I’m not a psychologist or a therapist or any kind of mental health specialist — but most of you reading this probably know that. I would never presume to know how to diagnose or treat a person with mental illness of any kind. The truth is I don’t really understand most people and their behavior most of the time. But, I do know myself. Although I’ve never been diagnosed with any sort of mental illness and I’ve never been prescribed medication or therapy, I do know that I am human — frail, mortal, filled with emotion, and living in an often not-so-nice world.
As a human being, I think I am one of the more emotional versions. I cry for the suffering people on Colfax Avenue whom I’ve never even met. I tear up when I look back at my children’s Kindergarten artwork. I sob when I think that my life has little meaning and I make no difference in the world. I awake in anger and fear from my nightmares. But, I’m not a mental healthcare expert, just a person who deals with her own mental health every day in the only way she knows how — by lacing up my running shoes.
This is part two of a story I wrote about the emotional pain brought about by the Sandy Hook school shootings three months ago. When I wrote part one, I had so many thoughts in my head about how this could happen again. Why the shooter did what he did. Why there was no one around to help him. Why we are suffering so much as a human race to cause this sort of destruction. I couldn’t finish the story at the time because there was so much we didn’t know — only that the babies of so many parents are now just living in their memories.
They were not my babies. But, I felt sick. I needed to take control of this but I couldn’t. All I kept thinking was that I needed to run. I needed to sort things out in my mind as the miles passed swiftly under foot. This is how I’ve managed my mental health since high school. When I was going through my divorce five years ago, I would run the same route up Waterton Canyon every day. At the four-mile bridge, I would stop, look down at the river, and sob until the tears fell into the water. For me, those falling tears needed to come for without them, I simply existed as a shell in my daily life. Running and crying was a huge physical and mental release.
Running didn’t take away the hurt, but it allowed me the time I needed to process my feelings, my grief, my loss, and my failure. It allowed me to breathe. Really breathe. When I would return from each run, I would return with so much more than when I left. I returned with control because I had just accomplished something — one thing. Often, when we feel lost and desperate, accomplishing one thing is the springboard we need to start healing. During my runs, the combination of adrenaline and dopamine make me feel stronger and more worthy. When those chemicals kick in, I can put the pieces of my emotions in the right compartments to be handled at the right time, my mind clears, and the hurt doesn’t hurt quite so much.
I do think it’s possible that running can help other human beings like me who are wired to feel emotions more deeply than most. I know I am not alone. If nothing else is working, maybe a brisk run followed by a big hug could help one person at a time feel better — until there is a lot less pain causing a lot less violence. Maybe.
[To be continued]
