Food For My Thoughts

This post is one I’ve been debating over for a couple of weeks now, “Should I? Shouldn’t I? Maybe next time….” But since a friend asked me the other day “Why do you cook so much?”, I feel that time has come. That question is one I get asked ALOT, and my answer is always the same, “Cooking is MY therapy”. Some people exercise, some people mediate, some read…I cook, and everyone else gets the benefits from it too ;-). But it hasn’t always been this way. Around 18 months ago, the time our second gorgeous boy was born, I can honestly say that I pretty much only cooked because you need to eat to survive. Meat and three veg was the standard, and, even though I’m ashamed to say it now, packaged and processed foods took up the majority of the space in our cupboards, fridge and freezer. I never baked, I never watched cooking programmes on TV and I never knew what a “Leek” looked like, much less a bulb of fennel! Man, how one little boy can change your life!

After I had our first son, Jaxon, in February of 2010, I copped a pretty awful case of Post-Natal Depression. Although, being a sufferer of depression on and off since 2000, myself and my family recognised the signs and we were able to get on top of it pretty quickly. Given my history, I went to my GP when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Zachary, who is now 17 months old, and discussed my worries about the recurrence of PND once he was born. He gave me a script and told me to start taking it as soon as Zac was born, and that is what I did. Right from the first day,I won’t lie, Zac was, ummm, well, he was “difficult”. He hardly slept, and if he did, he would be so restless that he’d wake himself up. Unlike most babies, if he had a feed he would then spend the next few hours screaming his head off,bringing his legs up this chest with his little face all puckered up and going BRIGHT red. If I would have let him, he would have fed 24/7, this was not right, this was not normal. The crunch came one afternoon, when he was two weeks old and to this day I thank the heavens that my mum was there. He had his bottle, and then started gagging, it was the worst sound imaginable. Then came the vomit, so much vomit, out every possible place it could come out of, so much so, that he choked on it, he couldn’t breathe, he actually started to turn blue. I panicked, which didn’t help matters, and mum told me to leave the room, take Jaxon, get in the car and go and get him a lactose free formula and make an appointment with the doctor (during this time she had turned him upside down, patting him on the back, and cleared all his airways). All of this continued for the next 4 or 5 weeks, during which time, I forget home many doctors visits we had. When finally, we got an appointment with a specialist, and, as I had suspected and tried to tell them all along, he was diagnosed with an allergy to dairy and soy, put on a prescription formula, and within one week, I had a new baby! It was unbelievable, and things should have been great, but that was just the beginning.

I guess I had been so busy and so focused on trying to get to the root of Zac’s problem, that I hadn’t had much time to let myself dwell or think about anything else. But after he started getting well again, I crashed and burned, it had all caught up with me. Panic attacks were rife, I was in tears more than once a day, and I was panicking about panicking! I was afraid to be alone with my boys in case something happened to me and they would be left vulnerable and scared and that no one would find them. My mind had gone walkabout. On feeling myself falling I went back to my gp, the medication I was on wasn’t working, so the dosage was put up. An anti-anxiety medication was added and things started to feel better, for awhile anyway…

During this sort of good phase, it was coming closer to the time for Zac to start solids (I started him at 4 months) and I thought, “wow! This isn’t going to be as easy as it was with Jaxon”. So I had to research, I joined allergy groups on Facebook, I started connecting with people whom I wouldn’t have otherwise connected with, I realised it was ok to ask for help if I wasn’t sure about something. It was as if one door opened to another door opening, etc, etc. I made some wonderful online friends through these groups, and they will be lifelong friends. And I found that food didn’t have to be only eaten for survival, it could be eaten for pure enjoyment, creating memories with the ones you love, and reliving past moments of your life that you thought you had forgotten about. I guess in a way, through Zac, I didn’t find food, food found me. And I am so happy that it did. Cooking is my therapy, my kitchen is my safe place, and it is the place I go to clear my head and to re-focus. I can guarantee that if I’m starting to feel a dark cloud seeping in or am having a bit of a mind fog, I can go to the kitchen, cook up something, and come back with my mind feeling as clear and as sharp as ever. And, everyone else gets to eat the food, too, so that’s a win/win ;-).

As I said, I did feel better for a little while, but not too long ago, only a couple of months actually, things got to breaking point. In the past 12 months my medication had been increased, decreased, changed, increased again, but it seemed no one would listen to me when I told them my symptoms. Then, one day, it felt as if I was destined to never feel 100% ever again, and I just sat on the floor and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. My partner was away for work, so my mum came running. My uncle made me an appointment with his doctor, and it was the best thing a human being could have ever done for me. In my new doctor I have found someone who takes his time, who listens, who looks at me when I talk instead of typing away at the computer, and as a result, I now have a “proper” diagnosis as to what fits my symptoms. Bipolar Type 2 Disorder, yep, no wonder the anti depressants weren’t doing their job all this time. I wasn’t surprised by the diagnosis, although hearing it from a professional kind of shook me a bit. But at the moment, the new medication, and hopefully the new therapy that will be starting soon, things are heading on the right direction and I’m beginning to get a bit of my self-confidence and my spark back :-).

So why do I cook so much?? This is why I cook so much; it plays a huge part in keeping my mental illness in check, it lifts my confidence, it helps me meet like-minded people whom I would’ve otherwise gone through life not knowing, and number one, it makes for one happy household!

Apologies for not having any reviews or recipes on this post, but I promise I’ll make up for it by having a super-awesome one next blog up 😉

Love To You All,
Lara xxx