Saturday 16 April 2016

My Experience with Depression.

Since we’re doing this cycle for mental health I thought it fitting to write this post about my personal experience with mental health challenges.

In my early twenties I suffered from depression for about 2 years.  It was rotten.  Every morning straight after the blissful haze of awakening, I would feel a kind of hollowness, that nothing was right. However, I was lucky.  Breda, my mum, was amazing.  She understood that what I was feeling was complex, and that it needed to be addressed by a person who understood that particular type of complexity.  She understood that I needed to be helped by someone who was qualified to help.  But beyond her understanding of the need for that help, she also held no stigma about mental health issues or about opening up and accepting that sometimes getting help is necessary.
 
My problems were relatively minor in the scheme of things, and some of it had to do with the social anxiety associated with the processes of discovering my own identity.  But that is not to belittle how I was feeling. The difference between the angst of identity development and the continuous deadening feeling from depression are now clear and discernible in my mind.

Friday 8 April 2016

Camping in the Hexi Corridor

So here we are in Zhangye! Nothing remarkable about the city itself, but for us it means that we are over half way through China.  Initially, looking at the map at the end of a long days cycle, it could be a little disheartening.  It looked like we were going nowhere. Or nowhere fast anyway (I suppose that was the point of this though!) but suddenly, here we are smack in the middle of the country with over 2600km under our belts and only about 2200km to go.

For more detail, check this map out fully at: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=zMqh4iDlbWvc.k-3IbldAaRzc

Friday 1 April 2016

Inappropriate Saddle Positions and Floating Potato Angels

Inappropriate saddle positions, gammy knees, heavily dusted eyeballs, sudden and explosive meltdowns over melted chocolate, Delhi belly, – well not really but Xuzhuanglaozhaowanghe belly just doesn’t have the same ring to it – freezing temperatures, and a general waft of combined stinkiness have all been part of the experience up until now.

But what an experience it has been so far!

Taking a wee break as we entered the Liupan mountains