12 min read
I have a tendency to waffle - so buckle up! To give context, I'm a 30 year old managing a life with chronic fatigue, ADHD, and complex PTSD. A fun myriad of diagnoses which at first, I honestly saw as a life sentence. Slowly over the course of at least 3 years I have adapted my lifestyle around my body. Although these conditions are recognised as disabilities, and stigmatised as inabilities, I personally find it empowering think of myself as having alternative capabilities, or even fluctuating capacity. This acceptance in itself took a lot of time and grace to meet myself here, as invisible illness is often misunderstood.
Mind The Movement Gap was a concept at first. It came to me after a break-up that triggered me to really look at the way I treated & related to myself both as an individual in relation to others. It made me reflect and ask: why can't I keep up with everything? Why am I fuelled by guilt, panic & Ritalin ... and still struggling? And why is my body still failing me? But the truth is, I was failing my body.
I spent years in situations, relationships & jobs that were reflections of my own feelings of wanting to run away & escape myself. I knew I wanted to help others but always overcommitted & physically couldn't follow through. Everything started off OK, yet within weeks I was full of dread. Before I knew it my body and my brain went fully offline. Not because I had done anything wrong, but because life so far had really hurt. It was cluttered with trauma, pain, rejection, abandonment. So I took these things into adulthood with me. Maladaptive coping mechanisms, self sabotaging tendencies, and a shrinking capacity to act like everything was fine. Until I was no longer able to. My body felt like it was giving up on me; at first, slowly but surely, then all at once. Regular daily tasks became near impossible. I lost the ability to recall any of the degree I had spent 3 years obtaining. I was dosed up with anti depressants and beta blockers to manage the physical panic. I became fearful, tearful, had constant chest pain as a result of always bracing. I started losing chunks of memory both long term and short, then stopped leaving the house, and eventually even lost my ability to speak coherent sentences. Every attempt was a stumble that ended in tears; "What is happening to me?"
No amount of hiding behind job roles, relationships, diagnoses, not even moving city could help me. I was falling apart, metaphorically and literally, but still desperately hiding my pain from family & friends. What ensued was months and months of chronic fatigue, brain fog and a revolving door of throat and yeast infections. I now know this was my immune system saying "nope!!" while I forced it on. I would wake up to a quiet, humiliating anxiety attacks, then wash down my antibiotics & medications and sleepwalk through another day. After cycles of extended sickness and absence, quitting jobs, depressive episodes, unfinished self help projects, rinse & repeat, I was finally forced to check myself. Something had to give.
In a desperate attempt to escape before I lost my mind, I sold all my belongings and moved to Italy in 2022. To everyone else I'd made a bold, brave move. To me, it was a lifeline. Unsurprisingly, something about getting full days of vitamin D from the warm sun, the laidback afternoons, living in a walkable city - and honestly, the ocean between me and multiple responsibilities - helped me begin to breathe fully again, pause, and even start reflecting on how I could start to repair the damage already done to my mind and body.
I'd had this realisation before, many times, but never quite got to the point I felt safe, strong or 'ready enough' to action it. Italy was a wake up call. It felt HUGE but I knew I had to try and work with myself rather than against. My own protective mechanisms became outdated bodyguards. Now I realised the reason why. They were trying to keep me safe from something I didn't know: living a life that nobody I knew lived was an option. One that worked with my ebbs and flows, not against. The idea felt unsafe and unfamiliar to my body, and honestly I had nobody role modelling this around me. Everyone I knew was in a 9-5, hospitality, or an influencer. And everyone seemed to be getting on with life despite the increasing pressure. I was stressed at the idea that I was doomed to use all my energy working and self managing my symptoms and leave nothing left for living, being healthy or enjoying life.
Starting with looking at my feelings in therapy I realised I'd been so conditioned to predict chaos, pain, disappointment and failure that I had very strong senses of these feelings in my body. I was familiar with them, though they were heavy. But nowhere in my body could I recall the feeling of relief, softness, or calm. Those bigger, uglier feelings of shame that had posed as my protectors had become thieves of joy and presence. It was visceral and immobilising. But moving (stretching, walking, even a few pathetic attempts at star jumps) helped me start to process some heavy emotions more than just thinking or talking about them did. Even though it felt daft, I couldn't deny that onboarding my body in the healing process changed my mood significantly.
After returning from Italy, still burnt out but slightly more optimistic, I moved to the south coast. In my anxiety induced state of burnout I surrendered to a slower way of life. No more were my perfectionist, 100mph, juggle-all-the-hobbies tendencies helpful. They were fuelled by shame and not-good-enoughness, as well as a constant attempt to prove my worth and 'keep up' with everyone else. Living near the beach & forest & working a humble 25 instead of 40 hours a week, I ironically gained the strength and time to go outside, be quiet, move my body at a pace that matched my new, slower rhythm. Note here that this was also made possible because I lived with my partner at the time, a privilege in itself that took much of the pressure off having to work full time to make ends meet. I also had no local friends yet, so no pressure to socialise when I didn't feel capable. It felt uncomfortable at first; my brain was still screaming that I needed to do more, but every time I tried I got sick again. Flu like symptoms, tachycardia, debilitating neck pain, fatigue & depressive symptoms that triggered self neglect. This elongated the time it took me to feel ok again. Anxiety was my baseline. My goal of 'healthy' had to just become 'well enough' for a while.
So I started striving to be 'well enough' to call friends & family to catch up. To open up about what was good, bad, just Ok. Well enough to go to the gym once a week. To face my social anxiety and sit alone at the beach with a book while my body repaired itself. To talk to strangers. Instead of being consistently busy, I got to be consistently gentle with myself and curious with life.
Through my workplace I then undertook some therapeutic work which was invaluable. There is so much more context & nuance in my personal journey, and I want to make it clear body based work like movement therapies aren't a 'cure' in their own right. I was in talk based therapies for 15 years before I realised I was going in circles. It was like a puzzle that I only had the corner pieces of. Discovering that interventions range from Top-down e.g. talk therapies to Body-Up approaches such as yoga and breathwork showed me a universe of possibilities, where I had almost decided I was doomed to be sick and tired forever. All that to say that none of my recovery exists in a vacuum or has a start or end, just a few important lunges forward.
So I had my first round of NHS funded treatment called 'Rewind Therapy' which is similar to EMDR. It was heavy stuff, so as homework between sessions I was instructed to practice breathwork techniques to manage the internal overwhelm. I had to do rhythmic breathing while I walked. I couldn't believe how effective it was. It seemed too simple. I couldn't understand HOW or WHY this was possible. Not long after this I attended a coaching event by InBody Amy, who spoke about somatics. The guest speaker, Emma Marshall, spoke about body rhythms. I lit up. These 3 events were some of my first introductions to the Nervous System, Neuroplasticity and Somatics.
I went down the rabbit hole of all 3, realising there was evidence that I might be able to reverse some of the damage done to my mind and body, and improve my future outcomes and wellbeing. Of course my algorithm had caught onto my obsessive googling. This all happened super quickly and luckily my ADHD loved the hyper focus. Dopamine filled, I consumed everything I could on Neuroplasticity. It gave me so much hope. Although buzzwords now, these 3 subjects have fuelled my education and personal healing journey ever since.
My routine began to reflect this newfound knowledge. I was doing some somatic exercises after a particularly triggering argument with my partner at the time. The exercises helped me not lose my shit: I was determined to stop punishing myself & start feeling past the rumination & stress. Triggered but aware, I lay on the bed, breathed deeply, put my feet together and knees up like the video had said, & started butterflying my legs.
(It still feels surreal to remember what happened next. I'll put together another blog post on 'My Somatic Experience' soon so this post doesn't go on forever.)
After this crazy experience I felt so much space & lightness. Obviously that wasn't permanent, I didn't ride off into the sunset never to be affected by my troubles again. Life is ebbs & flows, but now I knew about working with my nervous system I could really lean in, listen, experiment. Before I knew it I was doing these exercises regularly, & miraculously having clear thoughts again. Clear visions of recovery, beliefs that whatever was happening there was a way to work with my body to survive it all. However strange it looked, it was definitely better than thinking and feeling insane & mentally paralysed. It soon became a tool in my toolbox of 'keeping myself alive'. Aliveness came to have an even bigger meaning for me.
Before I knew it these regular movements became natural parts of my routine. I would put my headphones on loud and soon my mind was quiet. I was then dancing involuntarily after the fact. The tunes lined themselves up and I found myself spinning around the house almost child-like. I felt JOYful. I honestly had not felt this free or euphoric without substances for years.
I began dancing every single day. The more I danced, the less tense my body felt. 5 minutes or 50 minutes. The more I did my somatic exercises, the less judgement & more compassion I felt towards past versions of me who I realised had been carrying so much physically manifested pain. I was melting away the pain with movement, & in a state of inertia I became committed to starting my days with a little dance. A few weeks after the event with Amy and Emma I returned to MIM's homepage to read about the amazing work being done around electronic music, neurobiology and movement. Engrossed in the science, I went on to complete my teacher training with MIM HQ in Spring of 2024. I also used this new energy to apply for a Somatic Dance Practitioner course. In this training I continued to learn how dance and movement is vital to enhancing body awareness, and in turn helps us build a true relationship to ourselves, our emotions and the way we show up in the world.
Where does MTMG come in? Well, one day I spoke to my therapist about this newfound feeling of self compassion & novelty for life since swapping my old strategies for more unconventional yet enjoyable approaches. Though my depression wasn't 'gone', my ADHD wasn't 'cured' & my flashbacks didn't disappear, I had a well of space for handling when they reared their ugly heads. I looked forward to being open in my body instead of constantly collapsed in it. I became soft & collaborative with myself. I tried new dance classes (BIG deal for someone with anxiety) & lead with my curiosity rather than my fear. Almost instinctively I would know whether I had the energy to do a sweaty dance workout in a group, or some slower aerobic moves in the comfort of my garden. Overall I just knew I had to move in some capacity. My therapist helped me to understand that most of my life I had spent bypassing the processing stage of any of my experiences. I was storing all this energy & past pain, & it was sitting inside my soma (cell body) like rocks. And we usually can't process by talking alone. I had become frozen at a cellular level, & my body was mirroring that. I wasn't broken, or failing. I needed to move differently. And now I was on the path to being the person who did.
So the realisation: I had fallen through a gap. A gap where I was prescribed talk therapy, medication, sick leave, crisis intervention, painkillers for embedded trauma. All crisis management. But the true shift came when I prescribed myself Movement. Forever a perpetual intellectualiser, I enlisted my body to help me learn to empty out some of the old stuff and make space for the new.
I used to feel like my potential (for success, happiness, health, connection, self acceptance) was out of reach. But it wasn't, there was just a huuuuuuuge gap. A gap I kept slipping through the cracks of. A gap that I realised can be bridged for many of us by movement, big or small, high intensity or low impact... movement that works with and from the body. One crucial piece of my puzzle where working on myself and my healing was no longer was a chore or a burden, and it became a safe & creative place to explore, honour, repair & release.
That's how Mind the Movement Gap was born. Now I hope to share this body wisdom with you.