Having sailed through my teens and early 20s without any major mental health issues (the usual exam stress and puberty body image hang-ups and heartbreaks aside), I was knocked sideways after a car crash aged 26. Whilst my physical injuries healed over 18 months of treatment, my newly acquired anxiety, crushing exhaustion, insomnia, panic attacks and low-level constant fear didn’t want to budge. I got some amazing CBT help, and meds, and slowly I learnt enough coping strategies to get back to ‘normal’. That said, it was definitely something I had to work at and ‘manage’, to stay ing in my life and career (I was a magazine editor in London at the time).
Fast-forward 3 years and my Dad’s sudden death, followed by my mum’s terminal cancer diagnosis and I was back at square one. There was no ‘coping’. This time round I didn’t want to go down the meds route to manage my overwhelming grief and anxiety, I didn’t want to mute it, I wanted to face it head on. So, on a whim I downloaded a ‘Couch to 5k’ app and bought some cheap trainers, grabbed one of my hubby’s t shirts and started running. Forrest Gump style.
I always ran by myself, not confident enough in my body or my ability to seek other ‘real runners’. I would plug in my loudest, happiest music and head out… some runs I’d pound the tarmac hard, channelling my anger into every stride. Others I would end a lung-bursting sprint and scream into the wind and rain at the sheer horror of the grief I felt. It was cathartic and exactly what I needed.
When I got pregnant again I worried I wouldn’t be able to turn to running to manage my anxiety, and then my mum died of the terminal cancer she had been fighting, and before I noticed a year past by without my tying my trainers once. I was too plain exhausted.
18 months on, and as per my post last week on grief, I felt like I’d been spat out the other side and something clicked. I wanted to run. But with over a year off the track, I was pretty much back to square one.
Rather than panic about it, I just started again slowly and within 3 months I was back to comfortably clocking up 5k, 2-3 times a week. It was time alone, away from being a mummy, wife and grieving daughter. It gave me that kick of endorphins that runners rave about, it melted away the baby weight and gave me something that was ‘just mine’. Soon I began chasing bigger highs and the next challenge. The 10k. So I decided to join a running club. With real runners. EEK.
To Be Continued…