Hi, thanks for clicking through.
I'd love to use this page as an opportunity to share what's been going on with me and why this challenge is so important to me. However, if that's not for you then here's a quick summary:
I've been working really hard at recovering from some pretty difficult mental illnesses and have set myself the challenge of completing the Great North Run (a half-marathon!!!) whilst raising money for Samaritans. I'd like to reassure you that any donations are not people paying for my new hobby - I pay my own entry into all races. I'm doing the Leeds 10k in July, then the York 10k in August and finishing my challenge with the Great North in September - eek!
So if you'd like to donate to Samaritans and show me some support then that'd mean a lot to me and you can now scroll through to the end and click Donate. THANKS x

My Story
Argh! I've written and re-written this so many times and you may wonder why I'm sharing this at all. I don't need to do I? Well, actually, I feel that I do need to share some of this; it is my life, I live with this stuff every day and I don't really want to have to hide it. Hopefully the more we talk about this stuff then the less stigmatised it'll become.Every single person reading this will have either struggled with their own mental health at some point or been very close to someone who has so we should be able to talk about this stuff. (No offense is meant by any terminology so apologies if it causes any. My page, my words).


Officially Mental
I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD) in July 2016. Diagnoses of these conditions has to be by a psychiatrist and you have to get pretty ill before getting on the waiting list to see one of them. I was going to explain about the mental health system and waiting lists but that’s too long a story. In short: trying to get treatment was a very difficult time. It’s shit. There is an old Churchill quote that helped me through “When you’re going through hell, keep going”.


I’d never even heard of BPD until I was diagnosed with it. It’s also called Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. Yeah, not a great sounding label admittedly but a massive relief to find out that these things I experience are not a personal failing, as I had always regarded them. No, the difficulties I experience are due to a combination of physical differences in my brain and unhelpful learned behaviour. It’s a disorder, not a decision. BPD is a hugely misunderstood disorder. I was going to explain all about how it affects me but again that became rather long. I’ll put a link and if you’re interested then you can choose to look. I have a version called quiet Borderline which means I appear absolutely fine on the outside. Appearing fine on the outside can make it difficult to be taken seriously. To be honest I’ve often struggled to accept the diagnosis because I do appear so ‘normal’ (ugh. Awful word). Occasionally a little crack will open up and some of that borderline monster will leak out and you’ve perhaps glimpsed a little of it - some kind of over emotional response? Trust me, no one has seen the true darkness of the BPD monster that lives inside of me, nor will you.


Then there’s the complex-PTSD. That’s fun. Not. I have a bloody brilliant life, right here, in the now. I know that. I see it. I appreciate it. So please, please believe me when I say I do not want to be transported back to a long time ago. I just don’t. I want to enjoy my children, my family, and all the awesomeness I have around me. I do. I promise. That’s not how PTSD works though. The slightest little innocent thing can trigger a flashback, a frightening, uncontrollable volcano of emotion (hello BPD!) erupts and leaves me broken. I hate this. It’s unpredictable and debilitating. When it gets bad I struggle to leave the house, to do anything really. The good news is that I’m doing so much better and it’s rare now that I get trapped inside, afraid. Complex PTSD shows up on brain scans. It is an injury and it’s not that I particularly enjoy ruminating on past events. If anything I’ve worked pretty hard to always be moving forward in life but no matter where I go I bring my brain so I’m just going to have stop ignoring, pretending and distracting and face it and fix it.


Treatment
I’m taking medications to try and help some of that brain chemistry normalise. I take an antidepressant called Venlafaxine. Antidepressants are not happy pills. Haha! No way. The point of the antidepressant is to be able to get up, to shower, to stop crying and fortunately the fourth one I tried finally worked - obviously or I wouldn’t be doing a half-marathon! I also take an antipsychotic called Quetiapine. This is to help stabilise my moods (which are still nutso on it but were a lot worse off it!), help me sleep and stop some of the hallucination stuff that I can experience. These medications work pretty well for me but they don’t make me ‘better’. They just reduce my symptoms so I can actually do the therapy work needed to reprogramme my brain. I do a kind of therapy called DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) and I’m in that until September 2017. That’s another year of my life. It’s a mixture of weekly group therapy and individual one-to-one sessions. It’s bloody difficult. You know when someone has suffered a terrible accident and is perhaps trying to learn to walk again and they have to struggle and fall over, and they want to give up, but bit by bit they begin to stand, then to step, then to walk? Well I think of therapy just like that. The absolute best bit of group therapy has been meeting other BPDers. We are all such different people yet we all understand each other. To meet other people who see things the same way I do has been so hugely beneficial. I can’t even explain it but I will say that I have never met a group of more empathetic, honest, caring people in my life. That’s worth saying as a lot of the things written about people with BPD suggest that we’re not very nice (and that’s an understatement!).


I’ve lived with these conditions my whole life. Beginning to understand my illnesses has been an eye opener. You might wonder why all of this happened now. There are reasons for why now with one reason being the stress bucket theory. By the time we reach our mid-thirties we’ve all experienced some really horrible things. Hopefully our internal stress bucket has room to store these things. My stress bucket just burst. Quite simply, there was too much in there and the bucket burst.


The Future is Lycra
The good news is that things are sooooooo much better for me now. Even although I’m mental, taking meds, in therapy, and unable to work I will say this - I have never felt so at peace. When the darkness comes for me now I understand it and I have ways to manage it. That BPD monster is being tamed. I have an amazing opportunity now to build a future and this really excites me. I’m discovering who I am. Yeah, I know it all sounds like existential crap but it’s actually true. This is how I came to become a running geek.


I’ve always had a bit of a thing for running but I’ve never been able to do it. It’s for other people, not me. Well, I’m throwing out all the ‘I can’t’s and replacing them with ‘do I want to try this?’. In January I started going out for little runs and immediately became hooked. The endorphins, the sense of freedom, the achievement, the lycra (!). Maybe I can...maybe I can...I don’t consider myself ’good’ at running but equally I don’t care. I can plod along and cover miles in a way that I never thought I could. I never, ever thought I would be able to run a half-marathon and now, I believe, I will be able to do it (failing injury, herds of stampeding bison - you know that sort thing). At the time of writing I have never even run a 10K race before, but I will (I hope): Leeds 10K 09/07; York 10K 06/08 and then the biggie, the Great North Run 10/09. Hey if anyone wants to come and cheer me on at any events then please do. The GNR is on the telly so maybe you’ll spot me! I’ll be in purple Samaritans vest.

Why Samaritans?
It had to be a charity that supports mental health.
It is a service that I’ve used
The first time I rang Samaritans I actually had a really bad experience. The guy laughed and invalidated everything I was saying, y’know the usual...life is tough for everyone...there’s no point seeing your doctor ha ha. It was very upsetting and I vowed never to ring back.
But I did ring back. You don’t have to be suicidal to ring them. I rang because depression had me trapped in bed, crying and the prospect of a day was terrifying me. The lady was really nice. We broke my day into chunks and worked out little steps that I could take and we talked them through and how I would manage them. And I did; I got through that day ok. I knew that I could pick up the phone and get a little nudge of support at any point and that was massive. I’ve also emailed Samaritans. I have dreadful phone anxiety. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is for me to make a phone call. Any phone call causes a serious physical panic which is a bit of a problem. Making a phone call to ramble on about my craziness is super daunting so one time I sent an email to Samaritans instead. It was really helpful; writing it helped get it out and Samaritans replied a day later with such a kind reply that it gave me a lift. I didn’t feel quite so ignored, insignificant and invisible.
We all know the NHS is over stretched and provision in mental health can be pretty appalling so charities are trying to pick up the pieces but they’re over stretched too. That translates into a lot of people really struggling, losing their quality of life, unable to work or parent. Invisible, trapped at home. Some people lose their lives and that really shouldn’t happen.
That’s why Samaritans.
I urge you to give them a try if you ever feel like you just want to talk to someone, to work out what is going on in your head. They also have branches that you can pop into. It’s all incredibly helpful.
Call 116 123
Email jo@samaritans.org
Website www.samaritans.org

The Last Word
I’ve added another soundbite to my Churchill quote:-
“She believed she could, so she did”
And I hope that’s going to get me through 13.1 miles.


I love a meme so will be sharing some of the ones that resonate most strongly with me. I’ll post updates on here too so opt out if you don’t want to see them.


Thank you for reading all of this. Can you believe that’s the short version?! Let’s not feel awkward about it eh? Just gimme your money and be done with it. (Please, thank you)


Seriously though. Thank you xx


Kate


PS Just talk to me like you always have. You don’t need to change! And yes, you can ask about my mental stuff. It’s all good.