running away from it all

I forget how much living with an active mental illness is like running a marathon. It is about endurance, and perseverance. You need to have good supportive people to 'pit crew' for you. It takes preparation to get through the hardest miles, and you need to have good healthy snacks and lots of water along the way. Parts of you will most likely bleed. You will cry. You will want to quit and you will want to sing. Good music makes it easier. There are definitely times when you will need to slow down and walk, and don't be surprised if people stare every once in a while. At the end of the marathon, you'll be a completely different person than the one who started--stronger, braver, in a whole new skin.

When I say 'active', I mean what mental health professionals call 'crisis'. I live with a mental illness every day, yes, but there are days and weeks that are sooo much harder--where it is so much more noticeable--than others. This happens to be one of those weeks. It's actually week 5. Or 6. I've lost count, and that's ok. I have a hard time sleeping. I have a hard time balancing emotions, and an even harder time controlling them. Some days I can't feel anything, and some days I can feel everything so hard that I want it to just be over. Sometimes I hear things that aren't there, and sometimes I have overwhelming urges to hurt myself or others. In a word, it can be terrifying.

It's hard to find the balance on days like this--hard to look up and see that maybe, just maybe, I've hit the half-marathon mark, or the quarter marathon mark. It's hard to look up because I don't want to see if I'm only at mile 2. There are things I can do--keep getting up, taking meds, going to work, talking to people, eating right--but something that I've just recently rediscovered is running.

Running hurts. When I can't feel anything, I can at least feel the burn in my arches and the sweat down my back. I can feel the wind streaking my face and the cold tensing my fingers. It keeps me focused. Hear something that's not real? It's ok, just keep running. Want to cry, or shout? You can, but keep running while you do. Want to bleed, want to die? Nope. Just keep running. So I run. I run everyday, just a little bit, just a lot. I run til my toes are bleeding, til I can't hear anything but the pulse of my own heart, til the ache that rests right below my sternum has subsided. Days when I can't think of any other reason to do so, I run for my family, for hugs and baseball games and summer dinners by the firepit. I run for my grandfather who knits me scarves and my uncle who makes me salmon cream cheese. For my parents, who love me despite it all. For my siblings, who are there when no one else is, who give dinners and hugs and compassion like the sun. On the worst days, I run for my neice, for her first birthday and park playdates and choir concerts and graduations, for all the things I don't want to miss.

I run until I know that I've turned into a new version of myself, into a person who can survive the next 24 hours until I get to run again. Right now, every day, I outrun my demons. I cross that finish line and am ok until the next day.

Sometimes people ask me why I run. There's no answer I could give that would truly say it all, so usually I just answer 'I run because I like it.' That's true. I run to be healthy, to feel good about myself for a little while, to be happy again. But most of the time, at least these days, I run because I don't know how not to. I run to get ahead of the terror and the shame and the unknown, and I run to get home one more time.