What is depression

Depression, like many other disease processes, isn’t a surprise. You don’t just suddenly wake up one day feeling as though you would rather be dead than have to face 24 more hours on this earth. It’s more of an insidious onset, like the slow building up of your own landfill of rubbish emotions. It may start off with small things: someone not picking you up, being let down at school, your first minor heart break. But then larger and larger events add to it – moving house, job loss, illness. Until in due course you are burying your emotions from the death of a grandparent or divorce in this landfill site. And like a landfill site you can only quell so much until eventually it all comes spilling down on top of you; threatening to suffocate you with the stench of pain. What does it feel like until this point, until the world comes crashing down around you?

Depression is a disease of insight. People with depression aren’t mentally retarded and they usually know very well that their low mood, lack of activity and suicidal thoughts are not ‘normal’. And it is this insight, from which stems the desire to control their low feelings and mood, that only serves to exacerbate the situation. With every attempt at ‘making your self feel better’, ‘perking up, or ‘just shaking yourself out of it’ comes the realization that nothing helps and that maybe you are just destined to be like this. With all of the generic responses from friends or professionals who have no idea what to say to help you feel more and more alone, everyone thinks you should just be able to ‘snap out of it’ so why cant you?

Depression is insensate. Experiencing the world with depression is like feeling everything through a condom: you know what it should feel like, what you want it to feel like and even what other people expect you to feel. But you can’t feel that. It’s not a conscious decision or even a choice, you are reaching out to try and caress life but every time you do there is an almost tangible barrier between you and the world you used to know. And when you come back from trying to face this you are left with a foul residue on your hands as a reminder of how you failed.

As a measure to try and feel something, anything goddamn it, before you entirely sink into oblivion, you may try more and more intense activities.  There is a reason why alcoholism and substance abuse is more common in those with depression, some argue it is cause but in actual fact may be effect. When the world around you is bland anything to spice it up seems feasible.

Depression is not linear. Depression is a disease of peaks and troughs, no two days are the same even if the events are exact mirrors of each other. One day you sink so low you feel you must have hit bottom now but the next month you find yourself smiling at small things. Just as suddenly you can find yourself climbing a hill you could have sworn you’d mounted before.

Depression is not a disease of logic. When you are feeling low it would seem logical that you would do the things you enjoy, hell surely you should do them more! Yet the activities and hobbies that bring you happiness are the first things that exit form your world. Is it because these things can no longer bring you the joy you once felt doing them so instead of looking internally you blame then external, it must be the tutors/trainer/employers/coaches fault. Or is it that because with every increasing ounce of motivation it takes to accomplish anything tasks deemed more important are prioritized ahead of enjoyment.

Depression is not a synonym for laziness.  People with depression describe it being hard to even get out of bed, they may find that facing a telephone call about the bills seems so daunting as to be accomplishable or that the bin bags pile up in the house as even the small task of hygiene requires just too much. After all if you only have a finite amount of energy surely you should conserve it for those life-necessary tasks like feeding yourself and washing yourself and talking to other people. Yet as time passes things that once seemed necessary to life diminish until the basics become the hardest.

Depression is not a disease that facilities sociability. Other people, by virtue of their emotions and all those feelings they salivate, become unbearable as a juxtaposition to your numb bubble. Or they become dissuaded from your personality by your periods of despondency and your apparent inability to react to anything how they would expect. They become sick of your lack of, well, you. Eventually, no matter how good a friend you think they are, they become sick of you. By fault or by choice eventually depression is an isolation bay inhabited just by you and your ruminating thoughts.

Whatever depression is or isn’t it is not a choice. Nor is it a stigma. No more than diabetes or asthma or cancer. Depression is an illness that many people try to cope with alone and misunderstood. Nobody wants to be ill so try and show a little patience even if you lack understanding.

WHAT IS EXCELLENCE?

WHAT IS EXCELLENCE?

Lots of people I know are high-achievers, go-getters, motivated individuals who want to be the best at what they have chosen to do in life. I like surrounding myself by people like this, they excite me and motivate me in turn, making me feel like I can achieve anything that I want to if I just try hard enough (still working on flying). However, it is these very same people who are the harshest self-critics and will berate themselves for what they view as minor misdemeanors. They are often the people who worry the most, work the hardest and unconsciously compare themselves to other people as a measure of how well they are doing. Well first of all I say to these people that you are all excellent because you are all trying, and just endeavoring in the act of striving you are bettering yourself.  But my heartfelt words of encouragement may not be enough to help these people realize that they are the pinnacle, they are the people that change lives, they are the people that do instead of watch, act instead of think, feel without reserve. So, I want to set about defining what is excellence in an aim to prove that excellence is something everyone can achieve.

The English dictionary defines excellence as:

noun

1  The state or quality of excelling or being exceptionally good; extreme merit; superiority

I find this definition annoying and also I would argue that in actual fact it is wrong. Why would I be so blatant as to think I know better than the English dictionary? For these two reasons below.

The first reason being that this definition offers absolutely no context. People rarely exist in a vacuum so surely the state of excelling requires background, situation, context to that persons’ life. 

Take for one example the competitive athlete who has every hour of every day to train or prepare good quality nutritious food. They have ultimate access to trainers and coaches, nutritionists and advisors, maybe even to baby-sitters and child-minders. All they need to do is focus on their goals, train twice and day and eat right. Is this person excellent or are they just good by circumstance? I would contend that any average person who follows that routine would be competition ready in just a few months. 

Maybe I am just being harsh or maybe I am jealous because I would like to be able to have that level of selfishness without thought or heed of anyone else. Surely more impressive is the part-time mum, full-time office worker who fits in twice a day training around long working hours and still makes time for bath playtime and to read her children a bedtime story. That to me says she is succeeding at all other aspects of her life WHILST excelling at fitness.

Not too sure about my example? A bit too specific for those of you who don’t share a passion for training? Another example is the child of wealthy parents who gets a first class degree. Yes hard-work was put in (unless the degree was bought!) but did this student ever have to spend half their time studying and half in paid employment, did they ever have to worry about their next meal or how they would afford the new text book. Did they ever spend 25% of their time cycling to lectures because they couldn’t afford a car. They earned their degree but in the optimal of conditions. Not to sound resentful again but could they have done the same whilst faced with biopsychosocial adversity? 

Last example: the 25-year-old business director who inherited his father’s successful business on leaving college. Would he have been in the same position had he not been heir to an already established business or would he have had to work his way up like other employees? What I am trying to question is whether these people are examples of excellence because of their situation not in spite of it. 

How about the builder that buys an old house to fix up; yes, an impressive task I admit. Nonetheless does this compare to the doctor who works 56 hours a week and buys his own place and does it up all himself (whilst maintaining a relationship and a social life!).  The business owner who writes best-selling books in his spare-time. The couple who race endurance races around looking after their new baby. The uneducated child-minder who takes night courses to then set up her own booming business. 

These people scream excellence to me. They are not only living their everyday lives but are thriving at it yet still manage to achieve excellence in something they have chosen, whatever that may be. If these individuals have reached excellence in one part of their life at the detriment to all else is that really excellence? I argue that truly inspirational people are not those who have a perfect set of circumstances and reach brilliance but those who achieve it in spite of imperfect environments, against odds and making their own route that works for them.

Reason number two for disagreeing with this definition is the mention of the word superiority. This words necessitates connotations of negativity; by my definition people who excel do not exude superiority, they don’t have to show off what they can or can’t do and they don’t need the world to think they are perfect in an effort to strive for external validity. A brilliant, inspirational person is one who seeks excellence not to boast and parade on display but for themselves. They don’t make other people feel inferior by their lesser ability but aspire to help others achieve their own state of excellence. They are quiet and happy in their abilities and they know they will get their moment to shine.

So my friends this is the reason that I say you are all excellence embodied. For you are all an exception to your environment rather than a product of it. You all strive, work hard, keep pushing even when faced with set-backs. You all judge yourselves too harshly so give yourselves a smile J

Inner Monologue

Most people have some sort of internal monologue that goes on during any given moment. I've decided I must be special because I have a dialogue inside my head during any given day. I'm convinced that this second voice of mine is that of an extremely cynical, slightly cantankerous, ranty old person that I am going to grow older to be (I've resigned myself to this fact). 

Generally this second person voice makes me think of inappropriate things so I laugh at just the wrong time (up during a quiet teaching session) but sometimes the witty, offensive-isms usually confined to my cranial vault will pop out of my mouth (at equally an in opportune time) causing offence and outrage. Just so everyone is aware of the tumultuous endogenous situation I have to face on a daily basis, and the extreme self- control that I exert to contain this I have listed below a few examples of what I actually hear when retain words are spoken. 

I would apologise in advance for any offence taken but life's too short to be angry so get over it.  

Quorn - grow small man boobs and ruin your testosterone levels with every bite.
 


Game of thrones - say goodbye to your social life, the gym , or ever leaving your house again.
 


Bulimia - give me attention, give me attention, will someone please pay me attention if I just vomit a bit louder 
 


Organic milk (insert meat or yogurt or any food here) - make yourself believe you are eating healthy by spending more money 


Jimmy choo shoes (interchangeable with Ralph Lauren ties or Chloe bags) - expensive items to give you some self worth 



T shirt with your favourite sports team name - negate looking fat and lazy and being a beer guzzling beast all in one (too small) t shirt 
 


Indie or foreign films - pretending you are too clever to watch decent films so need something "challenging" for your much larger brain  
 


Ordering oysters - willing to eat something with the consistency of snot and the taste of sea water just to show you are cultured 
 


Wearing a gym kit around town - Helping everyone to really know how fit and cool You are, Honestly. 
 


Multiple Facebook posts in a day - achieving the opposite of making people believe u have a life 
 


Men's drain pipe jeans - so everyone can see you have the genitals of a 3 year old (girl)
 


P plates on a car - I would never have passed if I hadn't been wearing a push up bra 

Heinz tomato soup - turning tomatoes a radioactive orange colour and making then in no way taste like actual tomatoes 



Tesco value beans - 50% liquid 40% bean 
 

BMW M series - for when the only exciting thing in your life is driving over 80mph to work 
 


Hollister, superdry and jack wills - for when you have absolutely no style but it's illegal to leave the house naked 
 


Chronic fatigue syndrome - I also believe in fairies. 


What is the point of it all?

What is the point of it all?  

Giving your life goal-oriented direction.

Do you have your own personal life-goals that aren’t related to what magazines tell you, you need or what your friends think are important? Does anything stop you achieving these or, worse, do you not even know what they are?

Recently my best friend (who also happens to be the greatest personal trainer in the world!) made a passing comment in the gym which no one has ever said to me in my 29 years of life before and as such had a profound effect on me. It wasn’t particularly long and maybe not even that insightful to anyone except me, but it changed the way I look at things. He simply asked: “yes, but what is her goal?”

To put this in context we were talking about a slightly rotund, older, lady that regularly uses the gym we use and performs some sort of aerobics/dance steps/Zumba on her own in front of the mirrors in the stretching area. She does this on a weekly basis and doesn’t seem to use the gym for anything else; steadily over time of seeing her on a weekly basis she has become more round and more wobbly.

So what is her goal in coming to the gym? If it is to dance around and have what looks like a fun time then she is achieving that. However, I could probably think of more pleasurable ways of doing this – like in a class of like-minded people or at home in front of a dance fitness DVD if you are more of a solitary creature.  

On the other hand, if her goal of coming to the gym is to lose weight, get fitter or gain muscle she is failing miserably. I can only conjecture on her goals as I haven’t mastered the courage to ask her yet but I wonder if she knows what her goal even is or if she is just mindlessly prescribing to the belief that just by going to the gym makes you healthier; doing the same thing she always does and the only thing she knows on the hopes that she will achieve something, anything, who knows what.

But beyond picking on poor unsuspecting people at the gym to amuse myself this made me look at the world around me and address my own goals and if my actions were working towards achieving these. Am I just blindly plodding on a course set for myself a long time ago? In thinking about this I like to take the inquisitive child approach and ask ‘why, why, yes but why?’ At university I met many people that had come from different backgrounds to me and were certainly working towards very different ambitions, and despite all being highly intelligent people when asked why they were studying medicine many of them had no feasible answer. Of course we all had the stock interview answer ‘to help people’ but few of them could or would give an answer that gave a clearer perception of them as a person.

Indeed there was quite a high attrition rate over the six years I was there and I often wondered if these were the people when asked why they wanted to be a doctor (if they really thought about it) would reply with things like ‘because my parents wanted me to’, ‘ because I was clever at college and didn’t really know what else to do’ or maybe ‘because I thought medicine would be a good way to get lots of money without working too hard’. Wrong on that last account! Whilst I sometimes don’t agree with my sister’s life ethos when talking to me about her career aspirations now she has graduated as a lawyer she tells me that she likes criminal law but there is no money in it so she would rather do something slightly more boring but with greater financial reward. At least she is honest and at least she had goals!

I digress.

In trying to address my life objectives I got quite flummoxed and felt overwhelmed by it all, it’s a massive topic, so decided to break my life down into the main components I felt were important to me. These will likely be very different for other people but for me the main things that matter are my friends and family, my fitness and martial arts, my career and then, widely grouped together, all other hedonistic pursuits such as painting and writing (thus this blog!). I’m sure there are other things I could have included but these would probably be more relevant to what I feel I should think is important rather than what I actually think is. 

For example I don’t care how big the engine on my car is, how many pairs of Manolo Blahnik’s I have, how young I was when I got a promotion, how much my last pay cheque was (as long as it could pay the bills!) or how many vodkas I managed to sink last time I was at the pub.

My goals with relation to my friends and family are to always ensure that they know how much I love them and be there if they should ever need me. I achieve this by telling them all the time and by staying in regular contact with them, whether this is over coffee or a text or a call. I also want them to know that they are my priority in life and I think I show this in loving and caring actions; I generally don’t put something else above them if they need me and I try my hardest to do little, or big, things that I think will make them smile.  I love life and I love them and want the world to know! Well I’ve ticked that box, yay me. Is there anything else I could do better, I’m sure but I am happy in general with this area. 

Are you happy with yours?

My goals in relation to fitness and marital arts are more varied but also more egotistical. I’m not going to lie I want big biceps, toned triceps, ripped abs and lean legs, who doesn’t?! What do I do to achieve this – I do (heavy!) weights three times a week and conditioning three times a week. Am I at my goal yet? No because I have only been doing this for 9 months and because I take a rather lackadaisical approach to my nutrition. No matter how much I want these things I want to enjoy myself more and so won’t pass up on a meal out with my friends or a cheeky afternoon cake and coffee; maybe this is a weakness that I could set a goal to change! Despite wanting these things I also want to do it in a healthy and realistic way, no steroids for me, and if this means slower results then so be it. In terms of my martial arts, I set out wanting to improve my grappling skills and confidence after being choked out in an MMA inter club. I feel happy with my progress in this area after entering some competitions and regularly training, but there is still a fair way to go. Now that I have starting showing progress in this area I want to resume my stand-up fight training to enable me to do an MMA fight and hopefully not get choked again. I am not always exactly on target with these goals and I’m not always awesome at every day of training but I am trying and it gives me a focus so that I am not just numbingly plugging away at the gym with no end in sight. 

What are your fitness goals and aspirations? 

What makes you go to the gym at the end of a long day?

Career, career, career. What can I say about this other than that I view it as a medium to fund my life but refuse to make it the be all and end all of my world. I spent a long time at university training and then spent a few too many years subsisting only to get myself to work, fuel myself at work and then collapse exhausted at the end work. I had no hobbies, I rarely saw my family, I was fat and unmotivated to get fit and I was a mess.  It took a life changing event to make me realise that when I am old and look back on my life (endlessly annoying people with my stories) I want to be able to say I achieved things and I enjoyed myself along the way. My nightmare future self might sit there and say “well I worked really hard and I have lots of money but I didn’t really have time to do anything fun because of all that working.” But I wouldn’t have any friends or family to tell those stories to because I would have made work my priority at the detriment of everything else (and I probably would have died prematurely from too much stress and eating too many canteen chip portions!) So how did I change this and not make work all I did? I applied to work part-time, it took a lot of planning and a lot of paperwork and probably muchly annoyed many admin staff but damn - am I so much happier. And not just happier but I am a better doctor – I go to work and do my job, I smile at the patients and remember tasks I am supposed to do because I haven’t just worked 12 days straight with no breaks and minimal sleep. So in this area I feel I have epically succeeded, and if I think of it in the SMART goal format it is measurable in vast increases in happiness. In terms of my long term work ambitions – well my life may change in the next few years and so I will endeavour to mould my work around this, who knows where it could take me.  

How do you feel about your job? 

Does it make you smile or want to run and hide? 

Is there anything you can change to make it work for you?

Hedonistic pursuits – it is my goal in life to try many new things and do at least one thing every week solely because I enjoy it.  I am of the view that invariably you will only regret the things you didn’t try no the things you did so I am happy to get stuck into anything and accept defeat if it isn’t quite the right thing for me. I have made ‘enjoyment’ one of my main life goal areas because without it what else is there. I have far more interests and do far more new things now than I ever did when I was younger; what changed this? Midway through my university course I needed to get a new job to pay my fees and of course for this job I had to submit a CV. I found this quite easy, I had good skills and could work hard, except when I got to the hobbies and other interests section: it completely stymied me. I had no idea what to put: I liked reading as long as it was only textbooks as I had no time for anything else, I liked watching TV because it was the only thing that allowed me to be brain-dead and not have to concentrate at all, I liked driving if it was all over the county to clinical placements. Then and there I decided that I needed to get a life, I stepped back from my university work and maybe I only ranked in the second quartile not the first and maybe I didn’t get the highest exam grades but I was sane when I graduated. Now I try and stick to my goal of doing something I enjoy as often as I can but at least once a week. I happily enjoy writing and have just been published, I like painting and our walls are full of individual pieces, I make jewellery and beanbags and curtains and I don’t really care if it sounds twee because it makes me happy. 

Do you do anything for yourself? 

Not with anyone else in mind? Something that makes you smile and feel like your sole purpose isn’t being a wife/mother/manager etc.

If this has made you think about where you are in your life and if it’s where you intended then I have also achieved my goal in writing this blog. Not everything goes to plan, I thought I would have a family of my own and be living in America by the time I was 30, and that’s not happening in the next 5 months but that doesn’t mean I haven’t achieved other aspirations. Set yourself some goals, get some direction and treat it as a pleasure to achieve them rather than an arduous slog.

I leave you with this great story I often refer back to when analysing my life and goals:

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented a fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

"Not very long," answered the man.

"But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American.

The fisherman explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The American asked, "But what do you do with all your time?"

"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs...I have a full life."

The American interrupted, "I have an MBA and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant."

"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.

"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.

"And after that?"

"Afterwards? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. 

"When your business gets really big, you can start selling stock and make millions!"

"Millions? Really? And after that?"

"After that -- and this is the best part -- you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, catch a few fish, take a siesta, and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends!"