The Literal Metaphor

EDIT 12 September 2020 – this post was from my original blog but I recently revamped and rebranded my blog to allow myself to move in a different direction. However, I have kept this original post exactly how I wrote it all those years ago as an insight into the creation of my original site. 

It started off as a joke; ‘off on her umbrella adventures’.

I’d never had one and always showed up everywhere absolutely drenched. As much as I thought I owned the drowned rat look, my friends insisted that I get one and I did.

Naturally for that girl, I couldn’t open it properly with my disabled hands, it kept collapsing, never really kept me dry, and almost poked my eyes out on multiple occasions. They’d laugh at how much I hated using one, so much so that I more than often just refused to use it.

When trying to think of a title for this blog I found myself thinking of my ‘umbrella adventures’ as a nice metaphor for a couple of different reasons.

Mainly though, when I would try to explain the eating disorder to my therapist and friends I’d explain it has being stuck in a storm and so many elements were drowning me. We then worked on visualising what makes that storm pass, what makes the thunder and lighting, the rain clouds, and the wind disappear.

And sometimes the storm wouldn’t disappear or it would be sunny with the rain clouds looming in the background but what made my recovery was the strength of my support network and how happy they all made me.

Naturally, its not just about good days and bad days, the distinction is never that defined. However, I would visualise my support network as my umbrella in this storm. That, the storm may be raging, but they were trying to protect me as much as we all could. And there are days where I’m not strong enough to hold that umbrella on my own but my friends are there holding it for me, helping me through the dark days, the rain, the thunder and the lightening.

And Umbrella Adventures was born. A series of blog posts about my good days, my bad days and sometimes just whatever’s on my mind.