My day of non-doing

Over a year ago, a friend of a friend recommended a book to me. It's a large book, which I have been dipping in and out of for the past 9 months, called Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zin. In it, the idea of non-doing, which is found in more than one eastern culture, is promoted as a healthy way to prevent stress build up and help us manage the 'full catastrophe' of modern life.

image: http://myunblock.com/

We live extremely busy lives. Everything has to be instant, our brains are always switched on. We're checking emails, waiting for that text from so-and-so to confirm plans for the weekend, wondering what to have for dinner, watching TV, solving problems...It's no wonder more and more of us are finding it hard to switch off.

Depression makes this worse. I spent most of August 2014 trying to work myself into oblivion, because work was the one thing that stopped me thinking. Thinking was destroying me. Every time I had chance to relax, my brain would start telling me, within minutes, that I'm worthless, that no-one liked me and how could they, when I was such a terrible person? I didn't try hard enough, I wasn't kind enough, what's wrong with me? So I worked, and worked to distract myself. And you can guess how healthy that was.

Non-doing

So, finding myself unexpectedly with nothing to do yesterday, I decided to follow some of Prof. Kabat-Zin's advice and consciously do nothing. I don't mean by this that I sat on the sofa watching TV and eating ice cream, nor do I mean I looked at a wall for 6 hours. Rather, I took the time to really pay attention to my body, my thoughts, my actions.

image: http://www.totallypresent.com/

I had a cup of green tea and took the time to taste every mouthful, feel the warmth of the liquid and the tannins, smell the lemon. I paid attention to the feel of the carpet on my feet as I walked about. I meditated, spending time noticing the areas of tension in my muscles and allowing myself to relax. I did a spot of yoga, again focusing on how each stretch and twist felt. And I slept when my brain told me it needed sleep.

What was the point of all this? It slowed my mind down. I am, by nature, an over-thinker with a very active brain. Gently guiding my thoughts into the present moment and curbing the impulse to distract myself was hugely liberating. I did very little all day, and had a really, really, good day. I felt nurtured, restored. I realised how important it is to make that time to switch off from screens and demands and impulses, and just be.

The next challenge is remembering how good it is, and making time for it more often...

Well this is it, then

In two days I fly to Cusco. Well, Madrid, then Lima, then Cusco to be precise.

I am excited!!!

This will be my last post before I fly, unless something absurdly funny or weird happens in the meantime. Not ruling it out...

Several people have asked me if I plan to update while I'm away. The short answer is no. Aside from the Andes being completely signal free (bliss!), I am far too lazy to try and write blogs on my phone. I will, however, update when I'm back and have lots of fabulous pictures to share. At least I hope I will - currently the forecast for Cusco is predicting thunder storms.

At the time of writing, I have raised £1850. I am over the moon about this. Huge thanks to everyone who donated, or ate cake, or drank wine, or did all of the above for the cause.

Courtesy of @DoWhatITellYou

The codpiece mask is taking a break for the time being (although I'm happy to whip it out on request at parties) and I am looking forward to meeting my fellow trekkers at Heathrow and getting started. The ice cream thing didn't quite work out in the end - I was seduced by a tub of B&J's cookie dough (not literally, that would be horrendous) and caved on Saturday morning. It was delicious.

I will say hi to Paddington for you all and am under instructions from my big brother to bring him back a llama. He even said he'd pay for its flight if I could pass it off as a human. Dave, Amanda: I think we can do this.

Happy September everyone - I shall update on my return :)

Things I have learned from depression (part II)

A few months back, I wrote down some things I learned from having depression. Having gotten a little further, I think it's time to add to that list.

1. The work never stops. It's so easy to fall back into the mindset that everything is your fault, so it's important to take a moment to put things back into perspective.

The last week I've found myself slipping a little, getting stressed and not being able to catch myself and analyse my responses before I react. I've felt a bit of a mess. Luckily, my therapy has taught me to recognise when to take time out, so today I let myself off the hook: laid in, read, watched TV, let my mind rest. And I woke up after an afternoon nap to the realisation that I'm proud of what I have done this year. Against the odds, I got a new job; I'm still fighting, practising meditation, trying to keep perspective; I stood up for myself; I am standing up for others with mental health problems. I am a depressive and I am not beaten.

2. There is no such thing as normal. Each one of us experiences a different reality, and that reality is our own. Nothing else matters until we have achieved balance within that reality, and can respect that of others.

3. I am not my illness. My illness does not define me. It makes things difficult, it gets me down sometimes, but I am many other things that my illness cannot touch.

4. There are some things that therapy will never solve. And that's OK.

There are certain things that I feel about myself, certain ways I perceive myself that therapy cannot heal. I can't solve the problem, but I can create an experience that contradicts what has gone before.

5. The more I talk about my world, the more the stigma on mental health issues recedes.

Starting a blog was a scary step: there are people that I have never met who have read these words. But my choice to be publicly open about my experience can only help to break the silence around mental health problems. Only true understanding and empathy can ultimately vanquish fear and engender acceptance.

The little white pill on the counter top

There is a small white pill on the kitchen counter. So far I have managed to cut it in half, and I am looking at the two pieces. Two tiny 25 milligram pieces of SSRI. Taking it should be easy; it is going to help me get better.

We are, after all, a generation of self-medicators. We pop painkillers, contraceptives, allergy tablets as casually as we have a conversation. When we get sick, we Google our symptoms and can prescribe ourselves something before we've even seen the GP. Easy.

I cannot take this tablet. I'm so scared. As I stand staring at it, my head floods with everything that swallowing this tablet means, and could mean. It means I really am ill; it means a long uphill climb just to become normal; it means that I am about to become dependent on a drug. What if I can't come off it? What if, after 6 months, 50mg isn't enough? What if it doesn't work? What if I get awful side effects?

If there is one night I need someone to hold my hand, it's tonight. There is no-one. I sink to the kitchen floor and cry.

Half an hour later and I get to my feet, pick up the tablet. I think of my friend Jen. I think of what she would say. She'd tell me I'm brave, so that is what I tell myself, slightly shaky, tablet in palm. You are so brave, you are so brave, you are so brave... Seven times I repeat this before I can tip the tablet into my mouth and chase it with water. It's done. I collapse on the couch and begin crying all over again.

***

It is almost ten months later, and it turns out taking that first pill was a good idea after all. SSRIs don't work for everyone - they're not even necessarily recommended by GPs - but they gave me the stability to make that uphill climb and to get my head around a healthier way of looking at things.

Last week I began to come off my meds. It's a long process - I basically have to trick my body into not noticing I'm withdrawing so that I can minimise the symptoms - but I can live with that. I'm coming off the meds. It's another of my little victories.

My final twenty-something

I am officially 3 months out! Aaaand I still feel completely untrained. That said, I did run (which I haven't done since this time last year) for the best part of 12 mins last week. No laughing, this is a Good Thing for me.

I like to think I could rock the suit.
Also, girl guns are hot.

My latest cake sale raised £78 - yay!! - and I have been doing further baking this week, but not for fundraising purposes. It's my birthday tomorrow! I have been frantically baking cake for colleagues at TWO businesses. Kind of feel like Superwoman right now, which I think is pretty good going given the situation a year ago.

Growing up?

I'm looking forward to turning 29. This year has been bumpy, but it's also given me some valuable lessons, the kind of lessons I don't think I would otherwise have learned. I'm looking forward to this new chapter as someone I'm comfortable being, someone who isn't consumed by feelings of inadequacy.

For a long time I've battled with an inner emptiness that seemed impossible to fill. This aching sense of being the supporting actress in my own life as I watched it slip away. I wanted to feel 'normal', to have that magic life ingredient that everyone else seemed to have. My solution was to work, to achieve. I have always needed more - more qualifications, more skills, more studies. I have compulsively been good at everything, because in my mind there was no other option.

Yet still that wide open space remained inside me. Because it took a trip to the bottom to realise that the answer was not to better, but simply to accept myself. To be able to look at my life and understand that yes, there are things about me that are different from other people and I've ended up somewhere different from where I'd hoped. But I am not a failure. I am not a disappointment, and I am not running out of time.

So I'm raising a glass to my final year in my twenties. I'm celebrating with the people I care about, and I'm determined to appreciate my own peculiar version of normal. My life holds promise, where a year ago it only held frustration and claustrophobia. To everyone who has been a part of my journey over the past year, thank you, and I hope you will continue to play a part this year.

Also, if anyone could spare a moment to kick my ass over training to make sure I do it (instead of keep eating all this cake) that would be much appreciated!

Here's to 29!

Superwoman pic: comicbookmovie.com
Champagne pic: polyvore.com

Cake Bonanza Round III

Today I took cake and other baked goodness to work for the Mind cause. Behold the feast of deliciousness:

Incorporating double choc chip cupcakes and shortbread...

...Charmain's blueberry and oat muffins...

...Lemon & poppyseed cupcakes and Charmain's banana, bran and pecan muffins...

...and cheese scones (foreground) and coconut biscuits.

East Grinstead was a very happy place today!

The Great Wine Tasting

Last Saturday was the evening of the Great Wine Tasting, during which I schooled my parents and a handful of their excellent friends in tasting wine like a boss, and somewhat surprised myself at the amount of information I was able to fish out of the dark recesses of my memory.

The evening was a great success - we explored the differences between old world & new world Sauvignons, Chardonnays from different climates and Pinot Noir vs Malbec. We sniffed, we tasted, we food matched (and if anyone can give me the Latin for that I will buy them a drink). We ate grapes and chewed stalks (one or two over enthusiastic tasters also swallowed said stalks) and finished with a blind tasting, by which time everyone present was a pro at tasting and managed to identify at least a couple of flavours in the wine.

Although spittoons were offered, they were roundly rejected and I'm told there was more than one aching head the following morning. Parents, eh?

At this point, I would like to say a very large, very warm and very fuzzy THANK YOU to Carrie & Keith Devonshire, who couldn't make the wine tasting in the end, but kindly donated £150 to the cause. This donation alone is enough to fund a local support group, enabling people with mental health difficulties to get their confidence and self esteem back. And believe you me, that's money very well spent.

In prep for high altitude

The very same day of the tasting, I obtained a training mask that simulates high altitude. This, when twinned with the aforementioned waterproof trousers, makes me so irresistible to the opposite sex that I've been banned by the authorities from wearing the two together. Behold:

My experience so far, aside from confirmation that it's really hard to breathe at high altitude, is that Darth Vader must've had it pretty rough, always having the noise of his own respiration in his ears. Seriously. I'm at the sitting-still-and-practising-breathing stage and I keep wondering why there's a Sith lord in everything I'm watching on TV.

Step two of my training has begun, with a program that requires me to make a concerted effort to be physically active on a more regular basis. The effort is largely home based, but I am also being good and parking a 10 minute walk away from my new office to build in a little daily walking. I'm hoping that at some point this year the weather might decide to, I don't know, warm up a little, and perhaps treat us to some sunshine and an absence of 70mph winds so that I can do a 1-2 hour ramble along the coast.

Donation total

Thanks to some ace baking by my mother and her buddy Mrs Ashley, I got a further £50 hit into the Just Giving account this week. Poppa C also managed to get some extra weight added to my Mind collection tin through selling cake and persuading people to give up their hard earned cash for a good cause. To my relief, I have not received any complaints about his methods of persuasion, which I'm assuming were above board.

So once again a big ol' happy thank you to those who have helped me reach an amazing £664 (+ what's in the tin). I'm genuinely bowled over by the support I'm receiving.

A preparatory butt massage

Him: "This is going to sound weird, but I think a bare butt massage would really help you out."
Me: "..."

Ladies and gentlemen, my personal trainer, a man who I find completely fabulous, if in possession of some of the strangest ideas I've ever heard in my life. But (no pun intended) since I'm dedicating the next six months of my life to fundraising and training for a hardcore trek across the Andes then to hell with it, why the devil not? I shall be booking a session with the sports massage lady on my next trip to the chiropractor's.

Is this a typical part of preparatory training? I hear you gasp. No. No it is not. Except for people like me, who manage to mess up their lower back and need to get it sorted before the real training begins. Which means a corrective programme to start with, and the aforementioned bare butt massage. I really know how to get my timing right.


I have now told most people about the trek, except my boss, who will be slightly trickier because I have booked it for the two weeks before our magazine's print deadline. If I set up in a way that makes him think I'm going to resign, he won't mind the holiday timing...right? We'll see.

I told my martial arts buddies this morning. The laughed and asked if I was fitting it in around my pilot training, helicopter licence, SCUBA qualification and Japanese lessons. Funny, guys. But with a pertinent point: part of the reason for my ending up with depression is that I have a tendency to push myself too hard, expect the world from myself and beat myself up if I don't deliver. My therapist uses the word 'harsh' without a second thought when we talk about how I treat myself. Or used to. Part of my rehab (yes, I'm running with 'rehab', it makes me sound like a tortured artist) is remembering to be kind to myself, to take breaks and to have a lie in every now and again. And I'm not about to lose sight of how important that is: depression is beyond rubbish in every way, and I'm the kind of person who is coming out of it determined to reduce my chances of being crippled by it again. Things are never certain of course, but it turns out going easy on yourself is kind of fun. I think I'll keep it.

My sincerest thanks to the eager beavers who have been super quick off the mark and donated to the cause already, I know you are among the people who best understand what this means to me. The fundraising begins in earnest as soon as that delivery of self raising flour, butter and icing sugar arrives!

In the beginning

Let's start at the beginning.

Five months ago I was diagnosed with depression.

If I'm honest, I should've had myself diagnosed a year ago, but the thing about my depression was that it came on so gradually that I didn't notice there was anything wrong - or at least, was able to more or less ignore what was wrong - until it crippled me.

I'm very conscious that a lot of people still don't think depression is a 'proper' condition. They wonder why sufferers can't simply pull themselves out of their low mood and get frustrated with their inability to cope with everyday life. The truth is that once you've reached that crashing low, there's no coming up without professional support, and even then many sufferers struggle simply to function.

My first experience of depression was when I was 21. I was halfway through my Masters degree when I contracted glandular fever. The physical effects of the illness were frustrating enough but the mental impact was something else entirely. I'd find myself crying for no reason that I could think of, feeling negative and lacking confidence both in my abilities and my self image. When I went to the GP for help, she made me feel like I was wasting her time. She insinuated that because I wasn't suicidal, it wasn't important enough to be worth her trouble. That's partly why it took me so long to get help this time around.

Depression manifests itself in many different ways, and in retrospect it seems obvious to me that something was wrong a long time before I was diagnosed. I was increasingly irritable, intolerant of others' behaviour, felt guilty and ashamed of myself almost constantly, punished myself for tiny things. As the months went by, I felt sadder and sadder, lost my sense of agency and had all but forgotten what it was to have a feeling of self worth and self esteem.

By June, my thoughts were persistently negative and I cried. All the time. I wasn't sleeping well, and found myself totally exhausted by keeping up the pretense at work that everything was OK. I would finish at five, get to my car and start sobbing as soon as I was halfway up the drive. If I managed to hold out until I got home, I would often find the thought of having to feed myself - an activity most of us never think twice about - completely overwhelming, and cry because I didn't know what to eat. More than once I went to bed hungry.

I realised I needed medication on the weekend that I went to help my parents decorate their new cottage in Devon. I hadn't slept all night and when my dad greeted me in the morning, I just burst into tears (again). I had been keeping my condition from my parents because I knew I'd feel guilty for making them worry about me, but that morning I couldn't hide it anymore. I was a complete mess.

Over the course of the weekend, my mum gently persuaded me that medication was likely to help, so I duly went to the GP. The experience couldn't have been more different. He was concerned and sensitive and reassuring - and didn't bat an eyelid when I struggled to talk about my mental state without crying all over again.

From that point, I'm relieved to say things have improved. It's not been easy, I've taken more than a few steps backwards on my road to recovery, but I have been working hard to get myself into a better place. Thanks to the incredible support of my friends, family, coaches and colleagues, I'm in a place where I can talk about my experience of depression without fear or shame.

It is the events of the past year that prompted me to sign up for the Machu Picchu trek with Ultimate Challenges. It's something I've wanted to do since I was a teenager, and finally I'm ready - both mentally and financially - to take on the challenge. The money I raise will go to Mind, who do an excellent job of supporting people with mental health difficulties and their families. It's thanks to charities like Mind that depression and other mental illnesses are now making it into the public consciousness, and that people are realising that having a mental condition doesn't make you 'crazy' or 'weird'; it's simply that whether short or long term, your brain functions a bit differently to other people's.

What follows is my journey to Machu Picchu, which starts, inevitably, with seven months of fundraising and training.