Etwas

This writing represents a recent period in my life where nothing was working. It all came crashing down in mid-August 2023 and took almost the entire September before I felt somewhat ready to have a daily routine again. I wrote this in December of the same year when I started feeling more or less normal again.

It’s about stress and a period in my life when I was really unhappy with how I felt and how I treated myself. But that’s long behind me now.

This is something about stress.

I am running again.
Another run this week.
I increased the amount and length of my runs at the end of July and most of August.
I tell myself that I relax on these long runs, and it works well enough.
I switch off my mind and listen to my music while I run the same route again and again.

Day after day.

I feel the dopamine and adrenaline wash over me like a pleasant wave, which feels less and less each time.

I keep going. I can’t stop because running is healthy. Murakami runs, and if it works for him, it must work for me, even though he is a routine person with a writing job while I am a chaotic person and a teacher.
But it works, right?
Of course.

I eat healthily, cut down on coffee, drink ginger shots instead, and gulp down smoothies.

I have to be healthy, it’s good for my body and therefore for me.
So I can keep going. It’s good.
Of course. The flame burns brightly, as it has for several months.
It’s good, says my head to me, and my body obeys. I have things under control.
Work starts, intro week is long. It’s okay, I continue with this long schedule and take one day at a time, fall and hurt myself badly one day but get up again, for I am a superman, and what is recovery time?

I prioritize running and rowing in my spare time because it gives me energy, I keep telling myself.

I don’t notice that I was incredibly sad about the breakup in late July, that running my first exam might also be overwhelming, that I’m still sad Tove died in April, that I’ve worried most of August without being able to do anything about it, and that I’m about to celebrate a birthday. There’s also this, that assignment, that reshuffle, and all that other stuff…

…oh, come on. One more run, we have the day off. Sleep poorly.
Long walk on a day off before a long run the next day, keep going all week, classes start, still running long distances, keep it going, it must be good, the flame burns at full blast, it’s going well, get sick on a Thursday, continue to Friday, sleep 10 hours both days, think I’m ready for the event on Saturday, handle an easy task and then . . .
“POOF”
I can’t do anything. The flame dies.
Is it because I fell?
Do I have a concussion?
What the hell is happening, why are my hands and feet trembling?
I can’t sleep anymore.
…
fuck.
I’m stressed.
Phew. Did you make it through?
Let’s take a deep breath before we move on.
In. Hold it. Out.

That was several months ago.
I hit the wall hard and have spent time recovering and finding myself again.
Finding out how to sleep again, how to be active without being manic about it again.
I was on sick leave for a week and spent September getting back on track slowly.
Started therapy, and I can only recommend it. I relax more in my free time instead of filling up the schedule.

I spend time with myself and on myself.
I sleep again.
The sick leave felt like a defeat back then.
That’s not me. It’s for other people.
I’m a superman, a beast, and a machine that delivers every time and can do everything.

That’s how I am. That’s how I’ve been for years.
“Donald Duck can does everything.” And it has worked well.
Except that in the past many years, I have flirted with the stress limit at least once a year.

With my previous lifestyle, it was not a question of “if” but “when” the film would break.

So much for that self-image.
That I didn’t fall apart before is a mystery to me until I start seeing how I avoided getting stressed.

Distraction. I was lucky either that a break came with a distraction, that I once fell madly in love, or that I could pull the plug and relax extremely.
That the fall came when it did was not a surprise in retrospect, because the pressure from April to mid-August came like pearls on a string, and it wasn’t easy to stop and feel.

Feel how sad, how angry, how frustrated I have been.
So I kept going. I ran. I distracted myself.

It worked for me before. It was a fixed part of the routine. But I wasn’t running towards something, but away from something.

Away from dealing with how I felt. I didn’t know if my body was sore or tired.
I just kept running with the body and away from the body.

Then the body said stop, and fortunately, it did so before I completely broke down.
But I have to take it seriously NOW.

It means it seriously. Therefore, I can’t keep going as I have until now.
What now?

I couldn’t keep being the former version of myself.
Started a therapy program through work with a coach who is helping me sort things out, and it has given me a perspective on how I ended up with the patterns I’ve had until now.
It’s cool.

It’s also scary as hell, but I can’t go back to the patterns that brought me to this place.

I have to take care of myself in a way that allows the light to burn for many years to come.

I have to look inward and back, and I have to look further back than just the last six months to see how it got to this point and why it did.

Recognize patterns, work on how I handle challenges, and remind myself that the body is something I have, not something I am. I have to be good to it, and I’m not when I ignore it.

I don’t know where I’ll be in six months when I’ve taken the time to get better and deal with the baggage, my strategies when I’m under pressure, and my behavior patterns. I was happy to be the version of myself who thought he could do everything by pushing himself to the limit and kept going. I’m happy I don’t do that anymore. I’m happy I take long walks and give my head more rest instead of relentlessly pushing on.

Hopefully, I’ll end up learning where the limit is now and how to deal with it in the long term instead of crashing through it here and now.
I want to learn that. I hope I achieve it.
I still don’t run as I did back then. But I walk.
Without music. Thinking.
Maybe I’ll run again someday.
I hope so.
Take care of yourselves. And give your body and mind permission to rest before the choice is made for you.

As a side note, today in 2024 I have a lot healthier relationship with both my stress, my physical activities and when I relax and recover. It wasn’t an easy journey, but learning when to stop worrying at work for example has lead to a significant improvement in my life in general.

It is also nice to look back at this writing and see, that it all went okay in the end. Which I very much appreciate!