Falling Apart — Knee To Head — PTSD, ADHD & Me.
Here I am, staring at a bright blank screen. I’ve finally finished all the hidden procrastinating tasks I decided I needed to do before writing, and so I sit here, staring aimlessy at this blankness, necking my coffee and searching for music to “focus”.. as yet another — distraction.
Today is my writing day. I’ve said for the last 6 weeks. Despite my initial overdrive of enthusiasm (the kind that consumes your whole being with a gentle euphoria and urge like no other), the idea slips through the gaping hole in my mind, and I get consumed by the other stuff, leaving me with a subtle lingering of frustration that I’ve not had that time, yet.
Something that puts me off beginning these things, is that whilst intensely satisfying and often revelatory — I know it will consume me whole until it’s done. As many things do. As many things always have done.
There is an incredible amount of fear, resistance and overall sense of being completely naked in the streets with just your socks on, about writing any of this. But writing for me feels like my way to make sense of my experiences and the world — and for me to let go of needing to be or prove something, I am great at being British.
So whilst I really would hate to be in the centre of town completely naked with just my socks on (please turn off your imagination), I guess metaphorically speaking — this is what I’m going to do.
Before I go on, I’d like to express a few things clearly.
This isn’t a cry for help. Nor is it a yearning for advice. Nor are these words for you to worry about. It’s just a mere expression of my human experience.
If you feel a deep need to fix and help people, perhaps because the discomfort someone else experiences creates an intense discomfort in you, perhaps this isn’t for you to read. I’m not writing to seek help. In fact, the last thing I need is positive life coaching — as I will discuss further.
And finally — I have, and am currently, working with both a professional psychiatrist and psychotherapist, alongside having very close and emotionally attuned friends to speak with whenever the need is there. So here is me managing your emotions, but I’d like to set the tone for you to read this in a state of calm, not a state of worry, concern or thinking.
It feels important to me, for us humans, to be able to talk about things we experience without the constant fretting of what we should or shouldn’t, can or can’t, you know, the stuff. But to just be as raw with our words as our experience is. And mostly, if me 8 years ago could’ve read something like this, it might have saved me a whole lot of suffering. Maybe. Depends on how many tangents I go on.
I will do my utmost best to keep my words raw and unadulterated, depsite my discomfort.
So — here’s to being naked with socks on.
8 weeks ago I was in the middle of tapering to run a 70 mile ultramarathon in the rather lumpy, bumpy and storm ridden Lake District. Prior to this, I had spent every early morning during the week and every single weekend entirely 100% immersed in running. A total of 15 hours training a week (including strength work), being entirely focussed within on recovery, self-care, learning, sitting with discomfort and reading copious amounts.
Running in the mountains gave me the sense of lightness, joy and freedom like no other — the weight of responsibilities, pressure, life eased off my back, and no other purpose but to fly down hills dancing over and around jagged rocks. The sense of flow, ease, the — life just doesn’t feel hard sort of experience. Coupled with the energy and connection you get from spending hours and hours in nature, watching the sunrise, the sunset and having endless moments of silence.
As a result of having this extreme sense of purpose and passion in my life, I felt incredibly light as a person. Grounded and content. The other minute stresses of existence grabbed me occasionally, but my time in the mountains of utter decompression seemed to balance it out.
With the purpose and time urgency of training for an event, I was stringent about my stress management; no late nights, no alcohol, sticking strongly to my meditation practice and just a general sense of looking after oneself.
The experience of hyperfixating on something meaningful — that extrapolated directly into my experience of life, my work and my perception of the world, made the things that weren’t okay, okay. The severely distressing, just a little stressing.
If I was to describe myself right now, or the last 7 weeks — I don’t think I’d use the word light. And by ‘don’t think’, I mean — I definitely wouldn’t.
It feels like I’ve sort of collapsed.
Whether it’s just doing what the human mind does of drawing stories together to create meaning, or reality — it feels like the universe has conspired for everything that grounds me to crumble, so that I have to face my shit.
Or more abruptly, I feel like I’ve been shat on by the universe. In an unruly egocentric manner.
If someone would’ve told me, 3 months ago, that I’d have a severe knee injury that would mean I have no idea when I can run again and haven’t ran for 6 weeks — I’d be distraught. If you could grasp from the above, I quite enjoy running and it appears to be something that is rather purposeful to me.
However, it seems to be on the smaller end of problems for me. In fact, whilst I would greatly appreciate being able to run, hike, you know — the stuff that’s great, the lack of running has exposed a giant gaping broken wound.
Me.
I heard an analogy 4 years ago on some podcast, I can’t remember the context at all, but it was about putting honey on a dead rat. I don’t know why, but it resonated. I never thought much of it, other than it was a bit peculiar, who puts honey on dead rats?
But, it resonates also now. To an extreme degree.
Honey is sweet, tasty, thick and shiny. It creates a valiant shine. (I just had to google the definition of Valiant as I had no idea where my brain got it from).
I’m not sure you’d say the same about dead rats.
But add the two together, you get a mixture. From above, you have that wonderful valiant (there it is again) shine radiating into the eminent sky, but remove the honey that you artificially placed on the dead rat, and you just have a dead rat.
A truthful existence, raw beyond reason. A dead rat, that is now just sticky, no longer being appreciated for it’s shine.
5 weeks ago I was told I couldn’t run. I felt frustrated. Obviously. Disheartened. Bothered. Angry. Annoyed. Fuck sake. I was beginning to see, quite clearly, how running, hiking, the outdoors is a huge part of my life. Obviously, again.
But it’s a huge part of my emotional life. It’s a huge outlet for all this build up of angst, anger, sadness and frustration I have, and have always had. At myself, and occasionally — others. But something I didn’t realise I carried with me so much, until the pipe for which all that was released, got cut off (aka, can’t run).
It doesn’t just bring joy, purpose, meaning and the lightness of child-like fun — it’s also a direct outlet for me to be grounded, to release, express and let go of pent up shit. The alone time I got from it was immense. On the weekends I’d spend 2–3 hours driving somewhere to run, let alone the 4–6 hours I’d actually spend running. There was a lot of time processing and mostly, there was time to just exist; without needing to compartmentalise myself, my feelings and my emotions — I could finally, just be.
Well, my main emotional outlet and purpose swift-fully taken from my hands.. ok, it’s fine. It’s fine. This is absolutely fine. Fine. Everything IS FINE.
I’ve always been resilient. In fact, I’ve always been commended by everyone around me for being so resilient. So determined, focused, mature and disciplined. But mainly — incredibly, incredibly resilient. What a resilient young lady! All well appreciated traits of a supreme Western Warrior.
Resilience serves us until it doesn’t. Until we, or something in us, decides it no longer wants to fight anymore. It no longer wants to live in survival anymore. It no longer wants to be the adult it’s been trying to be. It just wants to rest. Just, wants, to, rest. Don’t get me wrong, resilience is an important part of being an adaptable and expansive adult, but it absolutely can be taken to an extreme, like everything.
What I became supremely aware of in the last 7 weeks, is just how incredibly stressed I am, all of the time. How the most smallest of tasks to the demands of adulting, seem incomprehensibly difficult and overwhelming. And how unless I am entirely physically exhausted and or entirely fixated on a project/interest, I am immensely flooded and consumed by feelings and emotions so intense, I’ve always distracted myself from the terror.
And I don’t use the word terror lightly.
From my conscious awareness, I have always been like this. My memories of being a younger child, despite having very little, all include me feeling utterly overwhelmed, isolated, alone and scared, as well as being entirely immersed and obsessed with hobbies; football, playing the guitar (although I was awful), gaming, video making, scootering, endless list. I preferred being on my own and found intense safety in my own little bubble of being consumed by a project or hobby.
Despite the obvious hardship of moving & subsequently moving secondary school 4 times, I found school and sixth form incredibly hard. For some reason, I just didn’t have the memory like everyone else. I could barely retain anything discussed in class. I just thought I was stupid and not trying hard enough, so I punished myself with exerting more effort. For some reason people found me quite funny. So I did ok socially, despite feeling entirely alone and isolated on the inside, surrounded by insurmountable feelings of overwhelm and helplessness.
I always knew and felt like I was born into the wrong world. Like this world, this place, just wasn’t designed for me. Although I could never articulate or connect why. I would watch other kids playing, and be jealous of how present they were, how happy they seemed — I just found everything overwhelming and distressing and became acutely aware of this sensitivity I experienced. My attempts at articulating this to the adults around me, lead to more alienation and inner self-violence, with a strong deep rooted feeling of never, ever, ever talking about my feelings ever again.
My inner world was certainly not convergent, I thought very wildly and laterally, I had an imagination that was as exciting as it was terrorising, my brain went 10 million miles an hour, I either found things extremely boring or incredibly satisfying and I could pay absolutely 0 attention to detail.
Then from the age of 14, this experience of existence got turned up by about 500% after a rather significant life event, which propelled every other possible ‘significant’ life event to occur, which lead to a complete crumbling of one’s world, sense of self, trust, love and safety.
My memories are mostly vacant of the ages 14–18, despite not even being less than 10 years ago, but I became terrorised and confused by my intense feelings of fear and a complete lack of both physical and mental safety.
School became a dreaded experience. I was entirely zoned out in every lesson, unable to retain any information. When I wasn’t zoned out, I was flooded by panic, that soon progressed into panic attacks, that would cause me to sweat profusely, make the world go silent yet spinny and grab hold of the desk so tightly, I have no idea how nobody ever noticed. I would equally dread going home, because home wasn’t safe, and wasn’t home anyway. But at least I could go to bed soon and cry.
I’d spend my evenings trying so hard to study and look over my notes, terrified of being caught that I hadn’t managed to pay any attention. But the second I’d sit down to do so I couldn’t focus one bit. I felt I was in a constant state of panic and overwhelm, and there wasn’t one moment’s break from it. And it was just compounded by the belief that was being set into my being that there was something wrong with me but I couldn’t let anyone find out or else I’d be even more alienated. I had to mask it. I had to cover it up.
The fear of fear emerged. Everyday progresses to further hypervigilance and terror of your own mind.
I firmly decided at the age of 15 that I just wanted to be a digger driver. That seemed like the easiest option; no expectation, pressure, people or overwhelm.
At 15, I’d also just entirely lost my periods, they’d just stopped, and continued to stop for the next 4 years. Which the doctor’s never seemed to investigate further than “just take the pill”. One of the biggest signs of something absolutely not right — changes to the menstrual cycle. From 15–19, my hormone levels resembled that of a menopausal woman.
At the age of 16, I firmly decided that I was no longer going to be so pathetic. I decided I had to take control of my feelings and my life. I had to stop wanting things to be different, I had to stop being a ‘victim’ — like all these self-help books were telling me. I was just wanting attention anyway apparently, which is weird, given the thing I could never do and never did was ask for help or was able to exlcaim my distress. I should just stop living in the past, stop being so dramatic and stop making everyone else’s life more difficult. If I wanted my life to be different, then I had to do it.
So I decided — that was it. I’m never going to cry, ever, ever again. I’m never going to feel sad ever again, that was for victims. I can’t be one of them. Whenever these intense feelings of panic and fear arise, I’m just going to completely ignore them. I’m going to put my whole self into working so hard. I’m going to achieve. I’m going to become independent. I’m going to prove that I can do it. That I’m not all of those things. I’m going to join the gym and I’m going to get really fit and become one giant slab of hard, resilient muscle. I’m going to work so hard I entirely exhaust myself. I’m going to become the most resilient.
And so I did.
I entirely shut off my emotions. I pushed them so far down they ceased to entirely exist. I ignored all this panic and anxiety. I learnt to distract myself through the cover up of working hard. I read self-help books. I still couldn’t retain anything in lessons because I would just zone out no matter how hard I tried. I woke up at 5am, to revise. Feeling tired was good. I’d go to school/sixth form, I’d still experience all the same overwhelm, panic and all else, but had subconsciously learnt this fancy trick of dissociating, so I just became a numb working machine. I’d eat a tiny salad for lunch, whilst also revising, because socialising was for the undisciplined. Then I’d go to the gym at 4pm, feeling faint from my lack of eating, I’d work so hard I’d be on the verge of collapsing. Then I’d get dropped home by a friend, or ride my very dangerous moped home. I’d make some dinner, that consisted of chicken and rice, then I’d revise until midnight, throw myself into bed and watch TV until my absolutely exhausted brain would shut down and I’d sink into sleep for another 4–5 hours before my alarm would wake me up. I learnt that severe exhaustion was the way. And anyway — hard work is commended, respected. People love you if you work hard.
I did this from the ages of 15–18. For 3 years straight. Sleep deprivation isn’t great, nor is trauma and chronic stress. But severe and chronic sleep deprivation in the vital ages of 15–18.. well. I hope my brain is okay when I’m 60.
I was absolutely exhausted. I was a literal, walking zombie. Outside, I looked so successful. My friends and teachers admired me for my efforts.
I went from being predicted a D and 2 C’s, to getting A*AA. I worked so hard. I overcompensated, so incredibly hard. I didn’t understand how the other students just did a bit of studying here and there, or did nothing, and still did well. I didn’t understand why so few seemed so overwhelmed.
I became really, really good at working hard. I became resilient. I became disciplined. Because without the extreme, extreme level of effort and work, I would get absolutely nowhere. Intense effort everyday, to drown out feelings, push them so far down, effort my way through life — spend my evenings and sleep time revising because I couldn’t pay attention and equally being in a state of uncontrollable freeze and dissociation half the time. I just presumed this level of extreme stress you’re in everyday was normal.
You know, you just have to get on with it, that’s just life. No?
I’d found something I could do, and something that gave me the love that I seemed to be deeply lacking and craving — I could work hard. And people seemed to have a love for those who could.
I decided I was going to pursue this for the rest of my life. I was going to basically become the female David Goggins, running shirtless screaming that sleep is for the weak. Working hard seemed to be the only thing I was good at. And, the only thing within my control.
So I went to the University of Nottingham to study Neuroscience. I was so excited to have my own space, a place I could relax in and feel safe in. I was unbelievably ready to never ever ever come back here ever again.
Turns out, you can’t control your feelings. Funny, huh? Especially trauma. It also turns out, that when you feel safe, your body and nervous system decide it can start releasing these repressed memories, emotions and feelings that you never had the safety to do so before.
I spent my only 3 months there, entirely dissociated. Experiencing an anxiety and panic like never before, unable to study at all, or leave my room. Observing all the freshers partying, having fun, being free young birds, whilst I felt so lost and helpless.
Like a scene from East Enders, I helplessly walked myself to the University doctor’s in the pouring rain, crying my eyes out for the whole 2 mile walk. I arrived, and cried more. I’d never told a soul before, nor ever cried in front of anyone. They kindly said there’s some CBT on the NHS, the waiting list is about 2 years, but there’s some online resources.
I went back to my lonely room, unable to stop crying, and found these online resources. All about managing your thoughts, making them positive. Right. I felt utterly hopeless and helpless. I’d read 20 million books on exactly that, and it did nothing to explain or get rid of this unexplainable symptoms of panic and freeze I’d get. Like a body separate from the mind.
I dropped out. Feeling like an utter failure. Like I’d ruined my whole life. I moved back ‘home’ & my bestest of friends Kate & her wonderful mother took me in, and so I lived with them and worked full time in McDonalds for 2 years. The literal textbook copy of a university dropout. I tried my old tricks of control, positive thinking and being numb to things, but I was exhausted of living. I felt like a total failure, not the resilient one I’d always been told I was.
I then decided I was going to give University another shot. So I enrolled to study Nutrition, at the University of Leeds. But I dropped out again after a month. I just couldn’t cope with these insurmountable feelings, extreme lack of focus, overwhelm and the rest.
I went back to McDonalds, back to living with Kate, and worked my arse off to pay for private therapy.
I managed to have 2 sessions with a therapist on zoom, before she decided I was completely fine and that we didn’t need to continue. I firmly concluded that ever asking for help is a bad idea. Maybe I’m just entirely broken and helpless?
A year later, I decided to work with a life coach. I spent every single pound I had on it. All about focus, purpose, positive thinking. All genuinely really useful stuff. But something I was good at already. It reinforced the “what you focus on grows” idea, and I realised if I fill my life with purposeful things, set goals, and try to grow a business to serve other people, there is meaning and there is focus, sometimes. It reinforced the stop being a victim, sort of thing. It reinforced hard work. It reinforced being so busy to the point of exhaustion. It worked, it helped, until it ran me into the ground even more.
And thus, I got into ultrarunning soon enough. And what I found was an experience like no other. Utter, silence. Contentment. Actual, legitimate, bouts of crying with feeling so peaceful.
I remember one of my first ever training runs, having never knew about the existence of trails, or the outdoors (seriously), I was running down Whernside (a 736m ‘hill’ in the Yorkshire Dales) as the sun was rising, and I had tears uncontrollably streaming down my face. I had no idea what was happening, but I felt so at peace, utterly relaxed and content. Nowhere to go, nothing to be, prove — and nothing to manage.
I found nature. I found running with my own thoughts, no distraction. I found connection. I found peace. I found joy. I found intense, intense relief.
I found something that not only I genuinely, seriously enjoyed (how can you not enjoy running in the mountains with the sun rising over the horizon), but something that wasn’t about running away.
It was about running with. It became so clear to me how all my life, I’d been running away from all these intense feelings, thoughts, memories, emotions. The extreme effort required to resist these things, vanished in the presence of running alone. I felt completely and entirely at rest, peace.
It gave me a glimpse into what life could be like, and probably — what it mostly should be like. I never truly realised how chronically distressed and heightened I was until I got into ultrarunning. The contrast became so clear. My world soon began to dramatically change.
Here, there was no need or place for excessive force, or effort. To run long and far, you need to ‘preserve your beans’. You need to not use emotion to propel yourself forward, but rather fall with the flow of the proverbial river (hopefully not real one, or else you’ve fucked it). You need to sit with the highs and lows; you can’t argue with them, and you likely can’t change them. You learn that the voice that says “I can’t”, is nothing but an internal thought, and it doesn’t have to be reality. It makes you question everything else you’ve once believed about yourself. You learn that no matter how you feel, you can. And that the lighter you take it, the less serious you are about yourself, the less it is about numbers, progress, achievement, the more it is about being genuinely present and immersed in nature and the comforting hug it provides — the easier it is.
And more importantly — the more purposeful, restful and intensely meaningful it is. Damn. I miss my running in the mountains. Bashing weights around with some music on is cathartic and fun, but it’s not the same. It’s high emotion, high stimulation. A lot of life has that anyway. Running, hiking — nature, it’s just different. Just different.
I started my own business at 20. Pursued a passion. Utilised the resilience and work ethic I’d built, whilst circumnavigating the responsibility of having a boss who can be the dickest of all dicks: yourself. Jokes aside, the pieces began to fit, purpose permeated into my life.
And so I also got into meditation. I’d tried countless times before. Sat through many headspace apps. Read many books on Buddhism. Tried Vipassana. But I learnt Ascension, a meditation practice a little different to most. A little softer, gentle. A little less about creating a feeling and concentration, and a little more about watching and accepting. It too, changed my life. A place I learned that other people also experience things I do, they have thoughts, feelings, discomfort. I began to talk, and talk, and talk some more.
I became less afraid of my feelings, I became more able to control my attention — where and what I placed it. I gained space from the intensity and sensitivity of myself I’ve always lived with. I learnt how to stop resisting things, everything. I learnt how to allow discomfort. It went hand in hand with ultra-running.
However it has also many times been used as a tool to continue to block out, deny and runaway from feelings under the guise of “well it’s just an illusion anyway”. Being numb under avoidance isn’t often an indicator of ‘dealing’ with; especially when your body’s alarm system is sounding day after day, after day. It’s good to not be consumed by it, to not identify with it, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t an inherent stress present that also can’t be dealt with.
So, I digressed a little (a lot)— I’ve got a bad knee injury, and I think I said something about a dead rat? And something to do with bee juice. Or honey, something like that. Well, I don’t quite feel like a dead rat. I’d say more a ferret, they’re way cuter and a little more fluffy, and maybe not a dead one. Maybe a squirrel that’s been hit by a bus, that’s got a lacing of honey on it. That’s me.
When I ran the 7 Valleys Ultra 7 weeks ago, 70 miles up and down the mountainous Lake District, storms, rain and bog — something became very clear to me (and not just that my knee was about to fall out my body)..
It was my avoidance of people. My love and need to be on my own. The relief of being on my own. How I intentionally avoid ever running with anyone ever, because it just feels so much safer and less stressful. I was blocking myself away from a huge part of the experience; the connection and shared intimacy of a huge personal experience.
So I ran 50 miles with people, despite the discomfort. And I had one of the best races, and best 20 hours I’ve ever had. It was so damn fun. Unfortunately, so fun — that my brain never introduced the idea of dropping out at mile 54 when I could no longer run, and could barely walk without using my poles for crutches.. but hey, we’re here now.
Now, I’ve no longer got the weekly catharsis of mountain running, nor the physical exhaustion that comes with it.. the ‘distraction’ and outlet has gone. And has been gone for 7 weeks.
I’ve also just moved in with some amazing, awesome friends. After living on my own for 2 years, it’s nice to have people to share the day with as well as the responsibility of not setting fire to the house. It’s a good thing to share.
However I have become acutely aware of how on edge I am, all the time. And how even though being ignorant to it and not giving it meaning makes it less intense (as meditation has taught me), it’s still there.
I’ve noticed how frequently I go into a complete freeze when I hear the door go. How my heart races, my palms sweat profusely. I notice how I jump and flinch in fright as Alice, very normally, walks around the corner and says ‘hello’. I notice how my mind works into complete overdrive about having done something wrong, and the intense relief that washes over me when I hear someone laugh and I remember there is no threat of violence or emotional abuse. I notice how I unconsciously analyse the expressions of faces, trying to figure out if I need to apologise, what to say, what I did wrong.. before I realise nothing ever happened. I have realised how utterly unsafe I feel around people, yet how euphoric and relieved I feel when I temporarily remember it’s safe, before I fall back into hypervigilance. I’ve noticed the intense dread and panic I feel as I leave work, knowing I’m going home, to pull up outside and procrastinate getting out, only to calm myself down as I remember where I am and that it’s okay. I’ve noticed the intense desire to be on my own, where I feel safest and to retreat away from humans.
This awareness of these feelings, has spread out into the rest of my life. I’ve become acutely aware of how often I totally freeze. How many hours of my day are spent with my mind in overdrive and panic of what I’ve done wrong, how much of my energy is spent trying to manage everyone else’s emotions and how tense and unrelaxed my body is, always. How often my heart is racing. How often I’m sweating and tense without plausible rational reason. Alongside this undying urge for human connection and love, which brings with it immense guilt and shame. A dirtiness that a never ending and insatiable desire brings.
I’ve cried about 4 times in the last 7 years. Thanks to total suppression.
One of the 4, was about 5 weeks ago.
After endless researching and reading, and some long, long chats over the years with my best friend Kate, I’d started to draw some very light possibilities in my mind. There were very specific triggers for me. Very specific people. Some that made immediate sense, some that didn’t until years later. Feeling like I was on fight or flight for the last month living with my friends, and the realisation of living alone feeling totally relaxed and safe — some dots began to connect.
The idea that maybe it wasn’t me that was doing this, occurred. Maybe these feelings are more than just me being a bit weird and fucked up. Maybe it wasn’t my fault. Maybe I wasn’t just being paranoid. The anger I’d never let myself feel. The hurt. The sadness. Began to build, and build, and build. Like a snowball, but one smothered in the slippiest type of vaseline.
The vaseline snowball (great image) kept building, until I came home from my morning and lunchtime clients, and unable to hold it in any longer. I cried, and cried, and cried. Unfortunately all over Alice and her very nice jumper. I was equally perturbed as I was relived by the expression, crying on my own and feeling emotions, let alone in front of someone, was something I could never do. No matter how much I really, really just wanted to.
The safety of an adult to hear me, and not tell me I was making it all up, or that I was paranoid, or that it was all my fault, let a very small part of me relax.
My best friend Kate has always suggested I should see a therapist, to talk openly, and to have an adult tell me “that’s not okay”, rather than her reiterating to me constantly. But she’s just a friend. She’s biased. I’m just dramatic anyway. Just making a fuss. And equally — sharing any part of myself that isn’t well compartmentalised has never gone well before except resulted in total alienation.
But, as these feelings built, the dots drew.
I have started seeing a psychotherapist and it turns out I have, and am being treated for, Complex-PTSD. The relief and the equal amounts of anger I felt and currently feel are tantamount.
Complex PTSD develops when there is prolonged and repetitive exposure to a series of traumatic events, where there is little or no chance to escape.
When dysfunction is your norm, you don’t see it as dysfunction. Until I began to come to a settled and safe place in my life, mentally and physically — I didn’t realise how chronically overstimulated and stressed I was, constantly. And more so — I didn’t realise it was something that wasn’t my fault, or just me being ‘broken’.
It’s a bit like living life knowing you’re walking on eggshells. Except they’re not eggshells, they’re landmines. No matter how much you change your perception, gain space from the feelings, emotions, lessen the grip of your thoughts, you still, every single day step on landmines. Your body and nervous system is like a faulty car alarm, that goes off to every noise and external occurence, even to the gentlest of a breeze.
The experience internally is incredibly uncomfortable, obviously. But without the knowledge, understanding and acceptance of what is happening, it just feels like you are going insane. Which compounds the discomfort. And makes it into a monster that you live with, but nobody else knows about. Because how do you make sense of it to someone else, when you don’t even understand it yourself? You just do everything in your power to avoid, distract and numb yourself to these terrifying feelings of total danger.
It’s no wonder avoidance of people and things is easier. It’s no wonder the presence of the mountains, my feet and nothing but the horizon give and gave an immense amount of comfort.
It turns out I don’t need any more resilience. I don’t need anymore hard work. I don’t need any more positive thinking. I don’t need any more efforting. I don’t need any more self-help methods.
So the ultra, leading to a knee injury, has resulted in a very transformative and revelatory understanding of myself. And fortunately, but unfortunately, I’m not running away from it — I mean, I literally can’t.
And so the feelings, intensity, flashbacks, intense anger, the rest — are my friends I’m living with right now.
The last month, my sleep has been disrupted. The typical 2–4am being wide awake, mind spinning, heart racing. Cortisol incredibly elevated. My garmin is telling me I’m on the verge of death, despite doing little training. And my periods, despite coming back 2 years ago, are beginning to be affected. While this sounds ‘bad’, and it is certaintly not comfortable, it’s a good kind of bad, but still not good.
I feel like I’m taking a backpack off that I’ve carried around for years and years. Whilst it feels bad, uncomfortable, hurtful and all round bad — the deeper part of me knows its good, and its needed — and that I’m not running away this time.
I have since also met with a psychiatrist and been clinically assessed and diagnosed with severe ADHD. Which explains a lot about my existence, and is beginning to open up a whole new world of operating which actually works for me. ADHD is widely misunderstood, and wildly underdiagnosed in women, due to the presentation of most of the known symptoms being hyperactive young boys who disrupt classrooms. It is a legitimate, neurodevelopment disorder that ruins lives if left untreated. Women, such as myself, mostly learn to mask their symptoms, resulting in extreme exhaustion and inner self-violence, they appear to do everything well, but under the surface is an immense amount of effort.
Despite my less than ideal outer circumstances growing up resulting in the development of C-PTSD, that was often dismissed as ‘anxiety’… had the awareness of ADHD, specifically in its presentation in girls, been known, perhaps my life would’ve been a whole lot smoother.
I’d perhaps had been more attuned with my emotions, guided with dealing with the overwhelm, had assistance in school and not needed to sacrifice my sleep because I just zoned out all the time, not been so impulsive with decision making and so socially averse because people were mostly ‘boring’.. and maybe, just maybe, I’d have been able to articulate and share the ongoing trauma I was being subject to. I am sure I would have had a smoother growing up. Maybe I’d have a degree. Haha. Thankfully I don’t want one. Well, I do get an impulsive urge to become a doctor, a physio or a psychiatrist every week. But that’s just my brain’s divergent excitement.
A little compassion and respect for our own needs goes a long way. But working with the rules and advice for those who’s brain’s function a little more ‘normally’, results in intense frustration, self-beating and exhaustion. It also explains why coffee has always made me more tired. Like, nap tired.
It’s an incredibly misunderstood disorder, and is becoming one that people roll their eyes at of “oh, everyone’s got that now”. However it’s not that more people are ‘developing’ it, it’s that the awareness of it, specfically in women, is increasing, and wonderfully — more people are getting a diagnosis and able to access the help they need. It’s might appear trendy, but it certainly doesn’t feel trendy.
I repeat, it’s massively under-diagnosed in women and it is a neurodevelopmental disorder of the brain — the brain doesn’t develop properly, and it therefore directly impacts the functioning and the behaviour of the person.
It is not a conscious choice to be inattentive in conversation, to lack executive functioning (trouble organising, staying on task, scheduling), to have a poor working memory; meaning you lose things, forget important appointments, tasks, conversations. It’s not a conscious decision to be easily overwhelmed and overstimulated by noise, light or things. It’s not a conscious decision to have 6 conversations going on in your mind at once, as well as 2 songs and your shopping list on repeat. It’s not a conscious decision to be unable to pay attention to detail that you really need to. It’s not a conscious decision to start 10 projects at once and forget about them all.
Sure, the gifts of the neurodiverse brain exist also — highly increased levels of empathy, the ability to hyperfocus on a task that’s important and of extreme interest (I’ve been writing this article for 6 hours without a lapse in focus), quick decision making that is often always accompanied with extreme emotion and a lack of consequence reasoning, and often outwardly a little random and funny — thanks to the lateral thinking and lack of inhibition.
My whole life has been abruptly painful due to the lack of acknowledgement of awareness of it’s presentation in girls, and therefore I’ve missed out on the help, treatment and support needed. The symptoms and presentation of ADHD, aren’t always exclusive to ADHD, those without the disorder too experience inattentiveness, hyperactivity and distractibility — the difference is the intensity and frequency of the symptoms, which occur daily and severely impair functioning.
Having ADHD, is a bit like constantly switching between TV channels, except someone else has the remote. It’s like a duck. Above the water they glide so well, smooth sailing, effortlessly traversing the waters, but look below and you’ll see a frantic, exhausting pedalling of legs.
It’s still something I’m learning about, and given it’s always been my reality, even before the onset of trauma — it’s the whole, you don’t realise it’s a dysfunction, when it’s just how you always are. It’s an intense relief, and I am going to explore treatment, however that looks.
It’s still something I am beginning to understand personally, so I don’t have many words on it. But for now — it’s for me to explore and sit with.
I hate labels. Have always hated labels. The fear of identifying with one, of using it as an excuse, or letting it define me, or limit me — no thank you. But an explanation for something I have taken on as my own fault and problem, and equally carried a lot of confusion and shame with — feels incredibly soothing. It allows for self-compassion to enter the room. It gives rest to my mind that has been whirling around trying to figure things out for all my existence.
When it’s something I’ve fought with, wrestled with, and struggled with for my whole existence — it turns out, can actually be quite helpful. It opens up doors and avenues for help, that can actually help.
I tried for years and years and years to fix myself. It only ever resulted in me being burnt out, exhausted and confused as to why I couldn’t get rid of these weird feelings, no matter how hard I tried.
This process of ‘healing’, or whatever words you want to put on it, whilst I feel it’s important to talk about it, for personal catharsis as well as awareness and encouragement, I equally don’t want to romanticise it.
I have felt utterly shit the last 4 weeks, as is the process of dealing with trauma.
Not pushing your feelings away, and beginning to talk about intense trauma that you’ve never shared isn’t a comfortable fun process. It’s not that type 2 discomfort either that running down a mountain after running for 40 miles with your quads screaming and feet bleeding, brings. It feels shit, and totally shit.
It’s painful, it deeply hurts and it brings with it all the seemingly endless unresolved and unfelt feelings, as well as the new feelings of loss, sorrow and anger for all the time you spent suffering thinking it was your fault.
Everything else seems wholly unimportant. When the grounds for who you are and your experience of the world and yourself are pulled from under you, questioned and shattered, reality feels a little unsettled.
With running being out the equation for an emotional outlet and spark of joy, and my precious dog Pig becoming quite unwell and being investigated for cancer. She too who wears her scars of fear and fright of noises and moving objects. My furry companion who I cuddled when shaking with fright, who I walked away into the night with under the solace of the sky, who never failed to comfort and love me. If love is what I feel for Pig, then I never want to love anyone. Wow it hurts..
With my grounds for comfort and catharsis slowly being pulled away, amongst the intensity.. it really feels like being shat on by the universe. Hahah.
And I know, it’s made me who I am. Of course. There’s cool stuff, whatever. But right now in total honesty, no part of me enjoys or appreciates the fact it’s made me resilient or hard working. Man, I just want to rest. I think there’s an element of just needing to feel my pain, without putting another positive spin on it. Which I have spent my entire, entire, entire existence doing. Madly trying to fit in, keep up, fix myself and hide myself and make everything positive because it’s acutely obvious people can’t deal with discomfort.
Despite the hurt and pain that currently feels like a bottomless pit, I have the safety and groundedness of an incredible psychotherpist, a gentle and grounding meditation, and incredibly close friends who I feel safe to express with. It turns out feelings aren’t so terrifying when you’re not alone with them.
And so I write this with brutal honesty but hope, hope that anyone reading this can gain something from my experience. Be that compassion for themselves, others, recognition of feelings, or I have no idea, something. Or maybe just a laugh at my inability to be concise (or stick to a point).
Help is out there. Sometimes, and unfortunately, it just takes a little time. But increased awareness of ourselves, alongside working with ourselves and not against, is something that is rarely encouraged in the predetermined way of the west; with endless rules and expectations.
So this is a message to fall apart if you need to fall apart. Maybe you don’t have a choice. Maybe you do.
But know this, if you need to know this. Because I didn’t know this —
You don’t have to justify and excuse people’s behaviours all the time, especially at the expense of your own safety and mental wellbeing.
No matter how much guilt, how much shame, how much self-blaming there is — you, we, I — deserve to be loved. We deserve to be treated well. And that comes from and for all of us, and it comes from each of us facing reality without excusing everything with the ‘positive psychology’ bullshit that is often deployed.
Somethings aren’t okay.
That doesn’t make the person bad, but it doesn’t make the behaviour okay.
It’s hard to trust your gut when your gut instinct has been fucked up so everything is perceived as danger. But deep, deep down, there’s always been a recognition in me, that I know life can be different. And so I never stopped pursuing it. That stubbornness in me I guess has brought me here, just a damn long winding rugged way.
I’m just happy I’m now at the right destination and that I’ve successfully completed many chapters of coping, that I hope to never return to. Even though it feels bad, it’s the good sort of bad, even though not that good.
I can’t recommend, or encourage talking to the right people more. The right people. It’s tricky when you’ve been convinced on a deep level that you’re just being paranoid, that you’re making it up. I spent a long, long long long time finding these. But they exist. They really do.
So anyway. Running? Meh. I miss it! I want to do it. But I have no idea if that’s even possible. My knee is just short of ‘fucked’. Not sure I feel good about ultrarunning. I just want my jaunts back. Oh my jaunts. I miss them lovely mountains.
But maybe it’s time to learn to be with people too; after all — they can talk (but I think that’s why I prefer mountains).
“Please understand this: healing doesn’t necessarily involve the disappearance of pain. No, healing may involve the pain staying, today. Perhaps even intensifying. For healing is not a final destination, but an ever present invitation to remember who you truly are.
It is a call to love, in every moment of our lives. And in love, your pain is not attacked, or denied, or pushed away. It is given a home”
- Jeff Foster, The Way Of Rest.
Mia Oldroyd
