Battlegrounds

     I've made no secret about my struggle with depression. OK, maybe in other parts of my life, but it's no secret to anyone who reads this little blurb of a blog. It sucks, and the anxiety that goes along with it sucks even more. So as I sit here at work, totally overcome with panic and dread and worry, my only outlet is a strength gripper that I keep on my desk. 

     I'm no doctor, by any means, and I've only read briefly on the connection between depression and exercise. I can tell you first hand though that it has been the only thing keeping me in a quasi-sane state of mind. With depression, the movement helps snap you out of the stagnant state that you're in. It produces beneficial chemicals in your brain that have been proven to boost your mood. Granted, they're small amounts, but it may be just the kick you need to make it through the day. On the days that all I want to do is sit in the corner and cry, training has forced me to carry on. Now, the will to get out of the corner and actually start training, that's a strength all in its own, and I'm damn proud and glad that I have that. I have no one close to me to come pull me by the arm and force me to the gym. I only have me.

     Anxiety though, ahh, anxiety. What a little bastardly prick it is. Anxiety, for me, is that neurotic voice in my head that takes great pleasure in reminding me of all the things that could go wrong. It joyfully tells me of all the ways that people can hurt me, and it happily shares memories of stupid things I've done. It builds up a feeling of tremendous pressure inside my chest, makes me sick to my stomach, and makes it feel as though I will literally explode with all these troublesome thoughts. Physical activity is the antithesis to anxiety. That's why I have the grippers. Even that small amount of exertion is a physical release of some of that internal pressure. But the real release is lifting. 

     Lifting heavy weight, moving through sets of high reps, you have no time for troublesome thoughts. If you lose your focus even for a minute, your form goes to hel and there's a good chance you'll wind up hurting yourself. So that little fucker of a voice has to be silenced to perform. There's another way that it releases the anxiety for me though, and I've been thinking more on this lately. There's a certain amount of pain during training, right? I don't mean the muscle soreness after. I mean it will physically hurt to hold a heavy bar on your shoulders. To me, it's as if the internal pain, all the hurt in my mind, is being physically manifested at that moment, and it's my one chance to win. It's my chance to feel that pain, and tell it to fuck off. If I cave and say, "nope, i can't push through because it hurts" then I have basically told my anxiety that it's better than me. Why would I do that? Why would I want to feed into that awful energy and make it bigger and more powerful? I will not allow that to happen. So I fill my belly with air, set my shoulders, and push. For me, there simply is no other choice.

     I realize that to some, this all seems a bit much. It seems like there's way too much thought being put into this whole lifting weights thing. But for someone like me, it's only a fraction of the thoughts that go through my head each day. The gym, my garage, the hills where I run, they are the battlegrounds where I fight to live another day. Not every enemy is seen. Not every enemy is visible. Every enemy is defeatable.