Opinion: Helping, Being Helped & Debt - World Mental Health Day 2020
It is just over a year ago that I put a few words down about what I call my nervous breakdown. As today is World Mental Health day it seems as good as day as any to jot down a few more, because the truth is that mental illness isn’t some nice, clean thing like a broken bone. There’s no clear point when you’re ‘better’. I have spent most of the last year coming to terms with the fact that the healing process is going to take years, some of it may take a lifetime.
In some ways I’m lucky. That was actually the word my therapist used when we started our sessions. I didn’t feel very lucky at the time as my brain and body thrashed against each other, leaving the part in between that constitutes me scared, exhausted and weak. But I think she might have been right. Anxiety is far more treatable than many other conditions, I understand it as a bundle of shitty, learned behaviours and ideas that can be unf*cked with time, whereas many other conditions are rooted in some kink in the brain’s wiring that you’re stuck with. I will forever be smitten with those who live a lifetime with mental illness as my look behind the veil left me fairly sure I wouldn’t be strong enough to take it.
I remember in the early days of my crisis, medicated past the point of being a functional person, making plans a few months out, thinking “I’ll be good then.” Of course, good never came on a schedule and looking back it seems naive to have been making plans a couple of months ahead, assuming things would have blown over. And while I can sit here and tell you honestly that I’m pretty good these days, my life is now ruled by striving to stay that way.
Recently I ran into a friend who I was talking to a lot around my breakdown and he confided in me that he is now facing his own struggles. Over the months I was laid up we chatted at length a few times about the things I saw as detracting from my wellbeing, and the things I was doing that I felt were helping me. Seeing him pale, disheveled and tired it brought back many memories and, if I’m being completely honest, a twinge of frustration. After all, this is someone I had talked through the factors that I saw as triggering my crisis and the steps to avoid them, and he hadn't taken them onboard them and looked to be running down the same road I had. Of course I would probably have done the same thing if roles were reversed.
One of the big things that comes with regular meditation is a bit more space between yourself and your thoughts, so I had a moment longer to consider how to react. I felt the frustration and bit my tongue as a hard as I could. After all, when they are suffering who wants to hear “I told you so”? I wanted to help, nobody wants to see their friend suffering and having gone through all this my next impulse was to tell him all about the things that had helped me. Again I bit my tongue. Re-reading the comments to my last piece, I think this is something that more people need to hear: if someone is struggling, don’t try and offer advice or ideas (unless they are asked for). What you must not do is tell someone how they should cope with their illness. I can tell you from first-hand experience how painful it can be to have someone you love try and dictate how you should be dealing with your problems, and I will probably never have the same relationship with that person ever again.
It’s a weird notion - after all, if something is coming from a place of compassion then why suppress it? The truth is that you don’t know what the person you are talking to is going through. Even if you were there with them physically 24/7, you can’t be there in their head with them, and that is where the real suffering is taking place. In an age of over-sharing on social media, how can you possibly differentiate between someone just having a bad day and someone deep in the throes of a life-changing crisis? You cannot know how that information will affect them and it might as easily exacerbate the suffering as ameliorate it.
Even something you think benign, like pointing them to a new treatment, can backfire. It’s mental illness and confidence in the care you are getting plays a huge part in how effective it will be, so if you dent that confidence it’s not unimaginable that it could begin to unwind the progress they are making. The same goes for telling someone that riding your bike will solve everything. While it riding is undoubtedly a great thing to do you for your mental health, it's on a par with telling someone with depression to "be positive." When you're in crisis the stakes are higher than people who haven't been there can appreciate and just one seemingly insignificant nudge in the wrong direction can send someone spiraling into a dark place. It’s the old alcoholics’ maxim: you cannot help someone unless they ask for help.
What you can do is listen, be there and be patient. It may well be a one-way street, when I am struggling my thoughts wrap around in circles and I lose the mental bandwidth to think about other people as I am so focused on whatever is tormenting me. I’m certain I’m little fun to be around and am very thankful for my family and friends who indulged me as I rambled and rambled, glad of people to talk to to distract me from my suffering. But it’s different for everyone, since I saw my friend and offered him a friendly ear, I haven’t heard from him and as much as I want to help, it’s his call whether he reaches out for that or not.
What is hard to understand if you’ve never been down the rabbithole is that when you’re on the receiving end of help, that can create its own problems. I’ve never been good at asking for help, so to find myself at a point in my life when I was unable to do even basic things on my own was profoundly painful. Aside from my anxiety, the benzodiazapines I was prescribed early on left me too out of it and exhausted to do even the most basic things. Doing something simple like the washing up might take a whole day to accomplish. When you are stripped that raw by illness you need help in a way that is hard to explain nearly two years later, and people who aren’t suffering just don’t need help in the same way. For me that created a situation where I felt I owed people far more than I could ever repay and it has taken me a while to make my peace with that, finding solace in the idea of karma.
I don’t believe in karma in any structured or religious way, but for many years now it has struck me as a good general principle to live by. Or maybe you prefer the Bible’s line about doing unto others as you would have done unto yourself. The help I received created a responsibility, one that I need to spend the rest of my life fulfilling. I need to offer the same help to those I meet who need it, to repay that debt to the wider universe. I believe it’s not a transactional thing, I can’t go out today and search for ten people to relieve myself of the debt, but I need to carry it with me, make it part of me.
So when my friend came to me, I tried to listen. When he asked for something specifically I tried to answer. I offered help but tried not to overburden him. To live by the ideas I am talking about here I had to make my peace with the fact that maybe my friend is not someone I can help, and that trying to force my way into his situation would only make things worse for him. That maybe this isn’t a time to repay more of my debt. I probably made a mess of it all. In the end I left him with these words, and even then I worry I said the wrong thing: It will get better, just not as quickly as you hope it will.
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Some people find reaching out too hard. There is a middle ground between offering and nothing, you can still be the first to make contact.
Invite him out for a coffee, be an available ear...
Just my 2c, good luck with your own headspace.
Just hanging out and chatting is enough.
Then they might open up to you about something.
Just be a mate. Meet up and talk like you normally would.
If you’re of sound mind though and watching someone drown just because they say they don’t want a life jacket doesn’t mean they don’t need one.
Saying "I proposed my help" and not doing anything more say in 2 years could be kind of like an autistic reaction, I mean because in autism things that are stated can be perceived as being so forever. For instance a husband could never say I love you to his wife again, just because he said it once when getting married, and for him it stays true ever after. But on the other hand the neurotypical wife would feel a lack of affection on a daily basis. And the autist husband to be totally oblivious to this fact.
I was more trying to illustrate the gap your comment highlighted, and that - for some people - being contacted, met with for a chat, or asked a simple "how's it going?" can really help.
If trials trails are wet, time to dig!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If not shred the trials trails you built !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FYI I now have a trampoline on my trails?
If mental health were as simple as drowning then sweet, but it isn’t.
And your point of view on the matter, along with most peoples. Is part of the problem.
I hear drowning is nice though.
On a brighter note they are back ride- able again?
Here's why.
As a MTBr I understand and share the need to ride a bike whenever you can and be motivated by the thought that the next ride is going to be awesome, that you'll kill it, improve your time, get after a KOM, ride better, jump better, have a great time alone or with your mates. If that doesn't happen, you get on social media and complain about it. The trail you've ridden isn't maintained well enough, it's too busy, the wrong people are on it, question the car park charge 'why should I have to pay to park my VW T5 and to ride my £6k mtb/emtb?' Does the land managers even ride, they should head over to (some other) forest for ideas, it's become too sanitised, there are too many puddles...And I like everyone else reads that shit, soaks it up and wonders why you even bother (well I'm paid to bother obviously, but I hope you get my drift).
Add to this my superiors don't want me to do quite as much as I do, they want me to follow a process that only serves to add delay and cost as we have endless site meetings, budget meetings, which I've had to create maps, rationales, find a contractor and then get in line, only to not end up with the outcome you envisioned, whilst in the background is all that noise from the hungry and impatient public and their unrealistic expectations. So in the end I just do it myself, me and few of the guys head out with shovels, rakes and a dodgy tracked barrow and do the best we can knowing it won't be good enough or potentially crossing a line we shouldn't have crossed.
So to free my mind I ride my bike, I'm very lucky to have both a regular bike (an enduro) and an ebike ( a kenevo) and woodland trails on my doorstep. But I can't ride the trails at work because you just see the endless problems to overcome, so I ride in my local woods where there are just natural trails, nothing managed. But now I have strava, which means that fast flowy bit which felt much faster than last time...turns out it wasn't, so what could be a great ride does't feel so great. Jeez.
What's the answer? For me, less social media and no more f*cks I guess.
Second. Get rid of Strava. It's a mind f*ck. Even if all you are doing is comparing yourself to yourself, unless you are a pro athlete trying to train up for a ride, it is useless. Ride your ride, push when you feel the need, and just enjoy being on the trails. After all, you loved it so much you got a job working on trails. Don't loose sight of that.
Regarding your work. Hey, it's work. As organizations get bigger, the tape follows. Do what you need to do to keep the job and make small improvements as you can. Take your trail lust and work your own local trails instead.
THANK YOU- for your courageous authentic presence and words.
I LOVE YOUr- clarity and compassion.
I AM SORRY- for all the assumptions my mind inevitably makes.
PLEASE FORGIVE ME- for when I add to the suffering.
waitbutwhy.com/2020/09/debate2020.html
My recommendation is to find a balance, stay busy, eat well, sleep well, and maintain good boundaries.
If you find yourself upset about the world, what others are doing, etc, just remember it’s not about you.
hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html
Also I'm gonna rant about neuropsychology and cognitive sciences again
People with alexithymia for instance seem to have a really poor awareness of their emotions (like they recognize 4 emotions : happy, sad, angry, neutral, anything in between and more intricate seem to alude them), and it's not rare that when you talk to them they agree with what you say while in fact they don't understand much of what you said (and sometimes they feel shameful about it, which is one more emotion), and so it's difficult to help them, cuz' they also won't come back to reach back to you.
You've got "Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria" for instance (not saying Matt has this, just quoting that to make people aware of this kind of struggle) :
www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-adhd-emotional-dysregulation
This year, 2020 on Sep 26th I am going to ride my bike every day 3000ft of climbing which means by sep 26 2021 when I enter my 50th I will have biked 1,000,000ft. I am going to try and fundraiser money for mental health treatment, in particular anxiety and OCD in honour of my cousin who killed himself. My son Anton has OCD also.
I’m riding a Santa Cruz highball bike, with 29er wheels and a rigid ENVE fork (the one for bike packing). If you don’t know what that it, look it up. It’s a carbon bike with a really compliant rear-end (compliant meaning flexy, meaning more comfort).
For reference I biked 750,000 ft of vertical in 2018, 665,000 ft in 2019, and 554,000 this year. I ride 2-3 hours every night, usually 2500-3000 ft vert, typically in Tilden regional park or Joaquin Miller Park. I will be “everesting” every few weeks on South Park drive also. I was going to start the bike ride in a year but my friend Will stated “uhhh the time is now”, so I started on Sep 26th, 2020. I rode to Camp wolfboro and went and saw some waterfalls and biked back (in Bear Valley, CA). On the 27th of September I will bike to Monitor Pass to see the leaves which are apparently changing right now, and tomorrow I’ll night ride in Tilden Regional Park (I haven’t completely worn out all the trails there as yet!! but I’ll try!!). Last week I biked through Tilden at twilight and biked into a bat resulting in rabies shots, visits from infectious diseases and a sore numb bum. No fun. Next shot it 28th of September and then another on Oct the something (whatever 5 days after 28/9 is).
The money is for children and families to get support, and has nothing to do with anything else. It does have to do with mountain biking 100%. And its an excuse to be outside. Nothing can take away the pain and suffering both my son and my cousin have endured, and nothing can soothe the pain my Uncle, Auntie and remaining cousin (elise) are feeling right now, today. But we can help the future be better for the children and families who endure this absolutely f*cking horrible time of treatment, exposure and attempts at anxiety reduction. It’s no joke, never will be and never was. But the new treatment modalities are excellent with 65% or greater positive outcomes. To quote my son who wrote on the wall when he left Rogers in August 2019 (the kids in treatment are allowed to as part of leaving a legacy and a cheesy wall of hope for future people in treatment) “start learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable”...It was a wise quote, and he painted it on the wall in the art therapy room.
I found this article rang very true for me. When mindfulness is effectively being in the moment, I find mtb does that for me - I'm not worrying about anything but the control of my bike, the traction of my tyres, etc.
But jokes aside, i think non competitors have gotten too competitive and should take your advice
I've thought a lot about it since. My brain doesn't seem to want to slow down and locks onto some strange things. At the time I hadn't really learned how to manage it. When I was on my bike I was doing nothing other than being on a bike. That was the only place my brain could be. I found the hardest trails I could and I think it was because if there was risk it kept me in that moment. I call it forced flow.
The concept of being immersed in the moment is exactly what Csikszentmihályi defined as "Flow"- the state where your brain and body are fully active in the activity. Time stops mattering. You are doing the thing for no other reason than just to be doing the thing. It's not a feeling unique to mountain biking but biking was where I first found it and it was exactly what my brain needed. It was like a reset everytime I locked into that state.
I've worked now in mental health for a few decades. It's been a long time since my OCD prone brain acted in ways that would warrant a diagnosis of OCD. I don't think I could have made it through grad school without an OCD brain. I use mindfulness with kids all the time as it's part of a number of our best evidence based practices. I still think biking and skiing for me are the easiest ways to be in the moment... almost too easy. It was a little harder for me to realize how important that flow state was to me and learn to find it through other things for times biking was less available like during times of injury or crappy shoulder seasons here in the mountains. Still, nothing beats that moment of just being on the bike, flying down a trail, and being nowhere else but there.
Also, learning what Flow is you can actually start to train your brain to get to that state easier through learning to control your nervous system and practicing mindfulness. I find now it takes way less to get me into that place- I certainly don't need to take the risks I did when I was younger. Anyways- theres a bit of my experience and thought on it.
What it does do is give me a purpose and a sense of identity. It gives me a whole lot of satisfaction. Satisfaction in cleaning, repairing and maintaining my bike. Satisfaction in getting fitter. Satisfaction in feeling like I am progressing with something and improving myself.
It also gives me something to do and get out of bed for early at the weekend. Its a social thing that has given me a great group of friends and is a social thing that doesn't involve alcohol.
Luckily I found my talents as a teenager and pursued them. Started a business with my amazingly organized and together wife who sadly ends up doing many of the things my brain simply doesn’t. Fast forward several decades and I ended up getting into MTB. The absolute first time in my life that my mind naturally was brought into complete and total focus with what I was doing and being engaged completely with my surroundings. Somebody finally put down the remote channel switcher in my brain! No noise, no emotional concerns, etc. just completely blissed out in the moment. The gnarlier the trail the better my head and soul feels. There is truly nothing like ripping on a MTB. You can experience something very similar playing music in a band setting but it depends on other people all being in the same emotional wave length at the time. So I get what MTB riding does for your head and heart. Problem is I tend to ride above my skill level sometimes and pay the price of injury. That’s not fun. I’d like to explore the meditation thing but I don’t know how to stop my mind from whirling around to get into that space. More articles on this topic PB please. I think the reasons many of us ride are related to keeping us mentally healthy. Apologies for the rambling.
Thanks for this
youtu.be/0h8vO8TfI00 (Dream Ride by Mike Hopkins)
Also see this: forums.mtbr.com/california-norcal/biking-1-000-000-ft-vert-year-1153435.html
But does really suck looking for help & finding that no one even understands the problem?
Best solution watch Lucifer from the beginning & stop taking life so seriously!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i like to share this too. Its all about energy and alignment.
My wife had postnatal dep and dengue @ subtropic area at where we live. Its was a 4 yrs journey. Somehow this helped us. As much as i want to share more here, i might hit a restriction issue. But all i can say is this, it works and its real.
You got nothing to lose. Even ex war vets does it.
amp.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/10/magic-mushrooms-treatment-depression-aztecs-psilocybin-mental-health-medicine
Do dive in.
For those Pink Bikers who offered advice on how Matt should handle his own situation and relationships, things none of us other than Matt truly understand? I'm frankly disappointed in you. I'm not angry. I'm just very, very disappointed.
People with issues of theory of mind are mentally unable to mentalise alterity, so it's as if they're only with themselves mentally, rather than with "others", see what I mean ?
It's like their brain is a computer that isn't connected to the network, or only part of it, kinda like a color blind doesn't see certain colors. Is color-blindness sissy boy snowflake shit ? No, it's a genetical issue. Well, same for many brain issues.
Imagine a badminton game as a metaphor for a human relation, whichever.
The point is not to crush the opponent, it's too make a good game that lasts as long as possible and avoid the shuttlecock to touch the ground. But instead of a net, you have a big one-way mirror. The neurotypical person can see through the glass, but the neuroatypical person with theory of mind issue can't. Just as you can understand this player would struggle, this person is sort of mentally alone with herself when it comes to "mentally visualize" emotions, state of minds, implicit thoughts, etc. No matter how they want to deal with it, their brain lacks the ability to mentalize part of the issue, and therefore part of the solution.
The relation is inevitably biased. You can't get to the middle ground when you don't see the other side of the bridge. When it's an introvert autist for instance, it may be kinda ok, though the autist probably had it tough all his life (or his partner). When it's someone (not)diagnosed with impulsive ADHD, this can be nasty as this person doesn't get the pain (mentally or physically) inflicted to others.
This often leads to trauma, divorce, violence, etc.
See, this ain't no sissy boy snowflake shit.
I don’t think life, and mental health issues, are as simple as you appear to think they are.
Also this article could help some struggling mountain bikers, who may not have the presence of mind to go looking for mental health issues on dedicated websites.
« True self help is helping others » I guess you could write a whole thesis on that statement.
« Making known your personal problems or declaring yourself a victim is almost always selfish ».
Ok, you’re right. I was wrong. Who am I to argue against such a powerful and insightful -science backed- statement ?
Helping poor kids or some homeless won’t prevent issues with your friends or significant other if you have innate cognitive issues (depression, anxity, etc), no matter the good you do. As I explained with the badminton metaphor sometimes it’s about a dissonance between what actually happens in your environment and what your brain perceives (can lead to reactive depression). If it were noticed and addressed straight from the early age it could possibly be fine, but it’s not, hence why many mental issues appear during teen years, cuz’ that’s the time you’re leaving the safety of home (if you had a good one that is) to the unknown of society, egos, feelings, stress etc. And if you try to just do good, you’re probably gonna get screwed big time.
When you go through some really bad times it changes your life. Like your own self is washed away. You’re someone different, not so much defined anymore by what you were from birth, but by what you went through.
See you ride your bike, fall, badly break something and you’ll never perform as before again, no matter how much you toughen up. Well it can be the same for mental health, but it’s in your brain, it’s not visible.
So yeah, you wish you could just tell everyone about what you went through. « See guys, sorry I may not the funniest person around, it’s been tough but if you give me a bit of time you’ll see that I care ».
Everybody’s got issues (break up, unemployment, money or lack there of, stress, sickness etc) but some mental health issue affect the core of your self.
Mental health issues are often part genetic, part environmental. You don’t correct genetic brain chemicals issues by just « toughening up ».
Thing is, most things in life could be represented by a bell curve : Most people are about 170-180cm tall. But the taller or smaller the size, the less people.
So if you’re at either end of the bell curve, risks are higher that you’ll struggle, cuz you’re at or out of the bounderies of your environment. Tall people will hit their heads on door frames. Small people won’t be able to reach the fence on an ATM.
It’s the same for mental health issues. If you’re in the middle you’re gonna have issues, like everyone else, but if you’re on the extremes (ADHD, autism, genetically prone to depression, etc) you’re at a much higher risk of having it tough without even understanding why because it’s not visible. It’s like hitting your head day after day on an invisible door frame. That’s why a diagnostic can be such a relief… when the person hasn’t shielded herself in denial over years of feeling socially outcast.
Adversity in the middle of the bell curve isn’t nice of course (break ups, unemployment, mourning, etc), but common for most human who can relate, but adversity at the extremes of the mental health bell curve is different. Not on another level, it’s not a matter of defining a hierarchy of who suffers the most. It’s different as in it’s part of your self. You don’t overcome it, you live with it (well, one could say you don’t overcome the loss of a loved one, you live with it).
You can get cheated on, break up, feel really bad for a while, then find someone new. Many people get through this (and still, if you’re hypersensible you can have it pretty tough just because your neurons will release more neurotransmitters making you feel more pain, not because you’d be a sissy). But you don’t grow out of mental health issues in a few months.
Regarding autism for instance you have people who think it’s « normal », it’s their genetic, they got diagnosed and adapted to it through ups and downs, and don’t want to be considered disabled. Others have it tougher (or are relatives to an autistic kid who needs a lot of care for instance) and disagree with this point of view, they think it’s not normal, it’s tough, it should be researched medically in the never ending hope of finding a cure.
Who’s right ? I’d say both are.
My opinion is that ideally it should be considered « normal », as in you could say you’re bipolar or ADHD or autistic etc without fearing to be bullied, ostracized, stroked out of an employment list, and you could talk about it with friends and colleagues (without boring them) just like you tell them about how annoying your mother-in-law is. Tell how it affects you, how you adapt, how you treat it if there’s a treatment, that you left the annual meeting earlier because it drains you out. And those mental health issues would be diagnosed as early as possible, and addressed as early as possible, etc etc, and it would prevent many depressions, suicide, addiction, violence, etc.
But it’s not considered normal. And until it is I think we should talk about it. Research in this field have only really started since we invented MRI scan, in the early 80s.
If you really can’t stand it there’s a mental health tag to hide these articles, just like the e-bike tag.
Doing good things can probably help as creating a good environment adapted to your difficulties is essential (leave a stressful job, walk in nature, or ride a bike, don’t spend too much time in crowded places if it drains you out, focus on what’s essential, etc etc…) but it’s not the end all be all answer to mental health and inter-personnal difficulties.