The title of my book, I’M NEVER ILL (A journey through brain surgery and beyond…) stems from the fact that I appear to have a first class immune system. My body seems to reject all kinds of bugs and viruses with great ease, pushing them aside like a soft breeze. People would say things like, “Don’t come too close to me – I’ve got a cold.” I’d tell them that I’m never ill so I have nothing to worry about. Of course, when I was struck down with a brain haemorrhage in 2009, I was taken ill in the most dramatic of fashions. Even then, I returned to work after just three months and went on to live a normal life. Since then, I have never been ill, apart from an episode of double vision for a couple of months (if you can call that an illness), that was directly related to the surgery I’d received in 2009. I have always taken a pride in my sickness record in work, and I would always boast to my employers that “I’m never ill” – well, not until two years ago.
*Let me just explain a little about my work. As far as my writing is concerned, and as far as my “public” social media activities are concerned, I don’t talk about my “day job”. That’s just how it is. There are very good professional reasons for it. Suffice it to say that I have a humble day job that I’m lucky to enjoy very much. I don’t dread Mondays and I’m never desperate for Fridays. I feel privileged. It’s also fun for me to have a double-life as an author together with my normal working life.
In December 2018, I took the unprecedented step of declaring myself unfit for work. I was ill, but not in the sense that many people would associate with the normal understanding of the word “ill”. It was depression – the “can’t get out of bed” type of depression that some people understand, while others, through no fault of their own, do not. It was almost a year since my catastrophic double trauma of December 2017. Ever since then, I had limped along in a daze, until a build-up of pressures eventually caused me to crumble into a pile of dust.
I went to see my doctor. I was offered anti-depressants. I refused them. I’d taken them for a short time twelve months previously, but went cold turkey after a couple months. I told her that I had a place in the London Marathon for April 2019. I wanted to use exercise to help combat my mental struggles. I had a subscription to a local gym/spa (Bannatyne’s Health Club) and was planning to spend much of my time there either recuperating or pushing through (depending on how the mood took me). By now, I was starting to increase my running distances significantly, albeit hampered by injuries. Endorphins (I prefer to call them endolphins because the shape of their faces make them look as if they’re happy, even when they are not) can create a natural high. I’m one of those people who also gets a natural high when running at a relaxed pace. Obviously, when training, you have to push yourself on occasion to the extent that you may not be enjoying yourself at the time, but there is also a saying, “The only runs you ever regret are the ones that you didn’t do.” When you have completed your task, no matter how hard it was at the time, there is always a sense of satisfaction.
That sense of satisfaction after completing any task is something you need when you are depressed. Depression is exactly what it says – it keeps you down. It stops you from doing things – sometimes even the simplest of tasks. Something like a health club membership with gym and spa facilities can really help. You can turn up and decide when you get there whether or not to relax or work out. Whichever you do, you will feel a little better for it. But any sense of achievement when you are in such a dark place can help, even if it’s just making that phone call that you’ve been unable to face, or sending an email that you’ve been putting off. A sense of satisfaction is what you need, no matter how small it is, to keep you going. There will be times when you simply can’t pick yourself up, but that is only temporary. I was constantly being told by someone close who helped me through this period a lot, “Mark, this is only temporary.” This is something that depression sufferers need to understand.
I managed to return to work in the New Year after four weeks, still struggling along to some extent, but by now the worst was over. There was still, of course, much, much more to come. I managed to complete the London Marathon, celebrating the 10th anniversary of my brain haemorrhage, raising £2,600 for The Brain and Spine Foundation. That, in itself, was an epic journey within my own personal epic journey. That gave me a sense of satisfaction to some extent, but even that wasn’t a solution to my burdens.
Nonetheless, it was the focus of the London Marathon that helped me during this particular part of the journey through my depression. It coincided with the toughest period of the whole unnecessary episode in my life that had been thrust upon me. As I’m writing this, I’m beginning to realise that it was a combination of exercise, focus and determination that helped me through these darkest times with no medication at all. I guess I could have crumbled, but once you have announced to the world that you are going to do the London Marathon, there really is no going back. It brings out a warrior from within that, although in my case was a weakened warrior, can help you to force yourself to get up off the floor.
I never got round to writing my blog about my London Marathon experiences. I was never in the right frame of mind. I consider myself to have recovered from my depression now, so maybe now is the time to write it.
Watch this space.
MARK D PRITCHARD writes... 