Who am I?

If you set goals that challenge you, there's a strong change they'll change you. That's not a bad thing, but it has to be acknowledged that there may be some people in your life that think it is. But what if the change in who you are fundamentally is something you're finding difficult to get your head around? What if you want to determinedly hold on to the 'identity' you believe you hold? This could be something you created yourself, or perhaps an identity that those around you have concocted, but sometimes we take comfort in this - and sometimes that's the one thing holding us back.

Okay, so here it is, I haven't written about this at all yet, nor have I really spoke about it, but for most of 2014 I was in counselling. At my very lowest towards the end of 2013, overwhelmed with pretty much everything in life, uncontrollably sabotaging myself, and unable to keep up the persona of 'the life and soul of the party', some people walked out of my life. I watched them go, berated myself, and sank lower. I refused to go to the doctor, mainly because the fear of a diagnosis kept me from doing so. I didn't want a label, and the associated tub of pills... but worse, I feared being told there was nothing wrong with me. So I hid, and struggled to live my life as best I could. Weight went on, I withdrew from races, I withdrew from people... To many, there wasn't much difference, on the outside. I still turned up to volunteer or crew at ultras, I still turned up to parkruns. But I sat in the car afterwards and cried, with the pressure of it all.

Eventually I decided to reach out for professional help... and for 10 months I was in counselling. It was painful, difficult, and heartrending, but something very special started to happen. I began to understand why my thought processes worked the way they did - why I was so awful to myself all the time, where the sabotage originated, and what could be done (with a lot of work) to start putting it all right. In our last session, I confided that I didn't think I was ready to go it alone. My therapist said I absolutely was. But neither of us was quite correct; I didn't have to go it alone, because there were people around me who had stayed, and accepted me regardless.

Still, through the hesitant steps to better mental health, I clung resolutely to the character people expect from me, or that I think they do. I've spent so many years putting myself down, that it felt weird that I might become the sort of person taking pride in herself. Plodding along miserably at the back of a parkrun crowd, I would joke about it. "Running sucks!" - I would laugh at myself, and my poor ability and insufficient training. It was a 'running' joke (gettit?) and it felt weird, and un-Sarah-like, to step up and say I wanted more, I wanted to be more, and damn it, I'm worth it.

Yesterday, while out supporting friends running the Pentlands Skyline hill race, someone said "I didn't know your story - I'm so impressed" - and I thought, "Story? What story?" I was a fat lass who couldn't run a mile without the negativity in her head laughing at her and holding her back, now I'm less fat and can run half marathons (sort of, ha ha - that blog post is still to be finished). I'm still slow, but I'm getting faster. I'm still overweight, but I'm so much lighter than I used to be, and I have the potential to be so much more. I still overeat when I get down, but I'm doing that less frequently. We all have a story - we shouldn't let our story define us, or hold us back, and if rewriting the story is what it takes to reach our goals, then pick up that pen and get writing. Who are you? Who do you want to be? What's stopping you?

If you want to lose weight, but your identify is that guy in the office who always brings the cakes in, are you happy with that role?? What if you stopped, would you lose friends? I would suggest if you did, they weren't your friends to start with. The people around you should support your goals, not strangle them. Likewise, if you want to be a better runner, and you know that doing specific speed training will help you, but your identity is tied up with long slow group runs with a few pints in the pub afterwards, or every weekday run is an easy paced one chatting with a friend who "expects" the latest gossip on a run - is that really helping you get where you want to be? If your goal is to save money to allow you to cut your working week down and give you more time for the mountains, but your identity is tied up with being the party animal, always up for the races abroad or the long weekends away in hotels and pubs - is that the identity you want, and is it the one that will help you reach your goals? If you think your identity if strongly tied to being the jolly fat girl who turns up at all the races just to stand at the sidelines to shout and clap the runners, because (as everyone knows) you 'hate running', but you secretly dream of one day running a marathon...? Sign up for a marathon, put down the bag of crisps or bar of chocolate, and tell the world you are a runner.

It turns out, I am. Marathon training begins today. x