034 ☼ I am not in a good place

The last weeks were challenging

Welcome to my email newsletter 'Never not [thinking about] running' - a weekly newsletter about running and mental health. If you haven't subscribed yet and you're not sure whether you really want to receive an e-mail from me on every Tuesday, have a look at the archive. Todays newsletter is about a little break-down I had this weekend and my current state of mental health.

In all honesty

To be honest, the topic of mental health is rarely discussed here in the newsletter. Maybe that's because the last six months have been pretty good. I wouldn't describe complaining about any childhood illnesses and the associated drop-outs from running as mental health problems, but would rather put them in the area of sensitivities.

However, I was actually confronted with two problems last week, which is why I started this newsletter in the first place and which prompted me to seek therapeutic help again. One problem is the feeling of being quickly overwhelmed in certain areas of life and the other concerns my feeling of being trapped or afraid of leaving my local comfort zone. Whereby one naturally influences the other.

I already wrote in the last newsletter that I'm feeling rather thin-skinned at the moment. I can't put my finger on the reason for this. Sometimes I have it when I train too much, sometimes when something overwhelms me, which is of course the same thing. But the excessive demands can also result from other areas of life.

Last week I clashed with child 1 almost every day. The child that gets methylphenidate.

The situation with child 1 has really improved since then, but is still challenging in many places. I don't know how many discussions there are that go nowhere but are incredibly draining. On top of that, it feels like I'm not talking to a 10-year-old, but to a highly pubescent 15-year-old. It really pushes me to my limits and I feel like I can't do anything right. Which is probably also how child 1 feels.

Little trips are challenging for me

This weekend we were supposed to go on a little trip. Visiting relatives. Around 2 hours away by car. A trip that I often avoid because these trips overwhelm me, the car journey scares me, being cooped up in the car and the value of these trips is more or less low for me for a variety of reasons. A mixture of avoidance strategy and rational justification.

However, the children love these trips and I no longer want to be the one who stays at home. Part of the therapy is, of course, confronting the problems you have. So get in the car and drive there. Of course, there was a huge argument with child 1 right before we left and maybe it was because I actually wanted to stay at home that I provoked it or because I had no patience or didn't feel like being empathetic with child 1 now because I was struggling with myself, but the situation exploded in a big argument.

Staying at home?

I was devastated, didn't know what to do and felt really down. But thanks to my wife and the other two children, things got better and I was persuaded to come along. My wife only said, ‘let’s just do it’. A mantra she preaches me every time I feel stuck. Child 1 had also calmed down in the meantime and it would have been so easy to stay at home. But I just crawled in the car, sat in the back of it and tried to switch off, which was halfway successful.

That sounds like a great success now. Hey. You went for it, but it didn't really feel like it.

Low expectations, high outcome

The weekend itself was better than expected. After arriving, I did a 5K test run, which was more bad than good (see video department below), but everything was ok. The drive back the next day then wore me out again, but I even drove myself, which is another stress point and we arrived home safely. In the end, it was good for the children in particular that I didn't use avoidance strategies again and came along. It was probably exhausting for my wife to deal with my wreckage and although I have the sense of achievement of having done it, it's not as if I now think I want to do it every weekend.

The fact remains that I'm not in a good place right now. I'm still under a lot of pressure and a lot of things are too much for me. It's probably the result of the last few months, which have been really stressful in terms of family life. These are the situations where I need to stay calm so that I don't slip back into burnout. Do more for myself. Do more relaxing things. Meditate. Try to keep the ball rolling in the family. Take time out. Have fun!

I'll make an effort. I promise.

The video department

As mentioned above I did a 5K-test-run and had a look at it. I talk about paces in the video. Just as a little warning.

Running update

I managed to run 53km, which was a little less than the week before. I had an easy one on Tuesday, then on Wednesday I had another pacing job for my neighbor. He wanted to run 5k in about 23 minutes, which we ended up doing. Since I felt really good that day, I decided to do some intervals in the evening as well. In the end it was a 25k day. On Thursday I just did a 6k run for recovery and on Saturday I tested my own 5k pace. I am pretty happy with how things are going right now.

Funny thing. Yesterday I ran a 14k on my standard course and managed it with a pretty low heart rate - but it is still far from my peak when I run the same course 25 seconds faster per km with the same heart rate. Crazy.

The end

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