So typically last night I had all these amazing things flowing about what I wanted to say in today's post, but now I come to sit and write those beautifully flowing reminiscences have all vanished!  But hopefully something will come to me as I type.

Like many people it would be easy I suppose to start with my childhood. Many years in therapy have taught me to mistrust my memories of growing up as they have become tainted by the well meaning therapists goal of finding a reason for me to have ended up with cripplingly low self esteem, bi-polar depression and ME/CFS. I can't honestly say (even considering that I am one of their number) that I  elieve there was any actual situation that caused my problems. Childhood was a pretty idyllic one really. Loving parents who wanted the best for me, taught me to care about others and a big sister that I enjoyed spending time with even if she loved dolls and I hated them. Sure we fought like all siblings, but there was love and friendship and a lot of fun that massively outweighed the occasional squabble or incident involving hair and copydex. My grandma (Mum's side) lived at home with us for the major chunk of my childhood and she had alzheimers. You can see maybe already where my therapists have gotten excited - traumatised by mental health issues/neglected by mother because of grandparents needs etc - and for years I bought into that. Especially as it all dovetailed so neatly with the fact that once Grandma went into permanent care my Mum went back to work as a teacher - abandoned at the time I finally got her to myself, and to hundreds of other children I then felt I needed to compete with. Ruddy nonsense! If this was how I felt I certainly wasn't aware of it and never even considered it at the time. Of course it makes lovely neat sense, if you want it to but all my memories of childhood are of being loved and supported - not neglected.

My parents were that wierd thing, a truly cohesive unit. By that I mean that you didn't need to 'pick' one or other of them to fill certain roles. If poorly or you had a fall going to Dad was equally as soothing as going to Mum. He was just as capable at patching us up, giving us a big cuddle and a kiss as she was. If you had a problems of any kind you could go to either one of them. We discussed all the taboo topics, religion, politics and sex at the dinner table - something that has caused me no end of trouble outside of my family at times as I grew up with honest, non-judgemental debat around me at all times and not everyone has - it is very easy to forget that most people think debat is confrontational and argumentative rather than a conversation where all sides are listened to and considered even if opposing views are held. So I never felt that anything was lacking - if anything I had the best of everything. A fantastic example of selfless care of a loved one in need. Super parenting despite hurdles (my Mum is so partially sighted she only sees blurs). A strong and focussed female role model who balanced parenting with a very stressful career (teaching - my amazing Mum!) and a Dad who was hard working, positive thinking and open to emotions, play and being there for his children in whatever way we needed them. They were great friends and could be relied on in a crisis as well as the good times. They made a point of ensuring contact was maintained with even the furthest reaches of our family. The only thing they got wrong? Maybe they were a bit too perfect and made living up to their standards a really tough call!

But their belief in me and my abilities fostered in me a desire to succeed and make them proud. I never realised they would have been proud of me if I never achieved anything more than putting a paper bag on my head and giving it the jazz hands to make someone laugh - I chose to heap pressure on myself to deeply entrench within my psyche a need to be brilliant, to excell and to be more at all times. Not surprisingly, under that kind of pressure from within I eventually cracked.

My health has never been my strongest point, and looking back with the knowledge and experience I have now from many years as a holistic therapist, I think my mamy ailments were my body desperately trying to give me a bit of a break from all the self induced pressure. It set up a very black and white/all or nothing kind of existence where I constantly felt that I was playing catch up - that I almost had to get ahead in case another illness or problem came along to set me back again. I would literally wear myself out and this has continued to this day.

The biggest of these crashes was during my A-Levels. I spent about 17 of the 20 months I should have been in school studying tucked up in bed with glandular fever. Not surprisingly my results reflected this. But rather than doing the sensible thing of getting well and maybe going to college to try again, I took the first decision about my future because of what I believed others expected of me rather than having the courage to follow my own convictions - to go to University now, and to study languages as everyone else said I was good at them (I had really wanted to study psychology and criminology). I got in to a Uni in London, and suffice to say I didn't enjoy it much as I had ended up doing a course I didn't want to do, in a place I didn't want to be, with what was then called Post Viral Syndrome - what most people would now recognise as ME/CFS. Being so unhappy and so often unwell and exhausted I began to turn to substances to help me feel better.

Now, throughout the glandular fever I had been unable to really eat very much - a Heinz Fruity Juice baby dessert was most of the time the only thing that went down ok. So I wasn't really used to eating very much, and had gotten into an odd cycle with my eating too where all or nothing seemed to rule. When the glands permitted I ate. And I mean I really ate. I made up for every meal I had brought up because of my stomach glands being so inflamed. I made up for every meal I couldn't even get past my poor raw and swollen throat. And these periods of binge and unwanted purge continued. But now, away from home access to good food (nobody elese there to cook it when I was too tired to do so) was less and the ease of nipping over the road for a kebab or a chinese was the easiest option when that exhausted. My weight started to balloon. I began to drink quite heavily and experiment with drugs too. I began to feel less and less confident, less and less capable and lost more and more my sense of self. This was the beginning of my adult life, and it pretty much sets the scene......

Hello, this is me, Roly Peck. I decided to write this blog as I have been on a bit of a journey (groan groan - not another blogger on a journey I hear you cry as you rapidly disengage and try and find something more interesting to read - please hang in there and give me a try!). As you can see from the pic, I am a big girl. I have always been a bit bigger than I should be, but years of ill health (I have ME/CFS), depression amd more diets than I care to mention has gotten me to where I am now. A curvy and voluptuous size 20-22 UK.

I haven't always been comfortable in front of the camera, as the picture above probably shows - but since stopping dieting three years ago after discovering the Health at Every Size movement a lot has changed in my life. I hope you will enjoy my recollections of my life as I write to 'get it all out' and hope that this blog will give hope, encouragement and support to others as they fight the demons of crippling low self esteem, physical and/or mental illness, and a society that is bent upon insisting that weight = health. 

If I can go from shy, constantly behind the camera and hiding from life to where I am now, anyone can and I really hope my experiences don't bore you senseless xxx