Road to Recovery

The past few years have been rough on me, especially this year. In the spirit of openness, I wanted to write about it all in more detail.

I have to say I’ve given publishing this plenty of thought — I could’ve written this entire thing in various different ways. A few months ago, this would have been a spiteful, angry post. I tried to avoid doing that, by delaying writing this post, avoiding the need to air dirty laundry.

Instead I’ve written a more constructive and objective post. As a result, this is primarily a post about my general health & wellness and how that was impacted over the last couple of years. This weaves into the story about my long-term relationship that, to my surprise and despair, came to a close this year.

I didn’t write this because I want to tell a sob story. I wanted to bring up the real repercussions of a bad lifestyle and what complacency can lead to.

In Bad Shape

So, where do I begin? Well, the misery all began in 2019.

That’s when, completely out of nowhere, I started feeling seriously ill on my train rides to and from work. Getting up in the morning to get to work was becoming harder and harder, and I felt generally stressed out.

Is this an encroaching burnout? I wondered. I’m sure it’s fine, said the voice in my head. I was thinking it was just fine: You just need to take it easy.

My physical fitness was also quite questionable, to say the least: I spent a lot of time sitting down behind a desk and not working out. To add insult to injury, in my free time, I’d be sitting behind a desk, too: playing games, coding, doing creative work, philosophising… All done without getting out of my chair.

During and after college, I’d gained a ton of weight. I’d gone from weighing roughly 60 kg before I started college to nearly 90 kg in the span of a couple of years.

I had started half-hearted attempts to lose weight, but none of them stuck.

Panic Attacks

You can only be that unhealthy for a certain amount of time before it comes and bites you in the ass. For me, that was in 2019: at first, I was just feeling unwell, but by August of that year I no longer felt confident I would be fine.

I started suffering from frequent nausea and dizziness. That gave me a fright, simply because this did not seem to improve. Eventually this led to me having panic attacks in the middle of the day (and night). A few tests and hospital visits later I was told these issues could be explained by a combination of high blood pressure, and GERD¹.

My stomach has always been sensitive to stress. GERD caused acid reflux, which was the most annoying at night. The acid reflux on its own, if not intense, was… manageable. What wasn’t, however, was that the reflux would sometimes cause a shot of adrenaline to be released, which would cause a surge in heart rate and blood pressure.

Having such a spike occur while you’re typing away at code isn’t really pleasant. In two instances, I was so distressed by this happening I had to call an ambulance because I felt like I was going to lose consciousness and was concerned I was suffering from a heart attack or something very serious.

So, talking about blood pressure. Due to my physical fitness (or lack thereof, I should say) my overall blood pressure was way too high. This was very problematic, since I started feeling unwell in the car (I stopped driving) and on the train (I stopped taking the train because I couldn’t drive to the station).

In order to manage the blood pressure issues, I ended up taking beta blockers after consulting with my local physician. This also lowered my heart rate, which was very high at rest. The lowered heart rate and correct blood pressure made all the difference: this improved the situation significantly.

With the exception of a few office visits, my home desk became my workplace. This was months prior to the start of the (upcoming) pandemic, since I wasn’t confident I could still drive competently. I didn’t want to endanger myself or any others drivers on the road due to my anxiety.

I really felt like I needed to do something about it, so I was going to try to slowly drive places again, and if I saw no progress, get more help.

Now that we’ve reached the end of 2019, 2020 was about to increase the pressure: COVID was around the corner. My problems were no longer worsening, but the situation wasn’t improving, either: my blood pressure was okay, but I was still stressed out, easily exhausted, and my physical fitness wasn’t improving quickly enough.

The Hermit

I thought I was doing better, until COVID hit and I got a reality check. The increased stress of living in a society that’s suddenly dealing with a pandemic was not beneficial to my situation. I was already somewhat isolated, but COVID caused me to become a true hermit: barely leaving the house except for medical matters and necessities.

I do not have my own place — no house, no apartment. After living at a rented studio during my time at college, I returned home for what was supposed to be a short period of time while my girlfriend at the time was to finish her studies and find a job.

That ended up taking much longer than expected. When the pandemic started she hadn’t finished her studies, nor had the income for us to comfortably search for a place.²

Because I still live with my dad, I had no reason to leave the house to go shopping myself: he’d take care of that during the day, while I was doing work. That was smart, since it was the period during which the least number of people visited the shop, which was a great tactic at the start of the pandemic.

As a result though, I barely left the house at all. I’d become a hermit.

Under Pressure

At the end of the year, I ended up visiting a cardiologist, so I could get certainty about my blood pressure. Was it really because of my overall level of fitness or was it caused by something else? I went and got an echo taken of my heart and all was fine — all I needed was to work on my cardio, and the situation should improve, so explained the cardiologist.

I left the hospital relieved. I also got my kidneys echoed since several of my family members suffer from kidney-related (hereditary) disease. Thankfully, I did not inherit PKD, which was a relief.

After this Good News, I would tackle the next year differently, I promised myself.

With my girlfriend at the time having found a job and starting her own side-business, I focused on improving my health. I started off by doing more Ring Fit Adventure again (which I’d purchased earlier but I could never stick with it longer than a couple of months) and found my physical fitness improving slowly.

I also bought a treadmill and some dumbbells to make exercise without visiting a gym easier. As a direct result, I started working out more. I was going for at least 15 minutes of running on the treadmill, every day. Not quite the 30 minutes of workout I should eventually aim for, but that was definitely something I could keep doing.

To put this into perspective: when I started out… I could jog for about 3 minutes, and I needed to stop running after that, due to being out of breath and feeling sore. It was rough.

I had every right to feel better as my health slowly started improving again, but there was still some uneasiness brewing — I had a gut feeling that something else was going on.

Moving Concerns

Every weekend I’d try to meet up with my girlfriend, but we’d been having the same frustrating conversations about the future. We’d been together ever since high school and this was my first real, honest relationship. But it was all about to blow up in our faces… Enter: the relationship crisis.

Fed up with us not living together, my now-ex girlfriend started pushing more about finding a place to live together. I understood her desire, but I was having none of it, since we were still in the middle of a pandemic and I was still recovering — not in any state to add this additional stress to my life. I was also concerned about how viable this would be on our combined budgets.

I wasn’t budging, but I was open to the idea of starting to look at apartments later in the year, since the prognosis at the time was that due to an increased vaccination percentage, the pandemic would be a little bit more under control by the end of the year. (This ended up being more or less true, and would have been even more true if the Delta variant hadn’t arrived.)

Not too soon after, her family members also got involved. They started coming up with “good options” or “an excellent deal we might not find again”. I’m sure this was not an overt attempt to put pressure on me (or perhaps it was?) but I understand they wanted the best for their daughter (or relative). As for me, I just… couldn’t deal with this, especially given my mental and physical state at the time.

Trust Broken

In the next few months, I would work hard on my personal health and try to keep the relationship afloat, but eventually we had a few big recurring arguments, and then I found out that she and one of her co-workers had started messaging after hours.

Like, a lot of messaging was going on. Concerning levels of messaging, as was the content of the messages. I immediately addressed this, and it looked like this might blow over… As far as I knew, nothing physically inappropriate had happened (yet). I’d describe what’d happened as an emotional affair that was starting to escalate.

Now, I’m no stupid person, and I’ve seen friends go through this very thing, and I knew what the aftermath would be if this went horribly wrong. Now, it would be fair to say that at this point, my hermit-like existence was not very attractive to her, and I’ve always been somewhat introverted which had always been a source of discomfort in our relationship.

Regardless of that, I knew things weren’t looking good. So, ever since this personal crisis started and I felt a possible separation on the horizon, I tried a variety of things.

Before I did anything, I talked to some of my friends, one of whom was involved in a tough separation that ended in divorce. We talked, I underscored the severity of the situation, and he described how eerily similar the situation sounded to his own:

Also… I’m sorry to say this man, but it’s better that you be well-prepared: this is identical to the roller coaster I went through before our first separation. There were lies, denial, etc., but the fact was she kept messaging him, kept disappearing without explanation for hours at a time. When I wouldn’t let it go, the attitude became resentment. Despite that, every time we talked I believed things would get better. So she cried or nodded like she was listening and I let myself be lied to. I knew better. Don’t forget your own power to shape this situation, even if the only good option is to leave with your dignity. It’s the one thing I would go back and change about my story if I could.

I remember reading this and thinking… how the fuck did we get here?

First, I tried very hard to fix the relationship — when we couldn’t see each other, there were daily FaceTime calls, and I ended up compromising, promising to try to find an apartment sooner.

There was lots of talking. Lots. You don’t remain in a relationship for 10+ years without talking a bunch. I understood that people can and do develop crushes, even while they are already in a relationship. It’s all about knowing when to shut that down.

I was not very optimistic, since I knew this was possibly a last hurrah for the relationship. I’d had major concerns about finding a place to live with her, and I especially had them now. Why would I want to move in with someone who isn’t sure she wants to be with you any more?

I won’t go into more details, but suffice to say it did not end well.

Once trust is broken, there is no going back. We separated in July, after almost twelve years of being together. Due to the circumstances I described previously, we’d never even lived together for longer than a few weeks. I was devastated when it ended, as I’m sure so was she.

The day after we started a strict no-contact (NC) policy. No need to make this harder than it already was. As far as I‘m concerned, there’s no going back from a long-term relationship to friends. Not that this was even considered by either of us, we both agreed cutting contact, while incredibly tough, would be best.

I was incredibly angry and hurt, but I was also relieved. It felt like a great pressure was lifted from my life, like the Sword of Damocles had been hanging over my head for the past few months.

Regardless of this, to this day, life feels very surreal. Folks talk about a hole in the heart after a break-up, but I think a severed limb is perhaps more apt. That’s what it feels like to me, at least.

In Repair

Now, I am alone. I haven’t been alone like this since I was sixteen, and I’ve only ever been in a serious relationship with that single person. I spent a few weeks being a broken, sobbing mess and now I’m starting to get my shit together again. On good days, it doesn’t quite feel like the world is collapsing around me, and I can manage.

You know, I just said I’m alone, but that’s not strictly true: I have my family and friends who were there for me. Nonetheless, missing a romantic partner is something else entirely, of course.

I have to especially thank my closest friends, who were kind enough to lend their ear to my misery and to help me through this tough period — not that the tough period is over, to be clear. It’s a different kind of suffering now. I’m just happy I didn’t do too many stupid things. (I bought an electric guitar, for example. Learning how to play it has been put on hold for now.)

There was one little sparkle of hope that I saw during this period — I was keeping up with my workouts, and had lost some 4 kgs of weight. This was mostly because I kept going for walks, because I had no idea what to do with myself. No other distractions worked. Just walks. I wasn’t eating much, either.

I ended up listening to a lot of John Mayer, whom had just released Sob Rock, an entire album with songs about heartbreak. Timely, but heartbreaking. One of the most apt songs on the album is Wild Blue which I think is arguably the best track on the album.

A classic Mayer tune (from an earlier album) and another favorite of mine is the wistful In Repair, which was also in the heavy rotation playlist:

And now I’m walking in the park
And all of the birds, they dance below me
Maybe when things turn green again
It will be good to say you know me
In Repair by John Mayer

In order to get over it all, I knew what I needed to do — keep working at it, and keep myself busy. Find some new perspective. “I’m on the road to recovery,” I said to myself. I was sure of it. Don’t live in the past.

So, I started pushing myself harder. Every day, I walk at least 2 km, and run between 2-5 km for cardio. That’s at least ~5 km of movement, daily, in addition to weight lifting (dumbbells) and ab training. On a typical day, I end up spending roughly an hour or two on workouts, and I’ve been losing weight and bulking up ever since.³

Losing weight isn’t always kind to the wallet, though — in addition to some of the equipment I had bought the preceding months, I also had to replace my entire wardrobe! None of my shirts or pants fit any longer. (I can wear some S shirts now, which is incredible.)

The results speak for themselves. According to my Apple Watch, my oxygen intake has risen by 20%, and I can feel it. I’ve lost weight and feel lighter, my sleep quality has improved, I feel more optimistic.

I’m no longer the same hermit I was at the start of the year. I’m slowly improving, going outside every day⁴ and hanging out with my close friends frequently. I’m not at the point yet that I can try expanding my social circle yet. (My friends know very well I’m not a party animal, never was. I doubt that’ll ever change.)

During the period of misery, I was also not on top of my game at work, I should mention. I’m finally starting to become quite productive again at work, and that’s a relief. When everything was falling apart, there were days when I wrote very little code. I’ve been getting my programming mojo back, and it feels good to be able to think through problems again, and being able to solve them with a clear head.

I’ve also reached a key milestone in my weight loss recently — reaching 72 kg, down 10 kg from 20 weeks ago. Of course, I’m not done yet! My ideal weight would be around 65 kg, but I suspect my weight loss from now on will be more gradual.

(I originally wrote this piece in October, and there has been little change since then, so I was right about that. This is also probably due to muscle gains.)

In a way, I’m not surprised all of this has happened. I knew it would, in time, and with effort. But the break-up was helpful in that it allowed me to throw all of my weight behind one thing: recovery. It jolted me awake, shocked me out of the complacent mentality I had found myself having.

So yes, I’m on the road… I’m on the road to recovery.

Mens sana in corpore sano, as they say. It has to start with my body. In time, I’m sure my mind will recover too. Until then, I’m throwing all of my weight behind my physical recovery. Which will probably be for the foreseeable future.

It’s still quite tough on me every day, but I’m hanging in there. I need a lot more time to deal with whatever broken, harmful shards remain of the relationship I had to leave behind. Maybe once that is done I might attempt to date again.

I won’t ever be the same again, that’s for sure. Maybe that’s for the best.