Showing posts with label Five Minutes On. Show all posts

Five Minutes On The Early Days Of Motherhood

I think you’ll all know by now my family grew during lockdown. It’s something I talk about a bit. Not a lot, because so much of it is none of anyone else’s business. Something I’ve only gently whispered about is just how fucking hard I found it.

Five Minutes On 2020

2020. What a year. 

Five Minutes On A Quite Big Thing

Hello everyone. 

I have a confession to make. 
I’ve not been particularly honest with you - I’ve not lied but I’ve been a bit deceitful. 

This year I became a mother. 

New Mummy

Five Minutes on A Bad Week

[Images in this post contain gifted items]

It’s been a bad week for body love / confidence / neutrality.

Adele’s weight loss making her an (unwilling) tabloid darling, BMI in healthcare eternally in the spotlight, trolls desecrating the memory of a wonderful woman based on purely her body size; If you’re a fat woman, its very difficult to switch off from your physicality right now.

The Em Edit

Five Minutes on Being A Big Woman

I am a big woman. 

I’m 6ft tall, wear a size 10 shoe, have a broad back, thick arms and a strong chin. 
I weigh more than every man I know. 

Lingerie: Tutti Rouge - Elektra [Gifted]

Five Minutes on January

It seems that the simple act of existence without self-loathing is a renegade act. And in January, that renegade act can often feel like a battle.


Five Minutes on Being Visible

[This post contains gifted items from Figleaves]

As a woman who does a 9-5 being Jen from The IT crowd, enjoys Countryfile more than she ought and who now uses Urban Dictionary on an hourly basis; I often ask myself what the ACTUAL living heck I’m doing perpetually posting partially dressed pictures on the internet. 

The Em Edit

Five Minutes on Body Image

When I was a child I read EVERYTHING. Every piece of paper put in front of me was consumed by hungry eyes, by a mind desperate to understand how a girl should behave, smell, look. Which Tammy girl cargo pants will tell the other girls that I’m one of them, who should my favourite boyband be (Spoiler: None)

Curvy Kate Lingerie

Five Minutes on Validity

You all know that I have A LOT of thoughts when it comes to children and making children and growing children and having children and raising children etc etc. 

So this is a bit of an update around my thoughts on the validity of womanhood when it comes to children. The next step in my odd little journey along the road of adulthood if you will (You'd imagine I'd be getting it right by now...)

I just want to clarify in advance that anything I say is by no means someone without a child digging out those women WITH children. Quite the contrary. Mothers are INCREDIBLE. There are times when I look at my sister and think "HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS?!?" (Usually when she's covered in green stuff that could have come from literally any part of my niece) Plus, I would never judge any decision someone else has made when it comes to their body, lives and offspring - It is simply none of my business.

Five Minutes on Standing Alone

Sometimes we stand alone.

Today is the last day of child loss awareness week. I’ve not said an awful lot this week, partly because so many other wonderful women are saying things so beautifully and partly because I’m in a strange new phase. Beyond grief and into loneliness.

Five Minutes On Loss

Trigger Warning: Detailed talk of child loss/medical experiences.

I've been a bit of funk of late and could not for the life of it get to the bottom of what's going on. Then it hit me: My head has reached capacity. 

We go through so many things in our lives. Some bad and some marvellous. Some we talk about and some we don't. Ultimately, I guess we must reach a point where we're fully loaded - That's one of the original reasons I started this blog; A space to vent, to share and maybe even somewhere that other big odd women can relate or refer to. 

I absolutely do not want this to be a site that is SAD and SERIOUS because I am 100% neither, unless I am a. Hungover or b. Pretending I am an adult for a job/loan/other adult reasons. However, I have this space and I need to stay true to my original intentions. 
I PROMISE MY NEXT POST WILL BE KNICKERS.

So here is a big folder that has been archived in my brain, on a topic that I've mentioned time and time again, because grief really is an emotion that never truly leaves you, regardless of whether you feel it should or whether the thing you lost is no longer something you need. 
www.theemedit.co.uk

Five Minutes on Breaking Down

***Trigger Warning: Mental Health***

When I was 29 I had a breakdown.

 It started as butterflies in my stomach. 
A constant feeling of “something is wrong” without knowing what. 
Then I started to forget words, simple words like potato and microwave (vital words in my jacket potato life). 
I would go to work and “wake up” staring at my hands, not sure how long I’d been sitting that way and scared that people were noticing that I was quite clearly a massive weirdo.

Five Minutes on Loving Yourself


Remember when you were younger and people said "OH they LOVE themselves SOOOO much" like it was a bad thing? WELL, I'm here to tell you now that actually it's a really really good thing.

www.terribletumbles.co.uk

Five Minutes on Who I Am And What I Want


Happy 2018 Party People!

You all know me fairly well by now and, as such, will know that in 2018 I will be paying no heed to New Years resolutions. I will, however, share with you some of the things I've learnt over the last 12 months and some of the things I'm going to keep on learning for likely forever because I'm a REALLY slow learner (Please see also; "Learning to drive" - Moving into year 17 of that and "Shaving my legs without bleeding to death" - Year 20) 

www.terribletumbles.co.uk

Guest Post - Keep banging your drum and eventually we’ll all get a dance

Hello,

My name is Danielle and I am Emma’s BEST FRIEND FOREVER and number 1 fan.

‘Are you sure?’, 

I hear you ask,

‘She’s never once mentioned you in any of her blog posts or pictures?!’



Five Minutes on Feminism + Fashion


Feminism in fashion is "having a moment" as they say and high street store Peacocks have sasheyed in with their fab The Future Is Female t-shirt, which you may have seen gracing the body of celebrities and bloggers aplenty. It's a beaut tshirt - Lovely soft cotton, great fit and most importantly, a message we can all get behind.

www.terribletumbles.co.uk

Five Minutes on Small Fat Privilege


I’ve touched on the topic of small fat privilege before on both this blog and in this article for Bustle but one of the predominant reasons I've decided to write this post is in the hope it answers some of the questions I'm most frequently asked by other smaller fats. 

'When You're Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression' 

Five Minutes On Being Too Much

I haven't been sleeping well lately. I don't know why, it's just one of those things that happens every now and then, but lying awake at 3am this morning I started thinking bad thoughts. You will know the ones, the ones where you remember every negative thing said to or about you from the age of two onwards... One thing each of these thoughts have in common for me is the word "Too"; You're too big, too lazy, too nice, too clever (The latter is less of an issue for me personally...). but it's incredible how putting this one word in front of another can turn it into an immediate negative. Try it: think of the adjective you'd most like to be described as and put the word "Too" in front of it - Weird isn't it? This word is used by other people to take away any control we have over ourselves and how we present to other people. GRIM. 

Five Minutes on What Now...?

Trigger Warning - This post mentions fertility and motherhood

I’m going through this thing right now. An internal debate if you will. Not a particularly fun or fluffy one, so If you’re reading this post in the hope of clarity or a deeper understanding of a woman who has her life together READ NO FURTHER.

I saw a quote recently that really stuck with me - it said something about there being two kinds of childless women; A loving and caring Auntie type and the other a drunken old floozy. Luckily I can’t find the exact quote again because I’m in exactly the kind of mood where I’d find the Earth mother who wrote it and kick their face off... Child loss broke my heart, there’s no doubt about it. MPW and I went from knowing exactly who we were as a couple, to getting our heads around the fact that there would be new element to life as we knew it, to actually looking forward to having another little dude to knock about with and take to McDonalds. Despite this, as a couple who had never formally written the “Along came a baby” chapter into our book, it’s since been very difficult to work out what exactly it is we grieved for.

www.terribletumbles.co.uk

Five Minutes On You Are Perfect.

Trigger Warning: This post mentions diet culture negatively. If this is something which may cause you upset or trauma at this point, please skip this post, do what's right for you and take care of yourself you lovely person.


I don't often write about this topic because frankly, I find it dull. Dull and infuriating. This said, I just want to take the time to interrupt our regular January schedule of "Please self-loathe in order to buy this crap" with some of my own thoughts. These are thoughts which my body positive friends regularly share in the hope that they will dilute the nonsense you are being bombarded with, you may have read them, shared them, maybe even ignored (as I did a million times over in the past) under the assumption that this doesn't mean you, that good things are only going to happen for you when you eat that thing/subscribe to that place/deprive yourself of that pleasure because you are somehow different and you do not deserve to love yourself.

But I would like it if you could read this post from me and please at least consider making this about you. Even if just to keep me quiet for another year.

I've been reluctant in the past to describe myself as Body Positive. I am without a doubt positive about other people's bodies, but here's a secret....
Sometimes I am not positive about my own body
 "WHUT?!?" I hear you cry, "How can someone who likes all bodies not like their own?!?" Well here's an even bigger secret, if not THE biggest secret:
Everyone has body confidence wobbles. EVERYONE.