Depression and exercise.

Everyone hates quarantine, but you know who LOVES quarantine?

Depression. Depression loves quarantine like a fat kid loves cake. Depression loves quarantine like plants love the sun.

I was doing so well- I was taking my meds every day. I was sleeping 8 hours every night. I was on top of my studies. I was employed. I was paying attention to my diet and trying to be a mindful eater.
I had begun exercising in January and had been keeping it up DESPITE NOT WANTING TO for almost three full months- I mean. This is huge for me, a lifelong couch potato (except that fluke where I joined rowing team in middle school and got jacked at 14, despite hating it the entire time and once fainting while running and being screamed at by a coach with a megaphone). I finally accepted that one of the last honestly untried things to try to beat up my depression was exercise, so I was planning its fair shot. So many people are like "exercise saved my life, and it helps you focus, and after a hard workout you get this euphoria and you feel so proud, like you really pushed yourself." Some of these people include my partner. They include people I admire. They include my gloriously slim classmates. I began Nursing school on campus in January, and immediately-cold turkey-changed my schedule and made a plan to set myself up for success.

I made a schedule: I would leave work and proceed directly to the gym M-T-Th. I would workout for as long as I could stand to be present in the gym space, then I would shower and get changed and go study. I would then go to night class, then go home and fall asleep.

I gathered supplies: I procured things to make my shower experience in a public school gym manageable. Extra hair ties. My sneakers would live at school in my locker. I have shampoo, conditioner, a separate bottle of lotion for my face, deodorant, sunscreen, (all the things I need to feel human after working out) live in my locker because I didn't want to  be carrying tons of things back and forth.

I set expectations: DO this three times a week, do not give up (because that's failing, and disappointing). This is good for your health, your self care, your mental health. DO NOT OVER DO. Do not push yourself so hard that you cry in front of other grown adults as you drag your toddler brain into the gym where it doesn't want to go. Don't pull muscles. Don't self destruct. BUILD!

SO in January, after week two, I implemented the plan. Then, I waited patiently for my results. I pushed and pushed and pushed- carefully, tentatively. I went to classes, I studied, I worked, and always I pushed. Looking back, I didn't push for a very long time- three months hardly seems like a blip in the life, but it felt like ETERNITY. In my mind, I was wishing for a nice stable core, triceps that could help me turn a patient without hurting myself, biceps that could brace a coughing person. You know, career oriented fitness goals. Not to put my back out in my first clinical assignment. 

I had mini mental breakdowns, cajoled, bribed and bullied myself into staying at the gym and not giving up and eating chocolate. I bragged about going to the gym, thinking this would definitely make it so my brain would be too ashamed to skip a workout day. I started to enjoy my showers at the gym (a whole separate nest of adders involving self care and my depression), but I still merely tolerated or abhorrently suffered through my workouts. I found the ergometer, and while not enjoyable, I knew this was an exercise I could do- from my rowing days. Hated it then, still don't love it, but it is the least evil machine in the gym. Like a dog that bites, but usually doesn't bite YOU specifically.

***

Part of me genuinely questions if depression itself is what stops all the glorious ya-ya hippie post workout bullshit from happening to me EVER. Thinking about this lately since I'm locked down in quarantine- I have not always been a potato. I've been in shape in my living memory. I have had a flat stomach, and biceps, I have been able to walk 13 miles without flinching, and I have never once in my life felt "euphoric" or "refreshed" or heaven forbid "energized" at the end of a workout. I do not think I have the chemicals necessary for that. The closest I get is feeling dizzy, woozy, or faint.

When I was 14, I was in shape because to join a team and be the only one NOT in shape, was shameful. There was someone following up on you, other team members would tattle if you shorted a workout. Your coach would be disappointed in you. SHE WOULD YELL AT YOU, while you ran (or in my case, pathetically jogged). Even if you cried. She would start an entire set of calisthenics over because YOUR FEET SHAMEFULLY touched the ground while the other team members perfectly hovered their feet 2 inches off the floor, no matter how much their legs shook. So I suffered, but I had a team, and victoriously, I was in shape. 

With a lot of time to think, I have naturally drawn some conclusions. My lifelong hatred of exercise was not changed in three months, despite my best intentions and my plans for a successful exercise routine. My workouts in the last three months have been and are still driven by a self destructive narrative of me fighting to make myself better, but by using the most abusive, sharp tools available for motivation:

Why sharp tools? I run faster when sharp things are after me, especially when I can't hide first. Ask anyone who's been up against Freddie Kruger. Sharp things man-you will run like the wind. How does this narrative work? It starts out pretty innocuously. You will step forward a lot faster if you know that stepping backward lands you on a spike of desolate self-hatred.

Behold, a guide on chasing yourself with sharp things, to watch yourself run at a school gym:

Before:
pep talk: YOU ARE GOING TO EXERCISE. This is gonna be good for you. Gonna stop you from dying as young. Lots of people enjoy this. Maybe you can get there, if you just don't give up. I mean like. Leggings in public. You could do that maybe, if you were a little more in shape. ALSO because sharp thing- YOU ARE FAT; DON'T EVER FORGET, YOU ARE FAT. Seriously there is no part of you that doesn't jiggle, what on earth have you been eating. So you know- hold onto that for a minute.

During:
1) I pick this exercise/ machine/ video I will follow along with.
2) This hurts and I can't breathe.
3) I hate that other people can see me because-sharp thing- I feel fat and out of control.
4) I have forgotten why I thought I could do this. I hate whoever convinced me to do this (me). 
5) I am humiliated that I cannot do EVEN THREE OF THESE reps. I genuinely don't understand how to simplify this to my ability. I have no ability.   
6) I will just die fat, really that's starting to look like the best viable option. 
7) NOW RALLY. You HAVE to do this, HEART DISEASE, REMEMBER? That small tiny part of you that doesn't actually want you to die? I know it hasn't spoken up in the last hour since you got out of your car, but somewhere in your brain there is a part of you that loves you and is scared you are going to die if you don't make yourself do this. SO DO IT.  Grab your sharp thing: It is statistically unlikely this will actually kill you even if you red-line your heart rate- you're 31. I don't even think you can move fast enough to red-line a 31 year old heart. GET A GRIP. Proceed with said grip for arbitrary amount of time until a rational taskmaster in your brain declares, "ENOUGH, BE FREE" (Is it the voice of God? Is it just you yelling in a funny accent? Who knows).

8) Everything hurts and you can't breathe = Success. Go shower. Sharp thing: You're gross. And very sweaty. And disturbingly red in the face. Not unlike a tomato. Mentally prepare yourself to repeat this experience every two days for the rest of your life. Sharp thing: Absolutely feel free to add anything off the a la carte menu on your way to the shower; That you can feel your heart in your throat and eyes at the same time, that you still aren't meeting recommended daily activity needs, that everything jiggles and is sore. Don't forget- guilt yourself as you enter the locker room that you're SUPPOSED TO FEEL only love for your potato body, and only positive vibes, because you're some sort of warrior...princess...? Like a properly skinny and empowered woman. *side eye*

Maybe my dreams and aspirations of exercise being enjoyed, reaping feelings of success, peace and good will after a workout were just bullshit and what I should really have been focused on was, "This may never feel good but it will keep you feeling SOMETHING."

I didn't give up now that I'm stuck in quarantine, but, I'm also not pulling 3K on an erg either. I'm doing 15 minute pilates videos with a theraband every third or fourth day once the guilt of NOT doing that builds up to intolerable levels. It both feels and looks pretty pathetic, and true to form, I hate it. AND I'm STILL NOT MEETING daily recommended fitness levels.