Climbing was my place of solitude By Susie Osborne, Sport Wales

Number 2 in a series of 4 blogs from our very own Sport Wales staff, for Mental Health Awareness Week, comes from Community Sport Team member, Susie Osborne.

It is easy to think that Sport Wales staff are natural born sport lovers, but that’s not the case and, as Susie found out, certain sports can come to play an important role at any period in our lives.

It’s with some trepidation that I ‘Bare all’ or at least ‘Bare some’ of my experiences with Mental Health.  Tell someone that you broke your leg and you will get a barrage of Ouch? How? What are you going to do? How will you train?  That looks nasty!  Tell someone that you are having a mental health episode and all goes quiet!  What are you supposed to say?

I am one of the 1 in 4 statistic that has experienced a mental health episode….and I deliberately call it that and not a ‘problem’ because more often than not, it’s only a problem for other people who don’t know what to say, what to do or how to support.  Some people refer to anxiety or depression as the ‘Black Dog’ for me it was more of a ‘Black puppy’.  After all, I’d had 30 odd years of living free of anything mental health related and to date it has remained a one off period.

I’d had a rough time, several unpleasant life events happened in a very short sequence of time for me.  There was heartache, upset and emotion in abundance.   At first, auto pilot kicked in and I coped - or at least I appeared to others to be coping and for quite a long time.  Life from the outside looked normal.  From the inside the picture was quite different though. The thing with mental health is, that if issues are not confronted and dealt with, you run the risk that at some point ‘life’ catches up with you, and can, metaphorically speaking, punch you clean in the jaw. 

At a point when to all around me my life appeared to be settling; after all I was in a steady, happy relationship, had bought a new house etc. the culmination of previous events plus a couple of other things allowed the ‘Black Puppy’ to chase me down.   

I entered into wholly unfamiliar territory, territory that I thought I would never enter into and one that genuinely had the potential to get the better of me.  It knocked me for six.

The rational became irrational, the simplest decisions became unbearable mountains and hurdles that needed overcoming just to get through the day.  Life at that time was exhausting and unsettling, both for me and my nearest and dearest.

Something had to change, in fact lots had to change. Family and friends were unreservedly supportive thankfully, but recognising and admitting that there was an issue and one that only I could resolve was for me difficult.  Actually, difficult is a complete understatement, I was always the strong, fiercely independent, ‘you just need to snap out of it’ person.  These things happened to other people, not to me. 

For me, recognising what was happening was like admitting complete and utter failure.  It was deeply uncomfortable. 

Through this time, there was always one constant and that was a love and obsession for climbing.  I had started climbing while I was in ‘coping mode’ and found a place where I was unreservedly happy.  Climbing was my place of solitude and a place where I could leave my ‘Black Puppy’ tethered at the door and focus on something that made me feel like the person that I once was and wanted to be. 

The climbing community is incredibly warm, welcoming and friendly, rarely does bravado, boasting and bragging take place.  It’s the one sport (and I have experienced many!) where people help each other with a genuine desire to see you succeed.  Complete strangers will give you tips and hints on certain moves to make, talk you through a bouldering problem.  Maybe it stems from the fact that you put your life, to an extent, in the hands of the person holding the rope at the bottom of a climb - there is a real feeling of respect and admiration between climbers.

Climbing is incredibly therapeutic. It’s a little like yoga but with ropes, chalk and ridiculously uncomfortable footwear.  Climbing at a decent competitive level requires real focus, the margins between making it to the top of a climb and / or taking a fall are slim - generally millimetres!  The focus is almost meditative and so would completely clear my mind and assist me to help rationalise the murky waters and temper and train the ‘black puppy’.

Climbing became a ‘crutch’ but it would be remiss of me to say that sport cures all.  The other support that I received was absolutely vital and equally important.  Learning to lean on others and allow people into my bubble was tough but a much needed part of the road to taking control.

Do I think that climbing supported me through a dark time?  Absolutely and unequivocally yes.  Could sport assist other through similar situations to mine? Definitely!

My ‘Black puppy’ is for now completely trained, but should he start jumping up, I have things in place to encourage him to go and lie back down.  I still use sport, training and climbing to help me, but now more for prevention than cure.

 

Healthy Mind? Healthy Body?  Now that’s a chicken or egg question!

Inspired by any of our stories during mental health week, then why not find a new activity to get you more active?  BBC Get Inspired have a great A to Z of ideas right here http://bbc.in/1Mbl4IM