Over the past couple weeks, I have been stressed to say the least.

Being unemployed means watching every penny very very carefully, and moving house makes it all that much more important.

I sold my wedding rings to go and see Hull City move into the Premier League, and it was worth every penny. The entire trip was amazing, and seeing so many people united throughout the city has been a truly spectacular thing.

Last week, I had my debit card stolen, and some chavvy fucker thought it would be cool to go on an internet shopping spree. He even had the cheek to tell the shops that he was my son, and was being sent to Iraq the following week with the military, and everything must be shipped quickly. The idiot had everything sent to his home address, and even ordered Sky Satellite tv and paid his phone and internet bill using my card. After a few phone calls, it’s pretty certain that not only were these things cut off, he won’t be able to get internet again because he used their lines to commit crimes, and seeing as we only have one internet company here, he’s screwed himself.

The good news is that I will get my money back and he will get criminally charged (made another statement at the police department today) but the bad news is that it will take at least 2 weeks to get my money back - money that I need to pay bills and buy food.

Luckily my new landlord has been very understanding, and my mates have tried to help as much as they can. My mom loaned me the money for the deposit on my new place. Louise is even helping me move to make sure that I am okay - what an angel. Paddy has been kind enough to send me some cash as a birthday preset, and I cannot thank him enough. The Mr’s brother is helping me move so I don’t have to pay for a van, and the Mr himself has been very supportive throughout all of this.

It’s hard times like these that make you really see how wonderful people can be, and how much emphasis we put on shit that just doesn’t matter. I tell ya, I have become a much more frugal shopper!

I have had a very hard time sleeping, and have resulted in taking diazepam (valium) at night, but it only seems to work for a few hours, and once its worn off, I am up and alert all over again (it is helping me with the anxiety, so I will discuss this with my doctor as well). Tonight I intend on trying wine instead.

I plan on seeing my doc next week to see what she can offer me because 2-3 hours of sleep, if I am lucky, a night is screwing up my life. I am weary about Ambien, especially after my mum’s sleep eating and hallucinations while taking it, but would love to hear any of your experiences with sleeping medications and aids.

On the plus side, I have a couple of interviews next week and some potential temporary work. I know it may not be ideal, but I have bills to pay, and am not above doing administrative or accounting or even bar work to get by.

I happen to have a very nasty headache at the moment, which seems to have been triggered by some cheap chocolate. I don’t know if it is because my body doesn’t do sugar too well since my gastric bypass, or if it is just the small amount of cheap chocolate, but I have no intention of repeating this.

The jury is still out on chocolate. Is it evil for migraine sufferers or not?

My ADHD symptoms are really bad at the moment, and I am trying to make sure I take my Concerta first thing in the morning - otherwise I spend the days on tangent after tangent, which isn’t healthy for me or those around me. I keep getting these stupid obsessive thoughts which just make me more stressed, and I need to just let some of this shit go.
I am not the easiest person to live with at the best of times, and I can imagine that the Mr is at his wit’s end.

I continue to lose weight, and hope to buy some more clothes that fit once I am working again - gonna hit the charity shops and will hopefully get some funky finds!

Oh yeah, I had a birthday this week - the big 33. How are you supposed to celebrate these things as you get older? Am I supposed to have a party, barbeque, dinner, drinks, or what?

I would settle for a good night’s sleep…

Lately, it seems that I can handle very little stress.

I’m conscious I’m a bit of an irritable old cow right now, and I am not very happy about it.

I am overdue for my B12 injections, and I am positive that this is a major contributing factor on my mood.

I have experienced fatigued like I have never felt before, as well as numerous nasty headaches.

I am so bloody irritable. Very small things can make me snap completely, and this is very hard to handle for the people around me.

Irritability:

For outsiders it’s very hard to understand why I am irritable. Some people perceive me as short tempered and even aggressive when I am like this.

In reality I am very emotional and far from aggressive. So why does this change when I am stressed? Do I change?

I give several side effects below and explain them:

• Insomnia: lack of sleep
• Feeling useless
• Concentration problems
• Not able to have fun

Insomnia: lack of sleep

Often in a stressed or ADHD episode I either sleep a lot (sometimes 18 hours a day), or I have catnaps followed by several hours of walking around like a zombie. It’s easy to understand that not resting well causes irritation. Imagine getting ice cold water over yourself in the middle of the night. Are you an aggressive person? Or just not amused, and expressing that in an “exaggerated” way?

When I am stressed I often feel tired, not having any energy. Not being able to sleep well adds severely to this problem, and feeds the depression. Forcing a sleep pattern, in my experience, doesn’t work. Staying awake when I feel tired exhausts me so much that I can’t sleep when I am “allowed” to. And trying to fall asleep when I have been awake for just a few hours doesn’t work either; I keep turning from left to right, and moreover keep my partner awake, and disrupt his sleep. This might result in two grumpy people in the morning.

One reason it’s often hard for me to sleep is that due to lack of energy and depression during the day I can only do a few things. A thing that is often hard to understand for outsiders is that my overall feeling somehow improves at the end of the day. So when other people start calling it a day, I start feeling slightly better. And when other people go to bed, my mind starts to work in overdrive: I suddenly get many ideas. Things I wanted to do that day, but just couldn’t. So I start to do them in my head, plan them for tomorrow. And before I know it, it’s 5 in the morning, and I fall finally asleep, exhausted: a vicious circle.
Feeling useless

In the past, when I had short (1-2 weeks) ADHD or stressed episodes (without even knowing this for ADHD episodes), I stayed in bed. I slept a lot, and sometimes was able to read a little. On one hand I felt like I was lazy, profiting, etc. On the other hand, I felt very tired, had hard times concentrating, and often had symptoms of a cold. Back in those days I just thought it was just that: a cold, and that I was just overdoing it a bit.

Now I know better, so no more guilty feelings. In the past, therapy told me not to stay in bed. So I have been trying to get out of bed, and do something. But alas, not being able to do anything useful the whole day doesn’t really improve my situation. Yes, I know that “therapy” prefers to fit one back into society, and society frowns up on people who stay in bed when there is “nothing wrong” with them. But does it really help? In my personal situation; the harder I force myself to do something the less I can do the next day, or even days. So I try to go with the flow: not forcing, but neither drowning.

Moreover, when I try to do something, very small things that distract me can trigger me, and result in an explosion of anger. I try to contain such feelings, but there is often a last straw. After such an explosion I feel even more exhausted, and it can affect me the next day or even days.

Concentration problems

As an IT professional I work with my head. So not being able to concentrate means I can’t work. Moreover, I can’t read, something I like to do a lot in my free time. When I have a very hard time concentrating, how I feel can be described best like not having been able to sleep for days. It’s like everything around me slows down, and I am floating in syrup.

When I have little concentration, anything that takes it away from me: sounds, visuals, even touch, I dislike, hate even. I get angry; snap.

Not being able to have fun

This is another thing that’s very hard to understand for the outside world. People often think that stress or depression is feeling sad because your cat died 3 days ago. Moreover, that you are exaggerating it, and enjoying time off, and of course attention to the max.

Sadly, one of the big disadvantages of feeling like this is: there is (almost) no fun anymore.

In my case: things I love to do normally don’t “work” anymore. I can’t do them because I can’t concentrate. But even harder, I can’t enjoy things anymore since it’s like there is a huge wall between me and fun.
I can watch a funny movie, but feel nothing. The fun can’t reach me.

Not being able to have fun creates two problems: I feel envious because other people are having it, and I can’t join. The latter means that if friends, or my partner want to go somewhere, I feel as though I have to explain that I don’t feel ok. I know that when I go I will feel worse, because I don’t experience the fun. When I don’t understand this, I push myself harder, and that hurts me, and I get angry.

Lately it seems as if the only emotions I can feel are negative ones, and feeling those are better than feeling nothing at all.

Irritable: coping mechanisms

Below I give a short list of things I will try to do.

• Talk about it
• Apologize afterwards
• Avoid certain situations

Talk about it

This is my way of trying to explain the people who are close to me that I can snap very easy at times. I often try to illustrate it by saying: what would you do if tonight at 4 I throw ice cold water over you when you sleep. People who are close to me often understand this, since they know that I am usually very easy going.

Of course there are people who don’t understand, sometimes because they have no experience with it, and try to extrapolate what they would do in my situation based on their feelings and experiences. So sadly, they quickly draw the conclusion that I play the role of the victim, want attention, or profit from my ADHD in some way.

One thing I learned very fast at the beginning of understanding my ADHD: you will lose a lot of friends. Yes, I still call them friends, not “friends”. Since in my opinion they can’t blame me for my shortcomings, hence I can’t blame them for theirs.

So when I have tried to explain things and people don’t understand, I give up, instead of creating a new conflict every time, and feeling bad for one or several days afterwards.

And in those cases people try to understand my situation, the following two items help.

Apologize afterwards

Even though I often have a good reason, from my point of view, to snap, I understand that this reason is not obvious at all for other people, so I try to apologize afterwards. Sometimes this takes some time, but I have learned that apologizing has several benefits, so I do it, even if it’s afterwards, or late.

One benefit is that I get what happened out of my mind, give it a place. Otherwise it keeps running around in circles in my head, I keep thinking about what I could have done to avoid it, and how to do better next time. Saying sorry, and creating room for talk does help. Another benefit is that I show to other people that I am aware that something went wrong, and that it was not something I liked.

Avoid certain situations

Some situations can be avoided. Sometimes in an argument it’s better to say: ok, I don’t want to talk about it now, we talk about it later. Or just: I am too angry now to think, so I go out for a short walk to clear my mind. In the beginning this might look like defeat, like losing, admitting being wrong. But ending up in a fight, and feeling worse for days afterwards is to me really losing.

Conslusion

I am having a B12 injection today, so I am sure that this will improve my mood.

I know that I have not been easy to be around lately, and I really feel for those around me.
I know that I have been alot of very hard work, and I appreciate your patience.

Allowing things around me to upset me just makes the situation worse - I have to take responsibility for my mood and my actions.

I have just updated my weight ticker and have only realised:

• Not only have I lost more weight, I am now within a “NORMAL” BMI Range
• I am within 10 pounds of my goal weight
• I have lost, in total so far, 151 pounds.
• I am now a US size 10/12 - something I haven’t been since I was about 12 years old
• I can wear small/medium sized stockings

Two years ago, I woke up each morning wondering what I was going to wear to hide my fat, and when I was going to eat again.

Amazingly, I have completly changed my attitude towards food and exercise, and I could not be happier.

Now, I often park outside of town and walk to work. Yes, me, walk. I don’t get out of breath, my feet don’t hurt, and quite often, I wear some very sexy shoes. With heels and everything!

I am so happy about my progress and how far I have come, it brings me to tears.

Tears of joy are something I have only experienced very rarely in the past, and lately, they have made a more regular appearance in my life.

Thank goodness for waterproof mascara. Maybe it IS maybeline!

All of this time, I thought I was experiencing dumping syndrome, but have discovered I have reactive hypoglycemia, due to my gastric bypass.

Reactive hypoglycemia occurs soon after meal rich with carbohydrates. It happens in several conditions:
1. Very fast glucose absorption due to total or partial stomach removal (gastric bypass);
2. Congenital fructose intolerance;
3. Leucin intolerance, and
4. Idiopathic type (probably psychosomatic).

Although symptoms vary according to individuals’ sensitivity to the elevation and decline of glucose levels, some of the more common symptoms are:

• fatigue
• dizziness
• light-headedness
• sweating
• headaches
• palpitations
• depression
• nervousness
• irritability
• tremors
• flushing
• craving sweets
• increased appetite
• rhinitis
• epileptic-type response to rapidly flashing bright lights

Thank you Melting Mama for introducing me to this phenomenom, now I can understand it!

If anyone else has any information, I would be very happy if you could contact me.

I have now lost exactly 140 pounds, which brings me to 175.

I couldn’t be happier, my only concern now is losing my curves.

Here are my latest photos:

Dave and Jon at mine at 3:00 AM on Saturday… After lots of drink!

Russ, talking on the phone to his girlfriend at 3:30AM on the back step, while drinking Ciaprinhias, having a fag, and prior to getting covered in lime shaving gel from the upstairs bathroom window, ala Dave.

Well, weighed myself last night and another 5 pounds is gone.

It is coming off slowly now, but I am happy!

I am starting to research plastic surgery now, so if anyone has any recommendations, please leave them in the comments section or contact me!

Here are a couple of photos I took this weekend:

My first media article is now punblished in the Yorkshire Post:

 http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/health/Delight-and-danger-of-a.3407260.jp

Comments please…

Work: Yesterday I was in London for a job interview. They are offering me crazzzy money. It includes alot of travel to the USA. It sounds like a great job. I will keep you posted.

Personal: I have started dating again.

Media: The OWLSS group is taking off, the Yorkshire Post are doing an article about me/OWLSS shortly, as well as the local paper here. There will be some media coverage for our first meeting next week - talk about pressure!

Channel4 are doing a health documentary that I wil be involved in regarding gastric bypass. Who knows where this will all lead!

Keep your eyes posted for Geneva sightings!

I have been approached by a media firm/agent who are in the process of securing contracts to put my story, as well as the support group/charity owlss.co.uk, in the media - television, newspapers and magazines.

I was also contacted again by channel 4 last night in regards to a health documentary that is being done about obesity surgery. I was initally contacted earlier this year, and it’s nice to see that it is coming to fruition.

It looks as if the coming weeks will be busy, and I will need to get a photo shoot booked as soon as possible.

If anyone would like to help proof-read my exclusivity contract, I would appreciate any advice.

It looks like I will have to start removing some of my personal details from the internet, my CV and the likes, as I don’t really want any nutters having my personal details.

In regards to work, I am in London for a meeting on Wednesday next week, so I may squeeze some networking in if I can. I will have some time to kill at lunchtime if anyone wants to grab a bite to eat!