Mental Health Swims - My First Hosted Open Water Swim

About a fortnight ago, the Mental Health Swims (MHS) account followed me on Instagram, and within moments I was shooting the Founder, Rachel, a DM.

I couldn’t believe that I was seeing a model that was a mirror refection of Run Talk Run (RTR) but for open water swimming. The premise and goal is the same - facilitate a safe space where people can turn up entirely as themselves, whether they are happy, sad, anxious or meh. Normalising mental health conversation at the forefront, with an activity as a secondary bonus feature. RTR for running, MHS for swimming.

Unlike RTRs weekly regularity, MHS meet to swim just once a month which lowered the barrier to participation and hosting, since I wasn’t entirely sure that I could commit to a weekly swim. Fast forward about a week or so, and Rachel and I are chatting endlessly over the phone about our dreams and plans for both RTR and MHS.

I answered some of her questions about what it takes to scale such a beastly support community. We talked about the boring Health & Safety stuff, the logistical sign-up process stuff, and then we bonded over the emotional labour that we pour into these communities and the need for boundaries. If I wanted Rachel to come away with anything, it was to know that the boundaries she puts in place now will be the very lines with which she’ll save herself when MHS undoubtedly scales into something even more magnificent than what it is today.

So how was that first swim?

SCARY.

I have to admit that over the last 3 years I’ve developed a pretty solid routine around my RTRs that make them easier to navigate as a leader. What I mean by this, is that my confidence has grown.

Hosting this MHS for the first time, however, had me swimming in discomfort in the days prior… what would I say? What if a really competent swimmer turned up and I couldn’t facilitate their needs? What if my social anxiety flared up and I lost all communication skills in an instant? What if they could smell the sadness on me, and it was all too much?

It was like I’d been thrown back 3 years and I felt a wave of empathy for all the new RTR Leaders who show up to their runs in the first few weeks so deeply unsure of their right to be a “running leader”.

In the end, it was just my mum and boyfriend who came along for the dip and so any social pressure was alleviated immediately. I also massively messed up with tide times and so I felt incredible gratitude for the fact no strangers had seen this cock up!

So between Jake, my mum and I, we splashed in the shallow rock pools and slipped around on the seaweed and laughed at each other as we fell into deeper parts of the sea unexpectedly. We didn’t talk mental health…. but I could bring my most “Jess self” there and that was special.

Instead of hosting these monthly I think I’m going to hold them weekly. I want to build my confidence with open water swimming, and I want to build my confidence in facilitating a support group outside the realms of RTR too.

The world deserves mental health support that is accessible, and less intimidating than sitting in a circle raising our hands to share what little parts of sadness we can bare to expose. It’s up to us, your Average Joe’s, to make sure we are creating spaces where talking about your mental health is just so normal.

I think this is what I care about more than anything in the world… the running and the swimming… they’re just a lovely little bonus.

Join me next Sunday @ Holywell Toilets. Time to be confirmed - I’ll post it to my Instagram @jessicamaryrobson

Sadness and Disconnection: Finding my way out

This evening I deleted the Instagram app from my phone with the intention of a forced break. I wanted to be able to sit at the beach without documenting my sitting at the beach and interestingly did not entrust myself with any degree of self control to just not post.

I found myself wanting to Story my walk down to the shore. I found myself wanting to Boomerang the blueness of the waves. I found myself wanting to declare to an audience who truly couldn’t give fewer fucks about my reading habits, that I had just completed the beautiful book, Untamed.

What do I truly mean when I post these things? Am I saying “look how desirable my life is?”… “look how desirable my home is?” Am I seeking to make myself look like a desirable human by thrusting into your face “LOOK I AM A HUMAN THAT READS BOOKS”.

I feel that with Instagram, it is as “real” as you allow it to be. I take pride in how brave and vulnerable and honest I have been in the past. This time around, I just don’t want to be.

I don’t want to talk about how my sadness feels right now because truly, I’m not sure I comprehend it and I’m not sure I have enough detachment from the experience to be able to caption it up neatly for an audience who will most likely scroll past without reading anyway.

A few years ago, under the hold of depression, I read an amazing book called “Lost Connections” (Johann Hari) and it is the only book, cover to cover, that has allowed me to “see myself”. The emphasis on depression being disconnection feels so right. Lack of connection is what I feel in my body.

I don’t know how to describe this aptly enough but when I am in the midst of sadness I sometimes physically claw at my skin… a strange attempt to remove myself from the body that holds me. I just don’t feel at home in it, it all feels so alien.

I feel disconnected from myself, from my being.

My sadness spirals hit me in waves. Sometimes they last 5 minutes, sometimes they last an hour. Never more than this. I’m not going to self diagnose with depression because that would be a-foolish, b-unnecessary, c-inaccurate. But the sadness spirals have hit me consistently every day since my birthday (mid-July) and I want to do something about that… reconnecting.

I am grateful to have an acute awareness of how I feel in my body to know that my binges are a result of disconnection, and to know that my sadness is a result of disconnection. This is a narrative that feels right to me, because it feels like something I can take action on. I am also grateful that despite my fleeting moments of despair I am also a very high-functioning sad person and that feeling connection through my work is often the thread that keeps the rope from untangling altogether.

I think perhaps the point of this blog was to connect with my words in a way that I’ve not known how to on Instagram recently. In fact, I wrote this out on paper before typing it up and already I feel more connected to myself as a result. I think I’ll stay away from the ‘gram until the sadness spirals aren’t a daily occurrence.

I am still reachable. jessica@runtalkrun.com. Run Talk Run is still running in Eastbourne every Monday evening from Anytime Fitness @ 6.30pm.