Not OK

Eighteen days ago, I dropped out of the half-marathon I was running with my Mom. As in, at the 6.2 mile mark of a 13.1 mile race, I just stopped running. I slowed myself down, hopped onto the sidewalk, turned around, and walked two miles back to the start/finish line. And let me tell you – walking two miles against a solid crowd of runners was not fun. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so defeated. 

In the six years I’ve been running, I have never dropped out of a race, or really even a casual run. Determined to the point of masochism, I have always run through the pain, whether physical or emotional, constantly telling myself some bullshit cliché like pain is fear leaving the body, or what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. And when I wasn’t reciting platitudes like those, I was visualizing myself in a pair of short shorts and telling myself that THIS IS FOR MY THIGHS. So yes. I do not quit. Except that on Sunday, September 20, I did.

Let’s rewind. Depression runs in my family, and I have struggled with it for at least a decade. It has manifested itself in different ways over the years – from eating disorders to sleep disorders to crippling anxiety to obsessive compulsiveness, I have been all sorts of crazy during the last ten years. Most of the time I’ve been able to bounce back to a functioning level by convincing myself that I am a WASP, that my life is full of rainbows, and that I need to GET OVER IT (I have even written it. See: here and here). Twice in the last ten years, however, I have been incapable of doing that. The first time was in the fall of 2004, when I was too anorexic to bounce back from anything, and the second time was three weeks ago. 

Rewind, again. After our over-crowded summer and a hectic start to the school year, by the first of September I was already sinking to the bottom. All of the familiar signs were there: I wasn’t eating well, I wasn’t exercising, I was crying both in the morning and at night, I wasn’t staying in touch with friends and family, I wasn’t blogging, I wasn’t taking pictures, I wasn’t washing my face at night because by the time bedtime came, I just wanted to go to sleep, and squeezing facial soap into my palms, wetting my hands, rubbing them together, and putting them on my face was JUST TOO MUCH. It took all of my energy just to get up and face the day – and not to greet the day, but to face the day. Because the day was the enemy. 

And then, three weeks ago, I got into a fight with my cousin. This was a nasty argument culminating in an angry and bitter phone conversation in which it became clear that we each thought the other one was a selfish, inconsiderate bitch. And those words were actually used. The conversation left me feeling hollow and worthless, and for the rest of the week, I found myself at the bottom of the bottom. I stopped crying only in the mornings and nights, and started crying all the time –and by all the time I actually mean ALL the time. I narrowly avoided crying while I was in class, but I cried enough that my eyes went bloodshot and my face swelled up.

I tried to pull it together at the end of the week, since I knew my Mom would be arriving on Saturday morning. And I did…sort of. I cleaned the apartment, I cooked dinner, I laughed, and chatted, and said that things were fine. I faked it, and I faked it well. Until, at mile 3 of the half-marathon on Sunday morning, I had no more energy left to fake it anymore, and I started crying.

I think that the tears were probably a natural endorphin release, and had I been in a healthy emotional condition, I would have been able to take deep breaths, calm myself down, and run with the tears. Since I was decidedly not in a healthy emotional condition, however, as soon as I started crying, I became hyper-aware that OHMYGODIAMINARACEANDIAMCRYING. I CANNOT BE CRYING. I AM SURROUNDED BY SLIM, FIT, SHOCKINGLY BOUNCY RUNNERS. STOP CRYING. “Stop crying,” I told myself. “Mom will know something is wrong. STOP CRYING STOP CRYING STOP CRYING.” When that didn’t work (weird, right?), I started hyperventilating, and soon felt the familiar clench of an anxiety attack hit me in the center of my chest. I spent the next three miles trying to convince myself that, in spite of my heaving sobs and knotted guts, I just needed to put one foot in front of the other. 

“You could keep running for hours, Mary Frances. Just put one foot in front of the other. One after another. Just keep going.” And for those three miles, I did. Until I didn’t, because I couldn’t. Physically and emotionally, I just wasn’t strong enough to take another step; I turned around and walked back to the starting line.

In the three weeks since that terrible, aching day, I have started to come to terms with the fact that for over a decade, I have been putting one foot in front of the other. I have convinced myself after every bad day, week, month, or (gulp) year that I just need to keep going - because eventually, one day, it would get better. And it did get better, from time to time. There have been good days, weeks, and months; I would even call some of those days, weeks and months joyful. That said, for the last five years, the bad days have significantly outweighed the good. And I hadn’t actually acknowledged that distressing and depressing truth until my Mom, crying with me after the half-marathon, reminded me that I should have mostly good days and some bad days – not the opposite. No one should have the opposite. 

I’m embarrassed and nervous to publish this post. I worry that I’ll sound whiny or lame or spoiled or about a million awful terrible things that probably make me the worst and ugliest person in the entire world. It is precisely those feelings of embarrassment, nervousness, shame, and guilt that have stopped me (and thousands of others…so I hear…) from seeking and/or staying with therapy over the years, and I have come to the conclusion that those feelings? They’re bullshit. I have lost a horrifying amount of time to this terrible disease, and over the last three weeks, I have taken bigger steps than I ever have in an attempt to get better, to reclaim my life, and to feel like myself again. I will be in therapy for years trying to wrap the thread tightly around the issues that have contributed to my eating disorders and my depression, and I am keenly aware that learning to retrain my body and mind will take hard work (not to mention a serious financial investment).

***

When I was anxious and stressed in the months leading up to our wedding, my best friend Margaret would often tell me, “It will all be ok in the end, and if it’s not ok, it’s not the end.” I would always laugh and tell her thank you, that I loved her, and that I’d be fine – not to worry. In the months since our wedding, however, this maxim has become one of my favorites to recall in times of stress, and I preach it often. Now, as cheesy as it may be, I’m preaching it to myself. I know that I’m not ok right now, that it will likely take me a long time before I feel ok again, but for the first time in a long time, I truly believe that it is not the end. This is not the end. I am not ok. But one day, I have faith, I will be.