If you have been following the Hamburg triathlon World championships you would have read of some great results and up lifting stories.
Keeping with the theme of why do we do what we do what is the motivation for our desire to achieve in the sporting arena.
What is an easy task to some is the steepest mountain to others.
Things that are taken for granted by the majority of people as a
bedrock of life are non existent for others, that includes the ability
to be in control of your thought and actions.
When we struggle at times to get out of bed for an early morning
ride or training session and that little voice says just another couple
of minutes, what if that voice was screaming at you obscenities telling
you of your worthlessness and not being able to shut it of.
I came across Anne Garton’s story she had submitted to
triathlon.org as a age group story about their triathlon history, what
a chilling tale.
Anne Garton is a Triathlete from Brisbane Queensland
She was the
Golden Girl. Everything she touched turned to gold. Graduating DUX of
her high school. she also won every sporting trophy the school offered,
and succeeded at inter-school athletics carnivals.
At university she won four academic awards and graduated with
Distinction. After university, she joined the Queensland Police Service
– and was DUX again at the Police Academy, and won the Police Academy’s Leadership Trophy.
About this time is where the wheels stated to fall of andthe statistic: One in five Australians will experience some form of mental illness in their lifetime.
Started to show up as Anne says “Mental illness does not discriminate. Mental illness is real. It does happen. But I didn’t't think it could happen to me…”
It” started two months after graduating from the Police Academy – as a first year Constable.
“It” was like a thousand voices were screaming in her head. The
noise was agony, and many times a day she would fall to the floor,
clutching clutching her head – screaming silent screams. Screaming and
screaming and screaming…
Voices screaming. “You
must obey me or you will be killed. All the children get killed. You
are evil. You belong to the devil, you must be crucified for your
sins…”
she would watch thousands of cockroaches and maggot pouring out of her mouth and nose. Dead people lying on her bed.
Blood pouring down the walls of her house.
Codes and numbers repeating thousands of times in mind.
Suicide
again became her escape – she had to make it stop. Pills did’t work so
she tried gassing herself in the car in the middle of the bush. The
pipe fell off and she was left unconscious in the bush for days. She
tried gassing again, but the heat from the exhaust pipe melted the
hosepipe.
she poisoned her body with every pill, chemical or drug she could find. she was that desperate.
her half dead body would be found in different locations around Brisbane – in the bush, parklands, in the gutter, in her home, in her car…
I think you would be getting the picture
this was not a person trying to seek attention Anne desperately
wanted to shut the voices off and suicide was the only way she could
see that it would happen
Her family did not expect her to live.
Her
doctors did not expect her to live. No one did. So all they could do
for months was to lock her up on 24-hour suicide watch.
After an attempt to hang her self in the hospital bathrooms that was thwarted by a nurse,
the next day, the nurse who cut her down, gave her a piece of paper and
told her to write a wish-list. she wrote a list called: “Things I
Wished To Do Before I Turned Thirty”.
“Top of my list was “To compete in a triathlon”. It had always been a fantasy of mine and it was the hardest thing I could think off – I could’t swim or ride a bike!
I was rock bottom and had nothing to lose. So I did it. As simple as that - I did it.
And this was when my life changed:
Before I
could even swim one lap of the pool or turn the pedal of the bike, I
had to fight my mind. And I mean fight!!! I have to push past the loud
voices and screaming/horrific roar in my head, push past the
hallucinations; push past the paranoia, confusion, and overwhelming
apathy, zero self-esteem, crippling depression… an endless list.
Wow does getting out of bed early for a training session seem so hard when you read this type of thing
“I had to fight doctors and nurses Their words, and I quote:
“Unhealthy obsession”;
Disbelief. – “Mentally ill people not well enough or capable of doing something as strenuous as triathlon.”
But I was too determined, refusing to accept their ban on triathlon.”
Even when
seriously unwell, she still trained – everyday. If she was locked up,
her mother would come and chaperon her to training – she would sit
beside the pool or running track whilst Anne trained.
And on race days, she would get special permission to leave the hospital to attend the races.
And guess what happened:
She won the Queensland Triathlon State Titles – she won the whole
series for 2004/2005 race season. She was the fastest person in Queensland in triathlon in her race category: 25-29 age group.
To quote Anne in her tale
“Little old me had won a State Championship Series! Little old me
had succeeded in a normal person’s world, despite being really ill and
in hospital!!!”
Why is she so determined, why does she refuse to quit despite significant illness?
Anne puts it this way
“Not because I have won races, medal, or even representing Australia,
but because triathlon gave me my first taste of “the other side”. The
other side is the happiness and pure pleasure I feel when I ride my
bike beside the ocean, watching sunrise. It is the feeling of
accomplishment and satisfaction after finishing a tough run. Feelings I
had never had before. Now
I had a reason to get out of bed. Had a reason to live – an uncrushable
will to live. I wanted to get out of bed everyday – I wanted to be
alive!!!”
What a powerful motivation to be on a race track, to be a participant
in life. To be at a place where your next moment is
uncertain,dictated to you by some affliction not of your own choice,
you come to appreciate life and its simple pleasures.
Anne goes on to say
Triathlon gave
me an identity other than that of “mentally ill” or “disability
pensioner”. When people ask me now, “what do you do”, I say, “I am a
triathlete”.
Triathlon taught me self-discipline – self-disciple to attend
training sessions as we train twice/three times a day. Self discipline
as in a healthy diet, and abstaining from drugs and alcohol.
Triathlon taught me not to be a victim. For too many years, I had
played victim –“poor me” syndrome - letting it rule my life and control
my behaviors. I had given up and was resigned to the fact that I was
permanently going to be unwell, permanently incapacitated and destined
to a lifetime of illness, suicidality, and no hope.”
Life throws at you some real curve balls
you never are certain about what is to dawn the next day indeed the only certainty about life IS change
The twist in this tale is that at the same time as giving Anne an
anchor to life it has helped the larger picture of mental health issues
by setting Anne on another direction than the Qld police force that she
first loved
She travel saround Queensland
and interstate, speaking to the media and speaking at public
events/functions, even appearing on Australian Story on ABC television
last year.
Her goal is to educate people about mental illness and providing a
positive a role model to other people who experience mental illness….
Showing that no barrier is too high; that it is possible to set goals
and have dreams. If she can do it, so can they! Anything is possible.
She also sit on mental health committees, selection panels, reference groups, working parties, and consumer advisory groups.
She is also about to start with a new youth education program called “Game of Life” –
where Brisbane Lions players, Qld Firebird players and Anne, go into
youth detention cent res, and troubled schools etc, working intensively
with young people in the areas of drugs, alcohol and mental health.
But her biggest dream had always been to go back to the Qld Police Academy
and teach police recruits about mental illness. (Very limited training
when she went through the police academy). Last year, she pitched this
idea to the Police Academy –less than a week after pitching this idea, she started working with police recruits!
She has her intention, goals, desire, and belief
“Everything I have spoken about began with triathlon. Thanks to my triathlon journey:
I now have hope:
I know that whatever life throws at me, I WILL survive.
I know there is “the other side” (chocolate).
I know setbacks are only short-term, and manageable. I am resilient.
But most of all, I know that my mental illness does NOT control my life – I do!!!
And despite the ravages of illness, I have found something that makes me truly happy.
Triathlon is my chocolate.
And I hope that you find your chocolate too…
INVITE YOU TO BITE ON CHOCOLATE – think what your “chocolate” is….
And I hope that when you go back to work on Monday… you start helping
your clients/patients find their chocolate too. They don’t need to be
an elite athlete or start running 10K’s per day… it’s about finding the spark, whatever it is, the smallest thing that brings a life to their eyes when they talk about it. And with that sparks comes hope.
For all of us when life gets at you and things do not seem as if
the world or anybody else cares, its the deep look inside and
commitment to the change that is
the spotlight of hope.
I do talk with knowledge of what Anne is speaking of you can read the full story at www.triathlon.org