode and you got something from it, please leave a five star review for me on Stitcher or Apple podcasts, whatever you're listening to. And if you would like a free copy of my book as a thank you, take a screenshot before you submit it and send that to victoria@fiercefatty.com and I will send you an audio and digital version of my bestselling book, Fierce Fatty, and share on social that you are listening and tag me and I will put you in a draw to win a Fierce Fatty cup. So yes, thank you for hanging out with me today and I will see you Fierce Fatties next time.