I’ve always liked activities that entail speed and/or danger or risk.
Only recently, though, have I realized how much the fact of being able, or not, to do risky things is a very accurate thermometer of my mental state, even of my mental health.
In June I was still too tired and mentally fatigued to be able to do anything other than easy climbs on top-rope. Now I’m back out there, leading many of my climbs and pushing the grades on hard routes. And feeling calm and focused when I do.
Like I feel calm and focused when I speed in my car or down a steep ski slope.
But maybe my motorcycle is the most accurate thermometer of all for my mental state.
After being sick with the very first round of COVID in the spring of 2020 and having to go through a long and tough and slow recovery, I went for over a year without riding my motorcycle. I just couldn’t get myself to ride. And when I finally did get back on my motorcycle in the late spring or early summer of 2021, it was a huge effort. I hadn’t simply lost practice: that came back very quickly, almost immediately. I struggled mentally: I felt fear that I had never felt before and had to really struggle to keep it under control; I had a hard time focusing, and overall didn’t enjoy it as much as I used to. I still liked it but it also felt like a huge effort and like a part of me had disappeared.
Now I know that I was struggling with depression and/or anxiety then, for which I ended up taking medication and eventually even leave from work for six months at the beginning of 2022.
My mental health came back, almost imperceptibly at first, but then more and more steadily.
I’ve been feeling really well, really healthy and whole, really like myself again even mentally and emotionally for a couple months now. And now that I’m finally well, finally my healthy self again, now I can understand, see, feel how unwell I was before. Really unwell.
I’m enjoying my motorcycle rides like in my pre-COVID times again, and it feels so wonderful!
I don’t know which is the cause and which the effect: do risky, dangerous, fast activities make me feel well because of the chemical high they induce and then not getting enough of them (like during my long COVID illness & slow recovery) causes some chemical and/or neurological imbalance in my brain that entails “mental illness”? Or do I need to be mentally healthy (even at the physiological, chemical and/or neurological levels) in order to be able to have the courage and focus to do risky things?
My ability to focus and perform often increases with pressure. At school, at work, in a storm out in a sailboat, rock-climbing, motorcycle riding, going fast — the need for focus, the speed, the risk all calm my mind. On the other hand, being able to do these things, or not, is a clear symptom of how well my mind is doing…
While I’m extremely grateful to have my mental health back, I’m also curious to know what exactly is going on in my brain, why it functions this way, especially as I discover more and more people who function is a similar way…
The Little Prince and the Fox 