Hamster Wheels and Rabbit Holes

Nine years ago, reeling from having the rug pulled out from under me, I entered a therapist’s office and asked, “what is wrong with me?”

The same question everyone around me has been asking for decades.

After years of sorting through my life, there was a diagnosis:  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  The symptoms were there—fear of contamination, handwashing, checking things over and over again—but every time I tried to challenge those compulsions, my head filled not with fear, but rage.

Recently, I discovered the reason why treatment wasn’t working.  I don’t have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  I have the rarer and difficult to diagnose Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. 

You know you hit the right disorder…when you read the description and are flooded with memories that completely match the symptoms.  It’s a relief to finally, finally have the right name for all this discomfort.

Then you realize you have a personality disorder.  Like, my personality is so far from normal that it’s “disordered.”  Time to resurrect that exceptional people book club, huh?

A man who turned his ALS diagnosis into great things...so why can't I?

Less than a week earlier, in response to a birthday text where a friend asked me how I was doing, I replied, “stuck on hamster wheels and lost down rabbit holes.”  Ironically, it’s a great description of what living with OCPD is like.

I feel like I’m on a hamster wheel, working so very hard to get things accomplished and checked off the list, but by the end of the day, having little to show for my efforts.  Even in these times, when the minutes drag by like hours, the days like weeks, and the months like years….the to do list seems to be growing instead of shrinking.  (Don’t ask about the bank account.  Spoiler alert:  it’s not growing nearly as fast.)

With OCPD, the organization and procedure for each task is detailed and precise.  Every step in the process has to be carefully thought out and planned.  If my brain even has one molecule of anxiety, I have to walk away and calm myself down.  And if the task isn’t done perfectly, I have to start from the beginning and redo it until it is perfect.

I probably look just like that hamster, expending all that energy with no forward progression. 

Pretty much my entire life....via GIPHY

Probably because I’m constantly getting stuck in rabbit holes I dug for myself.  You know when you put one thing away in the junk drawer, which leads you to organize the junk drawer, where you find that button that popped off a shirt a couple weeks ago, which leads you to find the shirt to sew the button, which leads to doing a load of laundry?  Rabbit hole. 

Well, I tend to dig a lot of them, and then proceed to get lost wandering around the resulting maze of tunnels.  It starts innocently enough with one task, like putting an item away in a drawer, but then I notice that the drawer needs to be cleaned.  As I’m taking out one item from the drawer to clean it, I notice it belongs in another room, but that space needs to be decontaminated before anything can go into there.  I start making a list of how to clean that space, and well, now that first item won’t get put away until I get that list completed.

Of course, life is what gets in the way of plans, and before I can finish that list, I have to sort the mail for an important document or clean out the car or get the laundry room ready for the possibility of something breaking and needing repair….

As I’m trying to fill up one rabbit hole, another dozen or so appear.  

At least, I keep thinking I do...

For years, I believed the issue was that I was lazy or disorganized or, dare I say it, stupid, to figure out how to function like a normal person.  I’ve spent a lot of time trying to fight my brain, which always wins, but now it’s time to figure out a life that works for how I’m wired.

It’s time to step off the hamster wheels and come out of the rabbit holes….and start writing the first chapter of the rest of my life.

I Was on a Break....from Running

Global Pandemic.  Record Unemployment.  Civil Unrest.

Not what I was thinking when I said the 20s would roar.

It’s been a year—no, wait, a decade—and we’re only seven months into the 2020s. 

Our New Normal

Wait, isn’t this supposed to be a blog about fun and running and traveling around the world?  Well, when the marathons cancel and borders close and the run club stops meeting and you get furloughed from two jobs, running takes a back seat to life.  Life, as we knew it, had changed.

I wasn’t in a good place when this all started.  My mental health took a huge hit last August, and I’ve been slowly trying to get back to functional.  Things that you may take for granted, like the steps you take to make it to work in the morning, are very stressful to my OCD mind.  There are just so many steps, and if I don’t do them right, the anxiety surges, just like an electrical power surge.  Do I have a clean outfit?  Do I have a clean coffee mug in the dishwasher?  Did I remember to brush my teeth?  Did I brush my teeth before I put my shoes on?  Did I make sure to only touch the door handle with my pinky finger?  Did I wash my hands after touching (water kettle, sink handle, laptop keyboard, dryer handle, fridge, or anything else in my house)?  All while trying to get out of the house at a time that gets me to my job on time.  I’m exhausted before I even put my key in the car.

Running, especially running with a group, has all of that, too.  How am I supposed to put my hair in a ponytail without contaminating everything?  Where do I put my purse while I’m running?  What about my car key?  And shoes.  I’m afraid of shoes right now.

I can run or work, but I can’t do both.  And I have to pay the bills.

It’s so frustrating, after such a victory in New York, to have slid down to a place where I’m going to have to start over from scratch.  Unlike a physical injury, where your body is begging you to stop and heal, you feel like such a failure because you can’t get yourself out there.  The negative thoughts creep in (because your brain is already hurting) about how I’m going to get to do these last three marathons, especially Boston.  I’ve gone from “I can totally qualify for Boston” to “I’ll never run Boston” in the span of six months.

Then I think about why I run and what I love about running.  For me, it’s the meditation, the ability to let my brain get exhausted by the physical effort, to be outdoors and see new trails.  It’s the companionship of friends as well as the quiet solace of an empty trail, hearing only the wind and the birds.  Then I think about all the athletes who not only have seen their competitions and races and Olympics get postponed and cancelled, but also stuck at home, unable to do the training that they love so much, that would alleviate the grief of losing their Worlds or Olympics or Boston Marathon.

Running cannot be a chore.  It has to be my solace, not my obligation.

Quests are never easy.  Even Hollywood fills epic quests with monsters and quicksand and Eyes of Sauron and Darth Vaders.  I knew five years ago when I started my quest that there would be epic challenges (though not a global pandemic that would completely shut down the US for months), and the point of the exercise was how I grow from the challenges laid before me.  So I will face my struggles, heal my mind, and find a new path to traverse.  Some day, I will cross that sixth marathon finish line and kiss the ground.

I want to get back to this woman

We are all challenged now with so many things right now.  Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Treat each other with love and kindness.  Open your hearts and minds.  Let’s walk together.

Star #3: New York, New York

This journey, to run all six majors by my 50^th birthday, wasn’t really about the actual races.  My journey through the boroughs of New York City wasn’t really about running a marathon, either.

After 9/11, my mother suffered a mental breakdown.  I was living with my parents at the time, and working as a public skate guard at an ice rink about 45 min away from home after being laid off from my first chemistry job in April.  She had always been nervous about my more independent nature, as she rarely did anything alone, but as she lost touch with the reality that I was an adult, I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without a cell phone and promises to check in.  (There was one incident where I was working the Friday night public skate, and because the police station was two doors down, an officer was parked outside the rink entrance as I walked out of there and to my car.  I figured that since I was super-safe, I wouldn’t have to check in with her.  I walked in the front door to my mother, so convinced that something bad had happened to me, was about to call the police.)

I lived in that environment for about a year and a half before taking a job as a traveling consultant and buying a home of my own.  While I was traveling the country and making mistakes and learning, my mother’s fear of something happening to me if I left my safe suburban life remained in the back of my head.  I rarely would even travel to Chicago, outside of the trips to the airport required for my job.  When I commuted to Princeton, NJ in 2008, the idea of going to New York City, visiting Times Square and the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island alone was out of the question.

After a fantastic Chicago Marathon with the Muscular Dystrophy Association, I learned they had a New York City Marathon team.  The two marathons would be three weeks apart this year, so I signed up for both, with a goal to raise $7500, a test to see if I’m ready for Boston or London’s charity fundraising requirement.  In the excitement of knowing I would be finishing another major marathon, it never occurred to me that I might be a solo traveler; I was in a relationship at the time, and usually a few people from my run club might get in by lottery so there might end up being a nice group.

In the end, there were five of us:  three who qualified by time, myself, and someone who did get in via lottery.  However, I was the only one who wanted to expand the trip into more than running a marathon, and by summer, my boyfriend and I were through.  I booked my trip solo, renting an AirBnB in Harlem for a few nights after the race and purchasing tickets for both the Statue of Liberty and the 9/11 Museum.  I figured that I had three days before the race with both my charity team and my Libertyville Running Club teammates to get an understanding about the city, and I’d have my smartphone and Uber.  And of course, that 26.2 mile jog from Staten Island to Manhattan.

I flew into LaGuardia, and immediately, there were people in running shoes and jackets everywhere.  Talking to the lady at the information desk, I scrapped my plan to take an Uber because she said the subway was so easy.  And it was.  I came out only three blocks from my hotel, and really, it was no different than wandering around the Chicago Loop.  Win!  I also discovered my Maps app had directions via public transit, which made everything super-easy, especially later in the trip.

Between the LRC and MDA, all of my meals, my walk to the expo, and even getting to the bus in front of the library race morning were with friends.  Two of us even walked around Times Square.  The best moment was walking down the peanut butter aisle in Whole Foods the night before the race and realizing that there was no way for them to prepare the amount of bagels and peanut butter needed for all those runners, staying in hotels around Midtown.  Total apocalypse.  I grabbed the closest thing, plus two cookies to counteract the super-garlicy bread at dinner, and decided to make do with what I’m thrown.

Times Square

Actually, that became the theme of race day.  While the race starts at 9:40 am (and my wave at 10:35 am), we had to be up at 4:15 am to make a bus to get from Manhattan to Long Island.  I woke up healthy (which is a fear when the dry hotel air is giving me a slight tickle in my throat) and ready…..to sit on a bus for two hours and then the start village for another two.  In stop and go traffic.  So in the midst of balancing hydration and nutrition and digestion and porta-potties, I also had to consider the potential of motion sickness.  Fun times.  I distracted myself by meeting new people, but by mile 10, some issues arose that required me to focus on how I was going to keep putting one foot ahead of another.  A potty stop and shoe unlacing at mile 16, the realization that I was near PR pace at 19, and a near sprint to finish below five by the end.  The Wave 3 clock at the finish said 5:01, so I didn’t realize my time until I got back to my hotel and saw the texts from friends who were tracking me.  I collapsed on the hotel room floor, crying. 

Back home with the LRC, celebrating my 4:56:56

The race itself is now just a series of snippets, going by so fast that I barely remember it.  The quiet start up the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.  Running on the expressway as the UPS trucks used for bag check race by.  The welcomes as we entered each borough.  The noise and enthusiasm of loudspeakers and unofficial aid stations and even homes decorated for the race in Brooklyn.  The constant up and down of the road.  The runners from around the world.  The selfies on the Queensboro bridge.  The seemingly never-ending First Avenue.  Trying to wave to the motorcycle camera in the Bronx.  The long uphill into Central Park (Mile 23!), and just floating up and down the hills to the finish.  It was fun and glorious…..until I was in a crowded finish chute, barely able to put weight on my pained right foot, starting to chill.  It was such a long walk that after I got my poncho, I found a bench and sat down for a while. 

After a warming shower at the hotel and an evening celebrating our accomplishments, my roommate, Kate, headed back to Chicago while I headed out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  The hotel held my bags, so I hopped on the subway for the short trip to the ferry launch.  On the subway, a family got on with a toddler in a stroller.  The toddler crawled out of the stroller, and not understanding the rhythm of the train, stumbled and hit her head on a pole.  The entire car, made up of people of all backgrounds and cities of origin and tourists and languages, all gasped, almost in unison.  No matter what our differences may be, we are all human.

Hey, I ran over that on Sunday!  Mile 1!

That became the theme as I traversed New York the next two days.  I finally saw the Statue of Liberty and visited Ellis Island.  I cried my way through the 9/11 memorial museum.  I stayed in a lovely garden apartment in Harlem.  I traveled by subway and quietly listened to two women trying to do good in the schools, just as I do on many a Thursday night.  I saw a community where the businessmen stand outside, greeting the people they see every evening.  I got takeout from the Queen of Soul Food.  I ate ramen at a shop hidden from the street.  I got a fist bump from the barista at Starbucks.  I got a great local beer recommendation (Interboro Brewing Double Fluffed Stout) from a Whole Foods employee.  I even got asked directions.  Sorry, it’s my first time here.  I took the bus to the airport, and waiting for my flight, met a server who had volunteered all day at the Biofreeze station.  I was told that New Yorkers are blunt and rude, but I found a strong sense of humanity and community.

 

In the end, I conquered New York twice.  Once on race day, but also navigating the city in the days afterwards.  Halfway through this journey, both five years and three stars, and I’m learning what a good traveler I’ve become over the years.  I’ve found not only the dream I want to pursue, but the passion and gumption to make it happen.  I took risks, overcame challenges, and rolled with the punches.  The scared little girl, trapped behind her mother’s anxiety in 2002, was now standing where they watched workers sift through the ashes and steel on TV every night.  Both that girl and that land has changed dramatically.  The pain and hatred inside of Ground Zero is now a beautiful place to reflect, remember, and memorialize.  The fear and insecurities in the little girl have been replaced with strength and confidence.

The Sphere, which was located on the plaza between the two towers

It may feel like the happily ever after ending, but these were the “easy” marathons, really.  The three remaining—Tokyo, London, and Boston—are much harder to gain entry.  I maxed out my network fundraising and came up just short of $5000, so work remains before I can apply to run for charity.  They are also going to be significantly more expensive than the three I’ve completed, between the two international major cities and the training regime needed to qualify for Boston on time, which is now a little over an hour.  Well, the biggest challenges in a trilogy always arrive at the very end, right?  So the journey continues, one step at a time….