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Even at my most miserable, I was good at holding down my job, cracking jokes, going out just enough so I wasn’t seen as a hermit.
But I had spent a lifetime holding at bay the need to run away – from my mind, from my negative thoughts; from the worries that built up and calcified, layer upon layer, until they were too strong to chip away at.
You can’t fully insulate yourself against true sorrow, but you can learn to recognise the difference between a natural and worthy emotion like grief, and an irrational and unhealthy one, like panic.
Don’t minimise your stuff, or compare it with other people’s. Having a loving family or a good job doesn’t mean you have to stay quiet when you’re struggling with mental-health problems – however small you think they are.
The things that have worked for me have been therapy, drugs and running. Your version of help might be different, but do make a serious effort to seek it out. It’ll be the best thing you can ever do for yourself, and for those who love you.
Mad, Bad and Sad by Lisa Appignanesi.
his marriage works because his wife and he don’t actually need each other. They love each other, but they would also be perfectly fine on their own. Their choice to be together is a deliberate one, not based on needing support or money or reassurance from somebody else. He no longer needs to be propped up by another person,
‘Deep afflictions of the spirit are best alleviated by violent agitation of the body.’
Boredom is a strangely nice feeling after you’ve lived with excess adrenaline for so long.
Moderation in anything has never seemed to fit well with me.
Just when my anxiety is less, when I feel pretty stable – that’s often when I stop trying to keep it like that. I get complacent and think I’ve cracked it. But as Eleanor Morgan said – you have to live with it. If I hadn’t become ill and had the experience of a temporary slump, I suspect I might have given up the running.
life is pain, and anyone who tells you different is selling something.fn1 7K – WHY DO WE RUN?
‘Our body rewards us for movement – it makes us tougher, stronger, makes our bones thicker, helps with serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine.
We don’t often actually take those important breaks though – at least not willingly. But life often intervenes and makes us, whether we want to or not.
Sadness isn’t something to worry about – you’re feeling what you’re supposed to be feeling. But you don’t have to entertain it, invite it to stay longer and make up a bed for it.
‘When pain floods their consciousness, participants seem unable to develop complex thoughts. Pain temporarily suspends the reflexive project of the self.’
‘Pain enables a temporary erasure of the self. When flooding individuals with unpleasantness, pain momentarily erases the burdens of identity and facilitates a distinctive type of escape.’
Chris is quite right. Grief is exhausting. Stress is exhausting. Any reserves you have can fade away in a split second, and you likely don’t take good enough care of yourself when you’re busy caring for others.
The runs I did every weekday for a year while I was working in a stress-filled job were not my ideal runs. They were carthorse runs, no elegant stallions to be seen. But they were a tonic on days when I found my brain whirring. They were functional runs, all done to get home as quickly as possible; through dark streets, in the rain, and even in the snow on occasion.
When I felt tired, I would go for a walk, knowing that I needed to inject some fresh air (as fresh as Zone One in London can get) and not allow myself to sleepily carry on at half speed. This could be just ten minutes, but it always made a noticeable difference, and I do it all the time now. I walk in the mornings before I even have a cup of coffee. It gives me space between deep sleep and the busy day, time to fully let my brain wake up, so I don’t jolt it into panic with a rush to the Tube or by expecting to start work straight away.
Running wasn’t a means to an end; it was to aid the whole journey.
Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi termed this feeling ‘flow’ back in 1975, though there are many other names for it, and he described the factors it involves, which include: • Complete concentration on the task • A clear goal and immediate feedback • The experience has an end, and is rewarding • Effortlessness and ease • A balance between challenge and skill • Action and awareness are combined • You feel in control of the task
The absolutely brilliant thing about starting a new habit for yourself (and not doing it as part of a team) is that you don’t have anyone to fail. Of course, having others taking part too gives you extra accountability, but sometimes even that level of pressure might be too much. I wasn’t ready for that. I just wanted to try something out, and place no expectations on it. Hence starting my running attempts in a dark alley. Nobody to watch, nobody to laugh, and nobody to judge me if I stopped.
You can’t measure self-esteem, but there are some generally accepted signs that you have a healthy level of it. They include an ability to make mistakes and learn from them, optimism, assertiveness, being able to trust others, and good self-care. Without confidence, it’s easy to fall into depression, fear failure and avoid taking any risks. Tick, tick, tick!
I don’t need to trek across continents to prove I’m not anxious anymore. I just need not to be anxious anymore. Like the lady said, good for you, not for me. It’s a mantra to keep in your head when you start to judge other people, or try to compare yourself with them too much.
Running has not made me elegant. It’s just me, probably. I’m clumsier than most. My boyfriend eyes up any coffee cup I’m holding, waiting for me to spill it. I get angry that he assumes I will, and then I do.
Your mother probably had a similar saying, because mums always have well-worn mantras for sticky situations. Don’t disregard them, sometimes they are all we have to hold on to.
And eventually, I remembered that anxiety doesn’t work with set rules. Human beings are always looking for an explanation, a reason, a meaningful excuse. But sometimes there just isn’t one, and our brains really don’t like it. It’s uncomfortable to think that you can suddenly fall down a hole, and find yourself in a dark place again. But it’s true, and when you accept it, it doesn’t seem as scary as it initially might. It’s not a failing, or a mark that you won’t get better.
I’ve run in every country and city I’ve visited since I started. Not only did I see the world in a different way, but it helped me not to feel anxious or wary when leaving my comfort zone.
Sometimes running is entirely reliant on a stubborn refusal to stop. Long runs help you hone that skill.
The important thing is to give yourself time to love it
I eventually got bored, and sometimes boredom is the enemy of anxiety.
Be kind to yourself. Cherish every little goal, make sure you recognise what it is that you’re doing – you, a person who has a brain which has not always been your friend. Buy an ice cream after a run, have a glass of wine.
Life is tricky and gets diverted constantly, and we all stumble.
Safety nets are vital for people with anxiety, but nets can also hem you in.
Often, the runs I do are hard – but that’s OK too, I know that they still matter.
I don’t feel like I’ve said goodbye to mental-health problems – after all, the brain is like the body, sometimes things break, clog, slow down. But running is the thing I now know I can do to ward off the slew of symptoms that gripped me so tightly. It’s as mundane as putting air in the tyres, or servicing a boiler every so often.
As Alain de Botton once wrote: ‘The largest part of what we call “personality” is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness.
