Smoke and mirrors

"Smoke and mirrors" is a metaphor that a friend recently used to describe my blog. She meant it in a non-malicious sense, meaning that when I write on here I use a more positive spin than necessarily is present in real life. And she was right. But in all honesty, I am someone who struggles to wear their heart on their sleeve in the public eye. 

I have depression, and anyone who has suffered from genuine depression (as opposed to just feeling down) knows that it can take you to some very dark lonely places. Depression is basically pathological sadness. Sometimes there is a cause, sometimes there isn't. Sometimes it's there just because. The black dog is a useful metaphor for depression, and if you haven't seen the video on it, the link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiCrniLQGYc It's well worth a look.

Black dogs are getting a bad press!

I was about 4 or 5 when I was first diagnosed as depressed. For me, I have an organic depression which basically means my brain doesn't have the right serotonin receptors, so I will probably always be on medication. When life throws curve balls at me I develop a more reactive component to it, which is what most people would call "depression". But I have lived with this for most of my life, so I've learnt to manage it. Alongside the depression I have a co-morbidity of anorexia, and this is the thing I struggle with most of all. Anorexia is like a spider; it lures you into its web by sticking you down bit by bit, ever so carefully and methodically, and when you're stuck it pulls you in and devours you. It is both sanctuary and torturous, and while I thought I had shaken free of its tangled web for several years, part of me was still snared and when I was vulnerable it started to pull me back in again, piece by piece.

Running and anorexia may be able to coexist, but marathon training and anorexia cannot. At the end of last year my intake was 500 calories a day, and at first it wasn't an issue and didn't affect my performance, but bit by bit I began to get more dizzy and weak, and started fainting during sessions. When I began my 16 week training plan in January I was too weak to run just 2km, and it was then that I realised that to live my marathon dream I had to increase my intake. With the support of Larry and TT I increased to 800 calories a day, and hard though it was I began to have more energy to run and started to make progress again. I was told that while I will happily have an apple as breakfast and/or lunch, if I want to keep doing PT sessions I need to eat a "proper" breakfast, along the lines of porridge. And it is this pre-fuelling that has proven the hardest part of my training. If I don't eat, I get very dizzy and/or pass out. If I do eat, I get the emotional implications of having eaten more such as guilt, but then I can run better, faster, further. It's exhausting. I feel alone such a lot of the time, even when in company, but equally I withdraw from society and only show people what they want to see.  

For me, running sets my mind free. With all the inner arguments about eating, all the guilt and worry about the next meal, plus the always-present black fog, I can turn all that off when I run. Running silences all of that and gives me peace for a little while. Sometimes that doesn't work, and my attempts to cheat myself at pre-fuelling catch up with me, resulting in me sitting on a bench in the park sobbing because yet again I let anorexia win and mess up my long run. 

So why am I writing about all this? I have recently faced some of the ignorance and stigma that Mind works hard to stamp out. The unknown causes a great deal of fear to many people, we are often frightened by what we don't understand, that's human. But I am an honest and open person, and if people come to me and ask me how things really are for me, I will do my best to talk to them about it. I cannot abide Chinese whispers, it hurts me when people question my truth and more so when they question my ability to parent my children because of my illness. 

So in April I will run the London Marathon, and I will wear my Mind vest with pride. The marathon isn't just the 26.2 miles I will run on April 26th, it began way back in January with every meal, every day I didn't want to get up out of bed, every day I went out training when I was exhausted and hungry. I am lucky that I have the ability to take a stand and represent people who are in a much worse state than me. But for now I will fly the flag, for myself, for my supporters and for Mind.