Opinion: The Unexpected Upsides of Mental Illness
People don’t talk much about the upsides of mental illness. There’s not much time for silver linings when you’re suffering. Yet even in the midsts of that suffering is the germ of a rare gift: clarity.
For me, at least, when things were bad my life was stripped away to the very essentials. When you’re f*cked up and medicated beyond the point of function you have to pare your life back to one or two things. In my case, it was trying to work my way out of the hole and support my wife (who was working to support me as I couldn’t).
The daily routine would go something like this: Wake up feeling shit from having barely slept. By 9 or 10 the overwhelming sensations of dread usually lightened a bit so grab some breakfast. Ride out the fear on the sofa until I had enough energy to make lunch. Walk around the block. Meditate. Make fire and dinner, boil the kettle. The goal was that I would walk and meditate every day, and when Mary walked through the door she would have a warm house, hot meal and a mug of tea to come home to. Some days I managed to get it all done.
Other days it was too much, I was too tired. Some days I would get it nearly all done, but the stress of trying to manage it all was too great and Mary would come home to find me untethered and angry. I’d find something to get upset about and shout at her until I ran out of energy and found myself sobbing on the floor, hating myself because I knew deep down that my anger was destroying my marriage. I don’t think anyone would have blamed Mary for walking away.
Thankfully she didn’t, and agonisingly slowly (or at least that how it felt at the time) I began to work my way out of that hole. Soon I could think about riding bikes again, of living a life beyond the confines I needed to survive in those early days. Yet I was fragile, I could cast my net a little wider, but I still needed to pick and choose my battles.
It is in that process where you need to figure out what is and isn’t important. Without the youthful luxury of inexpendable energy, what are the things you can do that have the biggest impact on your life?
Sitting some three years out from those days, that process has never stopped, it has just expanded. My capacity for work, stress and exhaustion is far less than it was before. That is not to say I don’t enjoy my life, a former colleague even accused me of being happy recently, but to keep things that way I need focus. Rebuilding my life I had to think long and hard about what makes me happy - about what success might look like for me today.
Who amongst us, pushed and pulled by the ceaseless demands of our ever-accelerating society has time to stop and think deeply like this? That is not to say you need to have a full-blown breakdown to re-assess your life, but for me, my illness gave me that time and space to re-evaluate my life, and that is truly a gift.
I remember seeing the cliche on TV. People who had suffered nervous breakdowns dropping out of their high-flying lives and taking simple, sometimes menial, jobs. In the past I thought they were failures, their illness meant that they had to retreat into these small, pathetic lives. I was still in the mindset that to be happy you have to succeed in a traditional sense, it never occurred to me that these people might be happier in these new, smaller lives.
That’s the thing with real clarity, you may realise that the goal you have been chasing is not the right one for you. In some ways, I am lucky that I hated my career while I was still in my 20s and made the tough call to walk away from my life in search of something else. But my breakdown showed me that the process was not finished, that I was still trying to win at photography, writing, whatever else I was into. I felt like that to be successful I had to drive myself harder and harder. Since my breakdown I have tried to let go of this, to try and let the unhealthy competitiveness fall away.
What I have come to understand is that what I really want in this world is my quiet life here in the mountains. Mary and I have just bought a house, so I need enough money to make that secure, but also I need enough time to enjoy my life.
Maybe I will never go back to running around the globe, maybe I will never earn as much money as I did before, there are lots of maybes. But on Monday a huge storm passed over the house. I spent Tuesday clearing out the access road and took a couple of hours to pedal my road bike. I could take that time away from work without worrying, without feeling guilty. As the sun dipped away from our valley I sat out on the porch with Mary and we reclined in our seats as night came down around us. For me, that is all I need - this is my new idea of success.
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As a dad of 2 kids that have struggled with depression & anxiety, I empathize. I’m very, very glad you found hope, support and a way forward.
Environment changes— being outside, riding— are a very important part to include as it has the power to literally help rewire the brain.
What we’re learning is that mental health is multi-dimensional —with social, cognitive, emotional, environmental, genetic and other components. The past only addressed symptoms (as was the standard with the Diagnostic Statistical Manual that framed mental health as defined by what symptoms a person was experiencing).
The problem with that is two people could be experiencing, say, depression symptoms and have different causal factors for what was underlying the depression.
Now we’re seeing new models like the NIH rDOC (www.nimh.nih.gov/research/research-funded-by-nimh/rdoc) take a multidimensional stance to understanding mental illness and brain health.
As a dad and research collaborator, this gives me hope for new ways to address mental health. I may get prescribed a community, an activity, personalized medicine, and do so in partnership with one’s family, not just a single person.
So, keep riding! Talk with people. And if you’re thinking that the pain of this world is too much, text HOME to 741741 to get help now.
Peace!
Though your darker times may return in the future, it will get easier and I imagine you go forward and deal with the trivial issues of life in a way others who haven’t felt the way you have can - just being reflective on your own life and making changes is huge and so many can’t achieve that.
Writing this article in itself is a big step and from my experience though the looking glass onto mental illness (quite a bit) I have come to understand that when you are at rock bottom tiny acts require huge efforts, like you say, just getting off the sofa, washing of even eating - people who haven’t witnessed this can’t understand how a task so simple has become so herculean.
All the best going forward Matt - get some pictures up of the new place and make us even more jealous about how beautiful it is around there.
I went from being a bike mechanic to being the Technical Editor at Dirt Magazine, a job that many would consider to be a dream job (as I did at first), but over the 10 years I was there it nearly destroyed me. I also subsequently worked on another 'dream project', but unfortunately ended up working with some folk who clearly didn't value mental health...now though I am back to being a full time bike mechanic and by far the happiest I have been in longer than I care to remember. I don't give a toss if some folk see me as 'just' as bike mechanic, it's the thing that I love doing the most, and I will do it until the day I die.
So yeah, I guess I'd say just listen to your gut (when it's not pranging out unnecessarily that is), and contrary to what social media tries to get us all to do, don't compare yourself to others. All easier said than done, but that's been the key for me.
Someone once told me “Everyone is doing the best they can. Be patient.”
Feel free to drop me a dm if you need a friend disconnected from your life to chat with. The same goes for anybody else that reads this.
I was hoping for a mental health article on #worldmentalhealthday and I'm not disapointed, this story is beautiful, inspiring and full of hope for those who struggle with mental illnesses. As biking/exercise are so important for a good mindset, it's good to see Pinkbike dedicating an article today on this subject !
Thanks to Matt for sharing your story in a such courageous way !
If change is good… why do people resist change?
Don’t underestimate the strength required to deal with both mental illness and physical illness. As Matt, and others in the comments have said well, the two are codependent - often in ways we take for granted until you can’t.
Friends and family who are faithful (like Mary, above) are priceless. And when you can’t find them, I’ve often wished I knew who to thank for putting me on to Thoreau:
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
You’ve perhaps inspired me to relate my own spectacular fall from grace. I barely made it back from the brink, I welcomed oblivion.
It takes true bravery to open yourself up like this. Thank you.
I see this “burnout” in many of my patients, sometimes it happens early in life, dropping out of college, while others can push through into their middle age, then there’s the folks who retire and find a different kind of struggle.
Finding satisfaction in life and maintaining that sense for a lifetime is hard for many people. If you’re struggling with “happiness”, chances are you’ve already done everything you know to do.
Go see a mental health provider, there’s no shame in wanting to feel better.
anyway, thank you for sharing.
Luckily I had the sense to take some time out, and seek some help in the form of counselling. That was the best thing I ever did, as it made me face some tough facts and make some changes. End result: I kicked my PhD to the curb and ended up on the path to opening my own bike shop.
There are still good days and bad days. I don’t deal well with intense stress - currently in the process of selling/buying/moving house and I had a “bed day” relapse last week. But talking always helps, as does having a good relationship, and at least having a job that I look forward to working with people I look forward to spending my day with.
In short, talk about your shit and do something that makes you happy, societal or family expectations be damned. You WILL get through the dark times.
Good luck!
Sadly, this sort of misinformation is far too common.
There’s an old adage which hopefully translates:
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
As someone who ticked all the boxes for Adult ADHD(on going assessment), thanks for sharing Matt!
Exercise and meditation are such profound re-sources, especially in the context of 21st century hyper-stimulation, and the way the internet/digital interfaces teach us to exist in a dissociative state.
Let's keep riding, keep feeling the breath, let ourselves smile gently, and share gratitude with our loved ones and this Earth.