On faith and fame

Last week definitely seemed to have many more days that any other week I have lived through. Sadly enough not long enough to write a post and actually publish it!

My big news from last week is that I did an interview for Channel 4's 4Thought! I'm going to be famous!!! Well, kind of; I shall be on a 2 minute spot after the 6pm news sometime in April - but it's definitely a start! It actually went ok, but I guess I won't know how good it is until it goes out on National TV in a couple of months. #Eek!

I wanted to do this interview for a couple of reasons. Firstly, to prove to myself that I could do it, and secondly because it allowed me to publicise the issues I am passionate about; awareness of mental illness, particularly within the Jewish community. (Not to mention how chuffed I felt about being asked!).

Many people have questioned me over the past few months how my mental illness has affected my Religion, but I have really struggled to give an answer. Strangely enough, it was Channel 4 that pushed me to write a coherent answer!

I believe that a person's Faith or Religion (whatever this may be) can be extremely important in a giving a purpose to life. In retrospect, I believe that faith subconsciously played a part in helping me get me through my darkest times. Knowing that everything is for the best meant that even when things seemed bad, there was a reason for it. If I didn't believe in that, I would be lamenting almost a decade of my life. My faith is what gives me the right to send my blog out to the world and embrace my past. I'm not angry or upset that I was given depression or an eating disorder because they have brought me here. Right here. To this blog post talking to you - hopefully making a difference to someone's life.

However that is not to say that my keeping of Religion has not also been affected by my illness. Many areas of my life suffered as a result of my depression and eating disorder and sadly enough Religion was one of the many casualties. There were many aspects of Orthodox Judaism I found extremely difficult to keep when feeling at my lowest and I believe that I needed to let go of some things in order to get myself better. My eating disorder took over so much of my life at one point that it held no regard for anything, never mind Religion. If at any point there was a choice between Religion and the eating disorder, crafty ED always managed to win. I do believe that slowly I will make the changes I want to make to bring the aspects of Religion I treasured, back into my life, but this may take some time.

I'd like to think that I was never judged for the changes I displayed with regards to my Religion. Something I have taken upon myself over the years is never to judge another being until I have walked their journey, because I will never know what is going on within their life.

In addition to explaining how much Faith and Religion helped me in my recovery and also how they were affected by my illnesses, I wanted to bring to the attention of my readers an aspect very closely interlinked with Faith and Religion. The phenomena of a community. For the purpose of this post I am going to be a little open about the community I am a part of; the Orthodox Jewish community of North West London. I must add that the issues I am about to talk about may not be any different to any other community; but I can only speak for the one I know well.

I will go straight to the point: Stigma needs to be fought against in the entire population when it comes to mental illness, but this fight seems to be a lot more of an uphill battle within the community. The fear of mental illness seems stronger and in order for people to get help quicker, we need this to change. Nothing will change with our heads in the sand. For 'what you deny or ignore, you delay, What you accept and face, you conquer.' 

So what can be done about this?

The answer seems easy in my head but I have no control over what you may do. I will keep blogging and I am hoping that you will continue to read and share my posts. I know I am making a difference because I receive emails and messages from people in the Jewish community who are also suffering in silence. It isn't possible to keep these things to ourselves, there is a need to share and talk. You don't know who is suffering, you don't ever know what is going on inside someone's head. The way this can be changed is by opening up as a community.

There is evidence to prove that a person who receives help within the first year of being diagnosed with an eating disorder will have a much better chance of a full recovery. And although I do not know of any evidence to say this is the same with other mental illnesses, I assume that logically speaking, it makes sense.

So please talk out!

Hope you all have an amazing week and a Happy Purim!

Signed autographs available on request...