The Ragged State of Me

So, yeah, it's been a while. A whole lot of hell in that while.

Basically, school started and my daughter fell apart. We are thinking that they are explosive anxiety attacks; by explosive, I mean screaming, throwing things, kicking, sometimes disrupting an entire wing, getting suspended at least once a month kind of explosive. Without going into too many details, it's enough to say that we as her parents are doing what we can with the resources we have. And while people try to be "helpful" (everything from essential oils to homeschooling), I'm finding setting up boundaries to be almost as stressful as dealing with the calls that disrupt my work. What I have been telling people is that we know our resources and our situation; you need to trust us to be good enough parents to work through the basics (which is the bulk of the advice being offered). The best help you can give us is to listen without judgment if we choose to talk to you about it.

The reason I bring it up at all in my running blog is that is has taken a toll on my mental and physical health. Trying to figure out how to manage her anxiety attacks has made mine explode again. Debilitating depression has poked its head in as well. I'm edgy. I'm exhausted. I'm on a hair-trigger to either cry or yell at any given time.

Exercise is really the last thing I want to do, but thankfully I've developed enough of a habit that the fight is not as bad as it could be. What has been difficult is throwing the half marathon training in the mix. Runs for more than an hour or so seem overwhelming. The weekends that I work, I have to put off my long runs until the following Monday--when I'm most likely to get a call from her school. Everything seems disruptive.

Which brings me to this week--the half is this coming Sunday.

Will I finish? Yes. At the recommended pace? Probably not. At this point, I will probably finish in a little over three hours. Looking at the results of the last couple years, four hours was the average for the final finishers. It can be done--but I really want it to be done at this point.

Right now, I'm thinking "two and through" when it comes to half marathons. My life just can't absorb the training time. I'm anxious to get back to three days of Zombies, Run! with three days of Superhero Workout interspersed. I'm seeing a therapist, but I may need something more to function for a while. I'm seriously considering a low dosage birth control at the very least to help smooth out the hormonal bumps. I'll also revisit the Happy Diet to see if some of that will help again too.

Every now and then, I can step back and see that not giving up--on anything--is a heroic thing. One foot in front of the other ... I do have confidence that eventually everything will be better, that we will figure out what's going on. But that seems a very, very long way away right now.

In the meantime, let me get this 13.1 miles out of the way.