Broken

The last few weeks I've been in a bad place. I've kept going, despite feeling suicidal. The only thing that's kept me going is that I feel I owe things to people.

I owed it to the Burleskin girls to be at Home Farm Festival performing with them. Both in troupe routines and doing my solo.

I owed it to my coaches who have put in a lot of time and energy with my training. In the last 12 months I've come a long way from where I am physically. I'm much more capable as a triathlete than I was when I crashed last year.

Yes, it's been a year since I admitted that I needed help and started bereavement counselling and taking anti-depressants.

I owed it to work to complete the tasks I had. I owed it to colleagues to work on developing the transgender awareness workshop we put together and had been delivering. I owed it to people to support them.

I did everything I could to meet those commitments.

Until yesterday.

Things got a bit stressful at work in the morning, so at lunchtime I went out to get a bit of fresh air. I sat in the car and felt tears starting to flow, so I headed to the doctors and made an appointment to see one of the GPs. I was heading towards a breakdown I know, and if I hadn't got help then I don't know where I'd have ended up.

After making the appointment I drove, firstly home, and then to the crematorium. That was where the tears really started to flow. I miss Rhys. I hide it well, I hide the pain of losing my wingman, but I still miss him and the pain is always there, even if I don't admit it, even to myself.

So yesterday I finally broke. Not physically but emotionally and mentally.

The doctor upped the dosage on my anti-depressants, which will take a couple of weeks to kick in but that will help when they do.

I was supposed to be in Finland for the next week but the chance of me spiralling downward without anyone around to support me didn't warrant the risk so I've not gone. I've also pulled out of my remaining races this year and stopped being trained by my coaches.

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop training, it just means I'll be doing it at my pace and figuring out what I want to do as I go along.

Going forward I'm going to work on sorting out my mental and emotional health. I want to get back the strength I used to have, the strength that was at my core. I'm determined to do that.

A lot of the things I've been doing have been geared around a belief that I needed to do them. I'm changing that now. There's something I've wanted to do for a while so I'm going to do that. I'll be sorting that out next Tuesday.

From now on I'm going to make it a priority to do things I  want to do, not need to do because of a sense of obligation to others. Life is for living but it is also for enjoying. If you're not enjoying what you're doing then why are you doing it.

Don't live your life doing something you don't enjoy. Do something you love instead.

There are days...

… when I just wish I could die. Where I could just lie down and be no more. Let this world move on and leave me in the past.

Today is one of them.

I was supposed to be taking part in a sprint triathlon at Blenheim Palace this afternoon.

Last night I got all my gear ready, packed away in my transition bag. Although I should have got an early night I didn't, I stayed up later than I should.

This morning I was awake by 5am, but we stayed in bed until almost 7, enjoying having our bed back after a week where my sister and my nieces have stayed with us and the twins have slept in our bed.

Getting up I was feeling fine. No nerves, no trepidations. I was looking forward to the day.

Going downstairs I put the kettle on to boil, and put tea and coffee in Tracey's and my mugs.

Feeling a bit queasy I returned upstairs to the toilet and ended up kneeling while retching. No racing for me today.

Yesterday I'd been feeling physically uncomfortable all day but for other reasons. When I got home, and had eaten, I took some medication which sorted out the problem.

Thinking about it today, I've been behaving abnormally for me. Certain bodily functions have been out of whack recently. I've also been eating a lot more junk foods like chocolate, ice cream and crisps last thing in the evening for a couple of weeks. Similarly at work I've been eating a lot more sugary snacks than usual; biscuits, cakes (breakfast has been a couple of iced Chelsea buns on two or three occasions).

Not racing, again, today has left me feeling down. I'm sure that Paul and Darren my coaches are going to be disappointed that I've not raced again, after all their hard work getting me to where I am. I feel like I've let them down.

I feel like I've left myself down to.

I don't want to let people down like this any more. I don't want to let myself down like this any  more.

Rhys shouldn't have died when he did, he had so much life ahead of him, so much potential. If any one should have died it should have been me. I'm 52 years old, I've had a decent life, I've done plenty of things.

Today, I feel the loss of Rhys more than ever. Today, I feel like letting the world, the universe, leave me behind and let me lay down to rest forever.