Back in 2005 I was a very scared 31
year old whose world had progressively gotten smaller and smaller.
Insanely small (both literally and figuratively). We lived on a
cul-de-sac and I couldn’t walk to the corner of our street without a
wave of panic washing over me and a voice screaming inside my head:
“You have to get home! You are weak!” So I didn’t leave my circle
of safety. I used to put Caleb in the stroller and pace back and
forth in front of my house because I was supposed to be supervising
my other 2 babies as they played with their friends in our yard, but
my thoughts were consumed with myself. My heart would pound and my
brain would race and I was there, but not present.
When I finally got to the point where I
was more afraid of myself than I was afraid of psychiatric help I was
diagnosed with panic disorder and agoraphobia. In non-sciency terms
that means that I would have panic attacks where my heart would race
uncontrollably, my body would feel numb and weak and I would break
out in a cold sweat and it would feel like I couldn’t breathe. In my
broken brain’s wisdom, it had made perfect sense to avoid anywhere that I
ever had a panic attack because if I had a panic attack in the
grocery store then avoiding the the grocery would keep it from
happening again. My list of unsafe places kept getting longer and
longer: eventually the only safe place left was my house. And then I
became afraid of being left alone and would call my husband at work
and beg him to come home so I wasn’t the only one responsible for
these 3 little boys. Because I wasn’t strong enough to care for them.
Between the psychiatrist and my
therapist and medication, I gradually got better and if you met me
now, you’d never know that mental illness was in my past. (I hope!)
Except for the fact that I talk about it every chance I get because
when I was in my darkest place a dear friend who I thought had it all
together shared her dark past with me and told me that psychiatrists
and mental hospitals weren’t something to be ashamed or afraid of. If
talking about it helps someone else then the hell our family went
through wasn’t for nothing.
One thing that my therapist said when I
was going through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (basically retraining
my brain so I didn’t keep telling myself that I was weak – have you
seen What about Bob? “Baby steps” are an actual thing!)
has guided me in the years since. I’m better/recovered/whatever you
want to call it, but I have to work to keep from going back to that
place.
If something scares you, that’s a
sign that you need to do it.
She
wasn’t talking about things that normal people are scared of: playing
chicken with a train, standing up to an armed robber, or I don’t know
. . . what are normal people scared of? She meant the things that my
overactive subconcious automatically rejected as too dangerous: at
first those were things like riding an elevator, driving to a new
city, or going to the store by myself. As I got better they
became things like public speaking, getting on an airplane, or
something physically demanding.
And that is how I ended up running
across Bahrain on my 40th birthday.
I saw someone wearing a T-shirt that
said “I ran across the country” when we arrived here 18 months
ago and my first thought was, “How fun to be able to say that!”
My second thought that immediately stomped all over the first one,
“There’s no way you could do that. You’re not strong enough.” (My
frenemy still hangs out in the corners of my brain and makes his
presence known every now and then.)
The running club here holds the race
every December and last year I wanted to run it in theory, but
since we were traveling (not on the day of the race, but close to it) that made it easy skip it without admitting to myself that I was
chickening out.
When it came around this year, I knew
it was my last chance since we’re moving this summer (to a still unknown destination). A friend mentioned it was coming up and when I went to just check out the registration information and saw it was on my 40th birthday . . . it was a sign. I registered immediately.
And then spent the next 4 weeks fighting a war inside my head.
Packing up the night before
This is a bad idea . . .
All 300ish runners arrive and park at the finish and then we are bussed across to the other side of the island to the start.
The longer we drove, the more acutely aware I became of how far I was going to have to go to get back.
Even though I’m “better,” I still do things to set me up for success mentally. You know that teeny tiny pocket in running pants and shorts that is too small to hold anything? It was the perfect size to hold an anti-anxiety pill. And yes, I had one tucked in there. It works because if I have it then I don’t have to worry that I might need it. And since I’m not worried, I don’t need it. It’s ridiculous, but if that’s what it takes . . .
Seriously bad idea . . .
After the 40 minute bus ride, every single guy jumped off the bus and ran to go pee before the race began. So unfair. I had to pee in the desert behind a ratty discarded mattress that Josh held up as a shield. That’s true love.
Yes, my friend is pregnant. Yes, she ran the race. Yes, she’s amazing.
The prince was running so he had an escort helicopter following him the entire way. Thankfully he is a world class triathlete so he and his very loud helicopter surged ahead right from the start and left me in peace at the back of the pack.
We’re off! We ran up the road before taking a sharp left into the desert.
where we had to hop over or crawl under oil pipelines
and run up and down sandy, rocky hills (I thought desert = flat. It doesn’t).
Halfway!
We also ran through the area where the Bahrainis camp and ride 4 wheelers in the winter. They were all out celebrating National Day.
I couldn’t have made it without Josh, who kept time for me, made sure I wasn’t running too fast or too slow, and made sure I stayed hydrated.
Is that the ocean in the distance?
The home stretch!
Happy finishers
(amazing pregnant friend came in just a few minutes behind us)
I’m not sure what scary thing I’ll tackle next, but it feels good to be 40.
