Exploring A Stronger Version Of Myself

 

At Unleashed, their slogan is “Explore A Stronger Version Of You”. What I am about to write is going to be somewhat superficial and then somewhat deep and incredibly difficult. First, I am going to tell you how I am exploring a stronger physical self.

This past Friday, I attended Freestyle Friday at Unleashed which is basically a 2.5 hour free-for-all where you can use anything in the gym that you want to create a workout for yourself, or spend time practicing something. I’ve only been a few times, but it’s a fun time. We’ve come to have some friendly competitions to push each other to always do more – especially with the sled.

After some event specific warm-up and training (more on that in a bit), we started pushing the sled around. The last time I did it, we were at somewhere around 700 lb. This time, we loaded it up with plates and just kept pushing. We eventually added sandbags, then humans, then smaller humans. Here is a pic of me pushing about 1070 lb and below that is a video of me pushing around 1020 lb.

 

 

 

My friends encouraging me to do more, and then being able to do it, makes me feel strong, physically and mentally. Now, let’s talk about that event specific training, shall we? After shadowing the GOREV, I was completely inspired. I told myself I would never do another GORUCK after our Light in October because I felt I didn’t have the mental fortitude to get through it. After witnessing what my friends pushed through, and all that I’ve overcome in the last several months, I decided to register for another GORUCK event, appropriately called a Challenge.

 

 

I have several friends who are going to do it with me and, with their support, I’m going to give it my all. I know they will do everything in their power to see that I don’t fail. On that same note, let’s talk about how I’m exploring mental strength.

It’s no secret I have depression and anxiety. I’ve always been honest about that on here and don’t feel the need to hide it anymore. I’ve decided to share a bit more and, maybe, it might help someone else needing help.

I don’t remember if I’ve spoken about it before, but I also have PTSD. I’m not going to (and never going to) get into why on this blog. What I will tell you is that I also used to cut as a coping mechanism. I started when I was a teenager and did it well into my early 20s. For those who have no experience with it, personally or otherwise, I will just tell you that I did it as a way to distract myself from the mental pain using physical pain. I’ve come to understand that it is a common theme with those who do/did it.

What I’ve only just figured out in the past few months is that cutting is an addiction I just need to keep at bay, not unlike alcoholism or drug abuse. My immediate instinct when having a really bad day, hour, minute is to turn to something that makes that mental pain go away. Luckily, I have Tara and amazing friends and I haven’t resorted to that. The urges were almost daily, but thankfully are getting better with continued therapy and medications I am on. It helps that I have learned better coping skills and am working through what I need to work through, difficult as it may be.

I guess my point in admitting this in such a public forum is that you don’t have to do it. It sucks, and it will hurt, but there are other things you can do. Don’t stuff shit down because it’s not going anywhere. Work through it and come out stronger on the other side. It will get better.

If you need some alternatives, I’ve found this site helpful:  https://casapalmera.com/helping-a-loved-one-who-self-injures/

 

 

 

 

Face The Music Friday #62: The One With All The Training

Oh, hey. Hi there. Remember me?

First, let’s get the training out of the way. I’m not gonna use the usual format because there are too many missed weeks to type up, so here’s a screenshot of this month. Not too shabby if I say so myself.

 

 

Things are going well so far with the running. I can definitely tell my yoga is helping so I’m glad I’ve stuck with it. Running 4 days a week has been tough, but manageable so far. I’ve stuck almost religiously with the plan I’m following with the exception of skipping one long run day to catch up on some rest and skipping my Thursday run this week because my hips were really sore from doing a double workout on Tuesday. I still did yoga in it’s place, so I’ll call it a win.

Let’s move on and be a little more serious. I want to thank my blogger friends who have left comments checking in on me. It makes the interwebs feel a little smaller and it’s nice to know people notice when you’re not around.

Depression and anxiety are a nasty duo. One or the other is bad enough on it’s own. It’s not been a good few months. Every day is a struggle to just get out of bed. I think my training hasn’t suffered only because it’s one thing I can control. I have people to be accountable to as well.

 

 

 

On the plus side, I have an amazing network of friends (who really are family) keeping my head above water. I’m entering into more intensive therapy while taking a leave of absence from work for a short time. I’ve even gone back on medication to help level me out. It’s been a long while since I’ve taken anything and am hoping this will only be temporary.

 

 

Since I’ve missed so many weeks of blogging, I owe you a few songs. These are some of my obsessions lately. Music is a huge part of helping me feel better. Headphones in, volume up, turn off the whirlwind.

 

Robert Delong – Long Way Down

 

 

Fitz & The Tantrums – Fools Gold

 

 

Yelawolf – Till It’s Gone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m Still Here

Contrary to popular belief, I have not been abducted by aliens. What I have been dealing with is a lot less fun. You see, I’ve talked about my anxiety before, but not much about my depression. I feel like, who wants to read that stuff. I figure people just want to hear about the fun races and events I’ve done, how training is going for any given thing or about one of the many fandoms I love. Then I think to myself, this is my blog. I can write what I want and if people want to read it, they will. If they don’t, well, at least it’s been purged from my brain.

So what’s been going on with me? Well, I’m trying to focus on feeling better. I’d be lost without Tara and “the girls”. They are my support system x 1000%. They get me out of the house, out of my head, distract me and whatever they can do to help me. I’ve had a few events lately, which I’ll throw some pictures of below, but haven’t felt much like being around the blogging world right now. I’ve started seeing a new therapist and once I start feeling a bit better, maybe I’ll be back much more often. For now, I might try to just aim for my Friday posts (which I haven’t even done). Baby steps.

Before I share some of my events, I wanted to share two videos. The first, I heard about through a running blogger I follow. It’s worth the 8 minutes to watch because he describes what I’m feeling almost perfectly. The second video is a song I recently heard shuffling through Spotify and it has almost perfect lyrics for me right now.

 

 

 

The last post I did was about my event on 11/8, which was Carry The Fallen. That is still such an amazing thing to me and I can’t wait to do the next one in March. A few days later, the girls and I got together for a Paint Night. For $35, we got to do a painting of Starry Night – my all time favorite. It included all the supplies we needed, plus two drinks.

 

 

A few days later was an event I had waited all year for – the Spartan Stadium Sprint in Fenway Park! I didn’t get to run with my girls, but I had a great team of Battle Buddies to run with from the Spahtens team. We got to run on the Green Monster, though the visitors clubhouse and dugout and around the warning track in the outfield. It was an amazing experience but pretty nerve wracking because of how many people were jammed into the park throughout the day. Did I mention it was flippin’ freezing that day??

 

No biggie – just the top of the Green Monster!

 

This past weekend, Tara and I and a couple of friends signed up to volunteer at Operation Holiday Cheer. It’s run by the Lt. Governor in RI and is a two day event taking in donations to send to RI troops overseas and then packaging and shipping them the following day. We signed up to take in the donations on Saturday, which would have been from 9-1, but we ended up leaving around 12:15-12:30. The donations were slow this year, sadly. Tara and I have done this before and the last time we did the bins were overflowing with donations. While there were plenty of people that volunteered to help, there just wasn’t enough coming in for everyone to stay, which is why a lot of people left early.

 

 

And finally, I have some new ink I wanted to share. I had pinned this quote on Pinterest months and months ago because I really liked it. I feel like it suits me between what it means and my love of the ocean. I felt like now was just the right time to get it done so I finally pulled the trigger. It’s my Christmas present from Tara.

 

 

I hope everyone is doing well. Stay tuned – same bat-time, same bat-channel.