New Boots

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This blog post is dedicated to Toby Carr who died on 10th January. He and I never met but we were online friends. His courageous, adventurous and gentle spirit inspired me, and I’ll miss his presence and all he was so generous to share.

Karen gave me a pair of boots for Christmas. I think they are imbued with magic because I’ve found myself walking in them just about every day since I received them. I’ve fallen in love with walking again. I’ve walked over ninety miles in them already! They’re made by Vivobarefoot who have an innovative and ethical approach to designing and producing a wide range of footwear. I think they are the most comfortable boots I’ve ever worn.

These boots have come to epitomise my recovery process over recent weeks. Normally at this time of year, I’m feeling blue with grim anticipation for the long pull out of winter. Instead, this year I’m feeling bubbly and buoyant which is absolutely fantastic. 2021 closed well for me and this new year holds plenty of promise. Enjoying an extended, relaxed and happy festive period with Karen certainly helped - though I think there is more at play than this. The therapy I was fortunate to receive in the Autumn and the run up to Christmas was a vital component for which I’m eternally grateful. Linked with this, the continued support I receive from my Community Psychiatric Nurse is important too.

There is within me a settled determination to overcome my depression through positive action. I’m at that point in my recovery journey, when I believe I can literally cure myself through activity and adventure. Indeed, over the last couple of weeks I’ve enjoyed active time in the outdoors just about every day. It’s almost as if my new boots are calling for me to put them on and go exploring. I’ve this sense of coherence with regard to my personal struggle with my depression. My thinking has cleared and is no longer ravaged with thoughts of low self-worth and self-disgust. The clarity I’m experiencing is like the air after it’s been freshly laundered by a heavy rain shower. The haze I’ve been experiencing has been replaced with spotless views, so sharp, they take my breath away.

With my newly acquired coherence comes the awareness, I need to be cautious - not to leap forward like a horse from its stall and rush headlong into a race against myself to be come totally well again. In my experience, this has sometimes led to a crash and a deeper depression. However, it’s difficult not to feel excited about the opportunities before me this year, and be eager to fully engage with the world. Certainly, this eagerness has motivated me well so far this year.

Recognising a need to be realistic, I set myself only one resolution at New Year. All the rest are exciting aspirations. My resolution is to lose weight. I began this year 12kgs overweight and I’ve managed to lose 2.1kgs since I set my goal. It helps me to align losing weight with my recovery process, to accept it takes time and there’ll be challenges along the way. Again, I find myself thinking of my boots and how much I enjoy walking in them, working up a sweat, puffing my way towards a rewarding summit or a hidden waterfall I’ve wanted to find. The rewards are not simply the views but a sense of achievement and the knowledge my health is being enhanced. I’ve been suffering from pretty high blood pressure too, with it peaking rather alarmingly over Christmas. It’s pleasing to see it returning to a more normal and healthy level, particularly when I return from time out in my kayak or a long walk.

My aspirations for the year ahead are more ethereal; live with purpose, be more present, enjoy more fun, find my laughter again, revel in the wonders of Nature, and many more like those. With the spectre of my depression drifting further away from me, I find myself believing anything is possible this year. I’m feeling strong. I’m feeling creative. I’m feeling adventurous. I’m feeling impish. Who knows what opportunities I’ll encounter.

I’m inspired to live life as fully as possible. Toby Carr reiterated this for me with his sad passing and through the fullness of his well-lived life. So too have the ravages of the pandemic. Life is tenuous and not to be taken for granted. It’s so incredibly powerful for me to understand this, to know this and to embody this too, because only a few months ago, I was fighting not to end my life through my suicide. Thankfully it’s now difficult for me to reconnect with those deep levels of despair, so much so, I find it hard to imagine feeling that way again.

So here’s to 2022 and all it will offer. My warmest wishes to you and as always, thank you for your continued love and support.

2020 - So Far

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25th August! That is the date of my last entry in this blog. Shameful. Anyway I suppose, better later than never. Here goes.

Yesterday I watched the Scotland versus Ireland play in their opening games of the Six Nations Rugby competition, a hard fought contest between the nations of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy and England. Sporting wise it is a highlight of my year for two reasons. I’m a fan of rugby (used to play it) and think this competition is the finest to watch. Also because the timing of the Six Nations contest marks the end of winter and heralds the promise of spring.

Of course, I want Scotland to feature well in the contest, even win it outright if possible and certainly beat the Auld Enemy, England to maintain our stewardship of the Calcutter Cup. The match between Ireland and Scotland yesterday was a well fought and bruising encounter. Ireland triumphed with 19 points to 12. Both teams were well matched and it was a close call right up to the final whistle. Watching the Scotland team surge close to their opponents try line again and again without success, suddenly clarified for me where I find myself at the moment. The Scotland team were strong, co-ordinated, fearless and at times played with flair. However, at the closest moments when they looked to score a try, they made a mistake and had a penalty awarded against them, or through mishandling, they allowed Ireland to regain the initiative. It was a Scottish onslaught after onslaught with fierce bravery, without success. Even when a try was scored, it was nullified because the player dropped the ball before he placed it on the ground. This moment epitomised Scotland’s fortunes.

I was on the edge of my seat watching the game. As it unfolded and witnessing Scotland’s game, I witnessed through their valiant efforts the experiences I face in my life at the moment. I suppose one of the reasons I haven’t written a blog post for a while is because I didn’t want to hark on about mental health and my depression. Somehow though, there’s no escaping this. I am fighting my depression at the moment as fiercely as Scotland faced Ireland yesterday. I face it head on and tackle it when it attempts to get the better of me, and when I do, I gain ground. Like Scotland’s efforts though, I am often overwhelmed and lose ground again. Since the festive period I have struggled with a bad dose of my depression. So much so, there has been some talk of another hospital admission. I certainly do not want this to happen. I’m determined not to give in and find myself on the ward again watching through the windows, my life pass by.

With a concerted effort to stay ahead of my illness, I have set myself a few achievable goals through the year to provide me focus and the joy of attainment. As you may guess, most of these tasks involve sea kayaking and my connection to the wild outdoors. In 2020 I aim to achieve the following;

  • Kayak 2020 kilometres by the end of the year. Given I paddled 2997 km in four months during my 2015 journey around Scotland, I think this is eminently achievable. The summer months will see me undertake a number of long journeys.

  • Solo bivouac on a different island for a night once a month through the year. The criteria being; the island must be no longer than 1000m and wider than 500m. I have to kayak to it. The island must be a complete island, not one which dries out at low tide to connect to the shore.

  • Kayak around the Isle of Mull closely following the coastline, every loch and indentation.

  • Begin a regular You Tube ‘vlog’ highlighting my life connected to the outdoors, my deeper connection through this process, talk more about mental health and how being outdoors helps my process of recovery. Talk about adventure and why this is so important in my life. With this in mind, talk about my approach to adventure, particularly because much of it is solo, and how I ascertain and manage the risks. In general too, share my life here on Mull as we explore the island by walking and camping. I’d like to also portray a number of film projects which interest me; waterfalls of Mull and the Iron Age remains on the island. I have created a long list of ideas.

  • Become creative again and begin to make jewellery from found objects along the shoreline. I used to make jewellery from sea glass which is why I want to do something similar. It’ll help me if I can sell what I create to support funding for my projects.

  • Finally of course, I have a book to write! I’m confident the reactivation of my physical and creative self, will inspire me with this endeavour.

Somehow though, like the Scotland Rugby team surging against the Irish yesterday, I find myself already feeling beaten back and my resolve tested. I am fighting (I use the word fight a lot), lethargy and sleepy tiredness. My medication, while keeping me above my lowest point, has the side affects of tiredness, trembles and marked problems with my balance. For example, on returning from my first bivouac on an island, I unwittingly capsized in my kayak and ended up swimming in the sea. Having kayaked probably at least 5000km since 2015 without an unintentional capsize, this came as a complete shock. Particularly since I was in Tobermory Bay where I had managed to reach paddling through a sizeable sea. I simply found myself falling to my right and unable to prevent my immersion. If this wasn’t bad enough, I lost my cherished GoPro camera. The saddest thing about this is I had recorded all the footage I needed to post my first vlog. What with the capsize and the loss of the film footage, I feel beaten and demoralised. Not only this, the camera will take time to be replaced because of expense. It is difficult for me to recognise my achievement in completing my island task because of these two disasters.

The effect of the loss of my camera has led me down a path of despondency and questions pertaining my ability to achieve anything in my life. I recognise this is my illness speaking to me, but it can be an overwhelming belief. The analogy of the Scotland rugby team dashing themselves against the redoubtable Irish and not quite achieving seems to be a true on for me. Running this analogy to its conclusion would be the awareness the game is not over until the final whistle, thus never give up hope.

What frustrates me is after my lengthy stay in hospital last year, I left there with renewed understanding on how I can combat my depression through using Cognitive Behavioural methods. At the moment for me, it’s grappling with the knowledge and forgetting how to apply it. I’m irritated by my lack of ability to put to use what I know to be effective.

There are wider aspects of my life at the moment which cause me worry. The greatest of these is my broken relationship with the R.N.L.I. and the belief I have been exploited by the charity on a number of levels. I have a meeting with representatives of the organisation coming up where I hope my unhappy concerns will be heard and addressed. It’s more the sadness I feel about this which deepens my sense of depressive gloom. This situation also creates high levels of anxiety within me.

The side affects of my antidepressant medication are bothering me too. I ask myself daily what is the point of taking the medication if the quality of my life is affected by the very thing which should be enhancing it? I am jittery, my hand trembles so much so, I find myself clumsy when pouring my coffee for example (and you all know how important my morning coffee is to me). This affects my handwriting and simply when I’m trying to relax. The loss of co-ordination and balance dampens my spirits too. The simple task of taking Ziggy for his walk is sometimes a challenge when I stumble and fall backwards on steeper ground. Then there is the issue of my libido. This is non-existent and for a person who, as mostly every other human does, enjoys the intimacy of lovemaking, this is tough to bear. I do find intimacy with my wife through our deep affection and our love, but the physical expression of this has been absent in my life since my time in hospital. As a husband, this causes me worry and concern despite the assurances I receive indicating the opposite. I am in close consultation with my caring mental health professionals about managing my medication.

Then there is the task of writing my book. I admit here, I am woefully behind in even presenting a few worthwhile chapters for consideration. I know what I want to write and there are many times when I experience the urge to put my thoughts on paper. However, the moment I sit before my laptop, my energy grinds to a halt to replaced with self-doubt and concerns about my ability to write. Karen gave me a Christmas gift of a week long retreat at Monhiack Mor, the creative writers centre near Inverness, focussing on memoir writing which is essentially what my book will be. Again though, I’m pressurising myself to have a good amount of writing to present at the retreat.

It seems to me this has been a self-indulgent blog entry detailing my woes. I guess this is true. It is self-indulgent to share my challenges in a public forum, knowing I will undoubtedly receive many words and expressions of support from many of you. In fact though, these supportive responses are hugely helpful for me. One of the greatest challenges I face is the one of loneliness. Of course Karen is my constant in my life and she is wonderful offering her love, support and expressing her belief in me. I lack the companionship of friendship and so find myself seeking this through Twitter and Facebook. Here, I have very many people I call my friends, most of whom I have yet to meet. The friendship and unconditional support I receive from hundreds of folks, is immeasurably helpful. Again though, I resist ‘banging’ on in my Tweets or Facebook posts about my depressive state of mind, for fear of becoming burdensome and seeking continual attention.

To round this off, having written what I have, I feel a strong sense of hope. I know I will replace my camera and I’ll begin to create my vlogs. I know as the weather improves, I’ll be kayaking almost every day. Now we live in a wonderful house, we have visitors lined up to stay with us, thus easing my feeling of loneliness. I have achievable goals to enjoy completing. Finally, I’m honoured to be the key note speaker at the charity Odyssey’s 25th celebration dinner party in March. This fact alone has helped stabilise my sense of uselessness. In return for this opportunity, I have decided to make Odyssey my fundraising charity for the whole year. I will set up a JustGiving page not for one particular event but everything I do through the year. If folks feel inspired by my adventures and/or enjoy the stories I share, I hope they decide to make a donation to Odyssey.

I will make it over this hump and I’m certain when I write here again, my mood will have considerably lifted. Thank you for taking the time to read this and as ever, for your unconditional support.

Resurgence

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The past month or so has been dreadful for me. My clinical depression has had me firmly in its grip, so much so, I’ve been literally fighting powerful urges to complete my suicide. I think this stark statement may come as a surprise to many who have seen me on-line in my Twitter and Facebook personas, posting lovely photographs and typically Nick type cheery comments. This is the nature of my beast,

Resurgence

Last year during my ‘Three Peaks by Kayak’ adventure, I found myself inspired by the various experiences I encountered to make meaning of my depression and understand how I can live with it. There was one particular moment when fighting against the tide in the middle of the expansive Luce Bay off the Galloway coastline, when I came to the enduringly powerful realisation that the discomfort I was experiencing at the time was not permanent, and when the tide I was fighting against changed in a few hours, it would soon pass. In that moment, I instantly embodied this awareness because of its powerfully analogous pertinence to my depression recovery process. In this moment of enlightenment, I finally believed what the many caring professionals had been telling me for many years - “This will pass. Given time, you will become stronger and feel better.”

Making the decision to believe the impermanence of my depression did not lead me to believing I would eventually be cured of it. Instead, this allowed to me to accept I will live with depression all my life, and it’s the deep depressive moments which will come and go. Likewise, the thoughts and beliefs I have about taking my life are associated with these deep low periods and I was now able to counter these with a belief that they are impermanent. I now understood the notion of making a permanent decision based on an impermanent feeling.

However, when my clinical depression takes hold of me and I sink into a deep and dark low, my ability to cognitively function is impaired by the wide ranging self-destructive and self-hating thoughts and beliefs I find myself struggling with. I find myself literally fighting for my life, voicing out loud (when alone), reasons why I shouldn’t kill myself. This is an internal battle which rages in my head and through my body. Thoughts and feelings merge to be expressed in my language, how I think, how I feel emotionally and how I feel physically. My energy and personal resources are expended on this battle and too, in masking this fight from the world around me. I do not want the ordinary world to know of my pain. There may be hints, or I may put out a Tweet which may be more explicit, but generally, I continue post lovely photos with asinine words. (At least I think they are at the time). Likewise around and about in my lived world, people will probably not be aware of the self-destructive thoughts I have running through my mind when I meet them in the street or when chatting over a pint or a coffee.

There have been a few moments recently when I have desired hospitalisation because the struggle to overcome my thoughts of suicide have been more than I could cope with. However, there’s always been one reason or another why I didn’t explicitly seek this and I continued to fight on my own. In a way, the now embodied adage “this will pass”, enabled me to remain with my distress in the knowledge that it was likely to diminish over time. I continued to live my life in the public realm as unobtrusively as possible, hoping few people would cotton on to the mask I was wearing. Karen was totally aware of course and lovingly supportive. Likewise, my C.P.N. was happy to see me twice a week for lengthy appointments. I wasn’t totally alone.

I’m often asked what the causes are for a particular bout of depression, something I can pinpoint as the originating source. Generally there is none. The malaise takes root, deepens and insidiously manifests itself to the point where I become overwhelmed by it. I’m aware of its early presence and determine I will not allow it to take hold of me, but despite making efforts to stall the process by undertaking health enhancing activities, the depression is the stronger. My mood sinks and I am engulfed with beliefs of self-hatred, self-loathing, and uselessness. No matter how heartening the reassurances from friends and family about my worth, these messages of genuine warmth and love fail to reach my core. I find it easy to counter them with the all to predictable response - “Yes, but…”. This in turn serves to make me feel even more unhappy, because then I add the belief I’m an unnecessary burden to those who love me.

Having met with a psychiatrist, I am on a new medication regimen which he is confidently hopeful will help me raise my mood and begin to feel the joy in life again. To be truthful, I detest taking anti-depressant medication because I have found the side-effects to lead me to feeling more unhappy than the opportunity for a cure. Feeling sluggish, doped, constipated, lost libido and other minor conditions, all serve to reinforce the futility I feel about my life. For the last eighteen months I have been medication free, determined to live with my depression in an organic, self-sufficient manner. To all intents and purposes I think I managed to do this successfully until the point this year, just after Christmas and my mood slipped past my ability to self manage myself. Even then, it took some insistence on the health professionals’ part to encourage me to consider taking medication again. It’s early days still.

Despite this desperate bout of depression, I have looked forward to the future, and found within myself a desire to plan for another kayaking adventure. Not only this, I have chosen to invite a new friend to share the adventure with me thus breaking with my usual process of kayaking solo. In getting to know Jack on-line and then meeting him recently, I have discovered a friend who shares my understanding of the world and a passion for exploration by kayak on the sea. Our common ground is our connection to the R.N.L.I. and it is the charity which forms the basis of this expedition. You can read more about this here.. Sharing a kayaking expedition is going to be a renewing experience for me because it’s many years since I last headed off into the wide yonder with someone beside me. I’m really looking forward to Jack’s companionship.

Today the sun is shining and the sea is calm. It is the last day of March and early this evening we move out to our summer mooring in the bay. I’ve readied the engine, checked the electrics and filled the water tank to the brim. Propane gas bottles for cooking and heating are charged, and the inflatable dinghy we use as our tender has been spruced up with a wash and a new seat. There is something in this transhumance experience of mine, moving from our winter berth to our summer one, which excites me and reminds me of the resurgence of life. Around and about there are the signs of spring. The cormorants are gathering materials for their nests on the nearby cliffs, the trees are beginning to show signs of green and the sea is becoming translucent again. I feel my blood moving within me, a sure sign that life is returning and soon the shackles of this depression will be shaken off. With the help of my medication, I’m hopeful in a few weeks I’ll be noticing the colour of the world around me again.