you better believe it’ll be worse.
Disassociation (or derealisation) is a condition which makes the world suddenly seem unreal. Actually, I don’t think I’ve made this sound as heart-stoppingly awful as it is. It’s not just the world that feels unreal – it’s that the people you love the most seem fake, your home feels like a film set, your dog looks flat, your own face doesn’t look like your face. Everything feels staged and wrong and just … off. I later learnt that psychiatrists believe that it’s a sensation your brain employs when it’s exhausted from worrying – shutting your mind down (somewhat). So it’s actually an attempt at protection, but to me it feels a bit like a mate who sleeps with your partner and earnestly explains that they only did it to help you. I’m not saying thank you either way.
What would have happened if I’d just put on some trainers and tried to outrun these awful feelings? It’s something I’ve asked myself repeatedly in the years since. Nothing is as simple as that, and it would be insulting and irresponsible to even hint that it could be. Running is not a cure-all for severe mental illness, or anything else for that matter. It’s right to acknowledge that early on. But I often think of the girl I was in my twenties and wish I could go back and try other things, as many of my friends did when things got difficult. Your twenties are a time for experimenting, having fun and enjoying everything that life may offer you, or so we’re told. Instead, for many people, I think they are a time of massive insecurity, debt, and a sense of displacement – a decade of worry and fear. So I did what I could. I dropped out of Uni, went to a psychiatrist and took the antidepressants that I was swiftly prescribed. What else could I do? At this point, suicidal thoughts were creeping in, and even through my wildly unreal prism, I could tell that those thoughts would only lead somewhere I didn’t want to think about in further detail.
Despite all of this, I was extremely fortunate – it’s so important that I recognise that. I had a family who, while not fully understanding at all why their daughter was crying hysterically all the time and refusing to go out, had the resources to pay for me to see a professional. Seventy-eight per cent of students reported a mental-health issue in 2015, and 33 per cent of those had suicidal thoughts.[15] My NHS GP was kind, but could only offer to put me on the waiting list for therapy, which stood at six months back then. More than one in ten people currently wait over a year for any kind of talking therapy, with the same number having to scrape together the private funds to pay for help themselves. Some universities are now offering exercise classes (in tandem with the usual talking therapies) to students with depression and anxiety, an encouraging sign that experts in mental health are still linking up the physical and the mental in ways we’ve not yet fully explored.
It’s not just depression and anxiety that an activity like running has been proven to help with. Even as you read this, you might well be experiencing something equally as isolating: you might be feeling lonely. Loneliness is something that we increasingly recognise has a huge impact on our mental and physical health, yet so many people still feel unable to admit to it. The stigma that surrounds it can make us feel pathetic, unlikeable, inadequate, and it can be really hard to see a way out of it. People often say it’s hard to walk alone in life. Sometimes it’s bloody hard to run alone too. This may be why Parkrun has become such a hit across the UK. Every week, at 414 parks scattered around the country (and in fourteen countries worldwide), people congregate early in the morning to jog together.[16] Though I often need to run alone, some of the best routes I have taken have been with my sister, with an ex-boyfriend and with new friends, where we’ve shuffled along, gradually getting to know one another better while pushing each other forwards. When you’re unable to put on a front because you’re wheezing and sweating profusely, it’s genuinely astonishing how close you can feel to the person next to you doing the same.
As I was writing this book, a survey of more than 8,000 people was carried out by Glasgow Caledonian University to look at whether running can make you happier. The questionnaire used the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, and asked people to answer questions using a rating between 1 (unhappy) and 6 (extremely happy). Parkrun participants emerged with an average of 4.4, compared to the general population, who scored an average 4.[17] The sense of community that running with others provides ranked highly with the responders, who said that the support and sociable elements of running with others was invaluable.
Sara, who suffered with postnatal depression after the birth of her first child, told me that running with a friend provided some light in the dark. Someone who would pick her up and force her out, someone who pushed her on and kept her going when she might not have bothered herself.
‘I’m quite a solo runner, and a bit of a hermit, so I actually like running by myself and get a lot of benefit from that, but at the same time I know the fact that I had one friend who kept pushing me (in a nice way) to run was probably a key part of my recovery that one time,’ she told me. ‘I might’ve done it myself eventually, but she certainly speeded things along. And, of course, having meaningful connections with other people is a big part of sustaining good mental health. I’ve always felt that it’s the physical act which is key for me, because I get kind of addicted to the physical sensations, but actually I realise now that without that key friend I might not have managed to get that far!’
So many people I spoke to during the course of writing this book spoke of the important social aspect that running provides. Running with a partner, or a friend, or just meeting people out and about can be a balm to the isolation that mental-health problems create. Even if you run alone, you’re connecting with the world around you, and it’s still surprising just how effective that can be when you’ve not spoken to another person in days.
Alongside the effect exercise can have on depression and anxiety, there have been some amazing clinical trials that have looked into whether aerobic exercise can help people who suffer from schizophrenia. A 2016 study at the University of Manchester reported that working out reduced the symptoms in patients with psychosis by 27 per cent.[18] Initial trials in the USA on veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have also found that exercise brings about a reduction in fear, along with a lessening of the physical symptoms. Of course, all these results do not negate the need for therapy, medication and other support structures, but they bring hope that there is perhaps also more that we can do to help ourselves.
The pills that I took definitely helped, and I was able to look at myself in a mirror again without wondering who the fuck was looking back at me. I got a job, was able to go out again (while always looking for the fire escapes), and managed a few relationships. I was patched up, in the most basic sense. Nothing was fixed, but I wasn’t staring at walls and hyperventilating either, so I took the pill. I say all this, not to give you a small insight into my not particularly special mind, but to show how easy it is to accept the most pallid imitations of existence when you’ve got a mental illness. To paint on a small canvas, and to pretend that you’re happy with the narrow perimeters you’re able to move within. Not at all a life wasted by any means, but a life limited in a variety of ways. It can feel just about fine, but it can also feel stunted, a compromise that takes a lot from you. So to find something that breaks you free of this can feel utterly miraculous. For some that may mean medication, for others meditation. My mother does yoga whenever she feels low. A colleague of mine lifts weights to keep depression at bay, and one friend boxes because he feels far too angry and it helps keep those thoughts under control. One girl I know with severe bipolar credits her treks across the local park with saving her in small ways every day. I even know somebody who cross-stitches when she feels that familiar anxiety rushing in. Somehow, after a decade of settling for merely ‘managing’, I’d found the thing that broke me out of it: I’d found running.
One day, after a few months of gingerly testing myself trudging around the local streets that I’d come to know with my feet, I decided to go further. I ran to my firmly set boundaries, and then I ran past them. I ran into the heart of the city, towards one of the bridges that traverse the Thames and beckon you over with the promise of light and air, and I headed across without a backwards glance. I crossed another bridge, intoxicated by the sunshine on my skin, and I ran into
