one of the best things i've ever done for myself, i did over the course of this pandemic. 2020 was an exceptionally difficult year with the pandemic kicking off fully in March. we were all stuck inside, cycling between doomscrolling on social media, playing as many games as possible, smoking unbelievable amounts of weed, and trying desperately to get the inspiration to work while watching the world finally crumble under its own weight.
at a certain point in the middle to the end of the year, my mental health was at one of the worst points it had ever been. i was holding so much anxiety, negative emotion, and mental duress inside of me that the slightest stimuli felt like bomb defusal. i spent too much time looping negative feedback on locked accounts, soaking in my own bpd and trauma, and eventually i had to take a stand.
nothing was making me feel better, and on my last mental leg, something just Snapped in me, and i took my weight set and just started lifting. i wanted to feel literally anything else other than mental pain, but i didn't want to self-harm. i just wanted to feel any sensation in my body other than the feeling of bees swarming in my chest. i had to get my heart pumping for more than just anxiety. and i just kept doing it. my arms were so sore, and the next days they turned into jelly.
a few days later, i had a sudden realization -- i felt better. a lot better. i felt awake again. i felt calm. happy, even. i didn't have an anxiety attack for at least two days, and during those times i did feel anxious, i worked out, and felt better within minutes. i would check twitter, get pissed off and irritated, then close the app, work out for 10 minutes, and completely lose the compulsion to check social media. the more i worked out, the better i felt, the less i would check social media. and so, after years of talking about it, i finally committed to regular exercise.
i started fairly slow, just doing a couple reps of lifting a day, getting up to stretch on a regular basis, and increasing the amount of walks i take a week. eventually, i took a long look at myself, and realized just how much happier i was -- not just in general, but with myself.
in a past life, the only way i dealt with stress was substance abuse. i used to drink two bottles of wine a night, smoke two packs a week, and a quarter bag a week. my diet was awful, i was completely sedentary, and i did everything i could to ignore treating myself nicely. and when the pandemic forced us all to isolate, i felt that ghost of the past coming back to reclaim me. but i refused to go back.
now when i look at myself and see how much more buff i've gotten, it means more than just "vanity" or whatever to me. it's become more of a symbol to myself on how much i committed to change my life for the healthier. and it truly feels amazing. i'm not just physically stronger, but mentally too.
i don't think it's too wild to say that working out saved me. it's genuinely been transformative in so many ways.
