Hi anyone who still checks in here. Sorry for the prolonged radio silence. I'll get to that in a bit. First of all I want to talk a little bit about a campaign that is running today. Many of you will have probably seen it through outlets like Facebook. I'm talking about the 'Time to Talk' Campaign. At the core of this campaign is the underlying need for society to talk more about mental health and to start to remove the stigma that surrounds it.
Many people might prefer not to talk about mental health issues, believing that they'll never have to deal with them, but the fact is 1 in 4 of us will have a mental health issue at some point in our lives. And just because you don't have mental health worries yourself it does not mean that you won't have one affect your life. Mental illness doesn't just affect the person with the condition. Most sufferers will have loved-ones close to them who will form the basis of their support, and become the foundation around which many sufferers build their lives. Yet as it stands a large proportion of the population is still fairly unaware of the truth of mental illness, and many out-dated (and at times harmful) stereotypes are often bandied around in place of helpful awareness. Hopefully you are now seeing why it is 'Time To Talk'.
The 'Time to Talk' Campaign simply asks for people to take 5 minutes today to talk about mental health. This post is my contribution, but if anyone wants someone to talk to about mental health, as always, I'm more than happy to talk about my experience. The more we share experiences and knowledge, the better prepared we, as a society, will be to help people struggling with mental ill health. I don't think I can possibly overstate the power of talking in dealing with mental health. Often people suffering with mental health conditions feel isolated. Often they develop poor views of themselves and their self-esteem suffers. Unsurprisingly this leads to many sufferers becoming withdrawn and actively isolating themselves, feeling like they have nowhere to go or no-one to talk to. But many sufferers will tell you, a friendly face popping round, an old friend giving a call, or even just a 'how's things?' text can make a world of difference to someone in the midst of a battle with their brain chemistry.
So, on to my 5 minutes.
For those of you who know my story skip the next couple of paragraphs for my update, those of you know to this feel free to read on. This time last year I appeared (at least to outside observers) to be in a great place with the world being my oyster. I was at Cambridge studying maths, I was well on top of my work. I was rowing with the university lightweight rowing club and I had a reasonable chance to get one of the seats in the boat to race Oxford. I was fitter than I'd ever been. This all changed on the 11th March when I was hit off my bike by a car. I injured my shoulder. I couldn't row. Writing became hard. Yet still I seemed to have come out of it amazingly well and no one had any reason to believe there was an underlying problem.
Yet barely two months later you would have found me at home (when I should have been at College revising). I was brought home by my parents when they realised how deep my depression had become and they were worried for my safety: what I might do to myself. This is what depression had done to me. To this day I'm still on medication to help keep it at bay, but that doesn't mean it hasn't shown up from time to time. Right now I'm on a year out as a result of under-performing in my exams last summer, but signs are good for me to return to study next year. In the mean time I've signed up to do Ride London and some other sporting events to raise money for Mind, the mental health charity. It probably doesn't surprise you that this is a cause close to my heart, but any help or support you can offer (there's a donation link on the right at the top) will be greatly appreciated.
MY UPDATE
So I've been away for a while, time for me to explain. I have been quite busy over the last few months and have been meaning to sit down at a PC when I got a chance to update this blog. So let me summarise what I have been up to.
Things I've done since my last blog post:
- Raced 10km cross-county
- Completed my first cycle sportive (all 120km of it, including my wrong turn...)
- Helped my college boat club by coaching on their training camp
- Started studying accountancy courses with the Open University
- Celebrated Christmas
- Turned 22
Things I haven't done since my last blog post:
- Much training (I could probably count the session with my fingers)
- Felt particularly great
So let me explain. I've struggled. My mental state hasn't been so great. Depression isn't an illness that can necessarily be solved with one course of medication or therapy. That's not to say that my state isn't better than it was last May. I'm in a much better place than I was then. But still, my condition has left me struggling for motivation and having to battle myself to get up and train. Now I might have taken part in more than my fair share of incredibly intensive training plans, but even then I had days where it felt like it took all my willpower to get into kit and go training. This is a feeling many of you can probably empathise with. My experience with depression is often like this, only rather than fighting myself to go training, my battleground is much more day-to-day. I find myself needing all my willpower to get out of bed, and the idea of showering seems more akin to trying to climb Everest than a standard minor feature of my day.
Now I think I should clarify, of late I (thankfully) haven't been quite as bad I have described above. I have however really really struggled to do much more than get by day to day. Typically I would find myself in front of the TV or buried in the A Song of Ice and Fire books (much better than the TV series IMHO) and I did a lot of comfort eating. A LOT. This is a surprisingly poorly known symptom of depression: overeating. This hasn't helped me in any way. Thinking back to this time last year I had pretty much the lowest body fat I could be healthy with, I was able to consider doing a 'casual' half-marathon with no planning should the feeling take me. Now I am 'Overweight' for the first time in my life, and running 8km (~1/3 of a half marathon) two days ago wiped me out. It's safe to say of late I've gone backwards a fair bit. But that is the way of depression.
What a lot of people will struggle to understand until they have suffered at the hands of depression is the internal battle that so many of us go through. I don't let myself get 'lazy' and out of shape willfully. Those who know me well will tell you I'm not often one to sit around much, and I am very proactive. What depression does is steal that away from me. My inner voice (me in my head) still tells me that I should be training, I shouldn't have that ice cream, I should go get an apple. The problem is that depression hi-jacks that side of me, it makes me question the point. It tells me not to bother because what difference will it make. This is the start of the slippery slope. As I start to slip into this period of inactivity I start to see my fitness and health get worse. My inner voice still tells me to get up and do something. But I don't because depression weighs down on me pinning me in to lethargy. So my inner voice (ie me) starts to shame me, telling me I'm lazy and pathetic and why am I not doing anything. My identity wrestles with my reality, I'm not lazy, that's not me, I'm just being pathetic. At least that's what my head says. Next thing I know I'm lost and confused. I keep hearing these negative thoughts, but I can't tell which ones are really me and which are the voice of my depression. This is what makes depression so crippling. It tears down my identity and leaves me with so many negative thoughts that I can't decipher from my reality. On my worst days in May I turned to alcohol and self-harm to quiet the maelstrom of negative thoughts in my head. These aren't the best ways of coping, but on the days where I really couldn't cope they kept me going. And at times that is what battling depression becomes, simply the battle to keep going. And boy is it tiring.
This is what depression does, it tears you apart from the inside, all the meanwhile leaving you looking normal from the outside. Keeping up this facade takes so much effort that you are left exhausted simply by existing. It breaks you down, and leaves you with nothing of 'you'. And it sure as hell is a lot harder to build an identity back up than it is to break one down. It's why it can become easier to slip back into depression than to climb back out. And so that is why I've been so quiet, because my depression has been snapping at my heels and I've been using my energy to break free.
On the positive side I've started to make a change. I'm slowly working my way back in to training. It's going to be a long slow slog uphill. But I've done it before and I'm determined to do it again. I've also started to diet, the 5:2 diet to be specific. I'll probably keep updates on here about how it goes. Hopefully with all my free time I'll be able to write some posts that are less narrative. I hope to write about my historic experience. I'd also like to write about some of the ways I visualise and deal with my depression. So you have been warned, watch this space.
I'd also like to take a moment to thank everyone that has supported me so far. Be it with donations or through getting in touch. It's really been quite humbling to have so many people reach out to offer their support and share their experiences. I wish I could have known all the friends and family that have been through similar experiences. One of the most powerful pieces of knowledge on my worst days was that I wasn't alone in my suffering. And no one should have to be, its going to take a huge cultural change, but it is past time we open up about mental health. I commend anyone who has the bravery to do so. Only by making it acceptable not to be okay can we help those who are struggling. It's Time to Talk.
Until next time (hopefully not too far away)
Jon
