Options
Talkback: Depression: a triathlete's experience
Andrew4
Posts: 190
in General Chat
A great article and its fantastic to see people writing about their experiences and trying to crack the stigma on mental health issues.
0
Comments
I guess I'm lucky - my depression is on the mild end of the scale. I do have my down days and I have my coping strategies, but having taken to triathlon 2 years ago I have fewer mood "crashes" and each tri I complete, each training goal I reach gives me a little boost.
Triathlon has made me a happier, healthier person and I'm grateful for it but like most people in my position I'm not ready to publically share the fact I have depression, especially in a work situation.
So good to read someone who acknowledges that sport - and specifically triathlon - is a mixed blessing. I am so weary of the macho men and women saying things like "Just get out out on your bike; all your troubles will blow away!" If only...
I've just achieved a successful 140.6 result, despite the depression-interrupted training plan, and have a half-ironman and many age-group successes behind me, but it all feels worthless and empty. Would love to say that exercise blows all my troubles away, but it seems to be so difficult at the moment, I'm in a vicious circle right now and I question why I'm even in tri! And have been open about my 'stuff' in recent months (brief mentions of it, not going on & on about it!) only to find that people seem scared of it and stay away from me - there could be other reasons for that, of course! I work in mental health too and still see stigma all too frequently, not just with service users but amongst staff too.
Don't know if it's allowed to mention this here, but I do have a blog on tri and mental health - I hope it's of help/consolation to at least one other person...www.trihitrilow.com
All the best and thanks again for raising this issue.