Diary of a depressed personal trainer
Welcome to our first guest post. As you’ve likely gathered, I am not also a personal trainer in addition to being a therapist and death doula. Thus, I’d like to introduce you to Taylor Flory. Taylor is a Chicago-based queer personal trainer and nutrition coach committed to fitness for every body. She works to build inclusive, diverse community free of diet culture and fatphobia through education, compassion, and support. Taylor is also a delightful friend. You can follow and support her here:
Email at tylrflry at gmail.com
Instagram at @counterculturefit
Without further adieu.
This is not the newsletter I planned to write. I wanted to write something simple and informative like I did for the last issue, although I’m laughing at the word simple, because the truth is, I struggled for days to write that post and still barely finished it.
I’m depressed, y’all.
And when I’m in the thick of a depressive episode, everything feels one hundred times harder and more exhausting than normal, and I get resentful of how much fucking work it is to take care of myself. It’s constant! I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder at 17, but learning how to live with and manage my mental illness took me almost two more decades. I’m lucky enough to be a member of the 40-60% of people for whom antidepressants are effective (although the side effects of the early SSRIs I took were gnarly and getting on an SNRI and a mood stabilizer in 2016 was like stepping into a whole new world). But medication, while it has definitely kept me alive, did not and will not cure these conditions, and if I want to do more than merely survive, all kinds of other strategies and supports are necessary. In addition to taking my meds, I go to therapy, attend 12-step meetings for families and friends of alcoholics, journal, eat a nutritious diet and don’t drink much alcohol, keep a regular sleep schedule, and, of course, exercise regularly. Don’t get me wrong—all of these things make a huge difference to my quality of life, for which I am deeply grateful. But, y’all, it’s a lot! And because my depression and anxiety are the result of chemical imbalances complicated by trauma, I still have depressive episodes even when I do everything I’m supposed to. The most common trigger for these episodes is stress, and without going into too much detail, it’s safe to say I’ve experienced more than my usual share of that recently.
At any rate, this is my second depressive episode in less than six months. Which means I have to be even more intentional about everything I do so that I can mitigate the severity of my symptoms enough to keep functioning, when what I really want to do is lie on the floor and pray for death. How rude! There’s plenty of evidence that one of the best things I can do for myself when I’m feeling shitty is exercise, and years of experience have shown me that this is, unfortunately, true. But two major symptoms of depression are fatigue and anhedonia, and these make it hard to coax myself into a workout.
So what do I do? This is a question I get a lot from clients who also have depression, and I don’t think there’s any one “right” answer, but as someone who does generally manage to keep up with exercise when she’s depressed, I thought it might be helpful to walk through what I did last week both to take care of myself generally and to keep my body moving. And maybe you’ll find that some of these methods work for you, too.
Sunday: Sat down and planned out the week in my bullet journal. Listed out exercise and self-care goals and distributed them throughout the days of the week. I capped it at two items per day, because I know that’s the most I can manage right now. (Side note: I find using a planner extremely helpful, both because I have ADHD and because it allows me to break down overwhelming to-dos like taking care of myself into more manageable tasks. It also helps me manage my expectations in terms of what I can reasonably accomplish.)
Monday: Snoozed for a million hours. Struggled to get out of bed and realized there was no way I was going to make it to the gym. But I did have the energy to wash and fold my laundry and do the dishes, so I did that. Journaled. Prepped lunches for the week while listening to an online Al-Anon meeting and then forced myself to eat some of what I made even though I had very little appetite. Took the train to and from my second job, so even though I skipped the gym, I got in 40 minutes of walking, in addition to some fresh air, which helped. Trained a pair of adorable baby queer clients in the evening after work. Came home and read in the bath before collapsing into bed.
Tuesday: Had a morning client, so that got me up and to the gym, and seeing my client slay her leg day inspired me to do my own lower body workout. I ended up hitting it pretty hard because two exercises in I could already feel my mood improving. Went to second job. Trained another client/friend in the evening. Finally finished the previous newsletter, albeit two days later than I had intended.
Wednesday: My only objective other than going to my afternoon job this day was to work out. I did, and felt actually okay all morning, although I accomplished nothing else but doing the dishes and showering. After lunch, my mood plummeted again, but the walking portion of my commute upgraded me from despair to ennui. Good enough! Ate cereal for dinner because even the thought of heating up leftovers felt like too much.
Thursday: I have a 6 am client on Thursday mornings who is absolutely lovely—and having someplace to be first thing can really help when I’m depressed. Routine is an underrated medicine. I had another (also lovely) client at 8 and planned to work out after she was done at 9, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The week already felt years long and I realized the only goal I could reasonably set for myself was to make it through the rest of the day. Tried not to be too hard on myself about not working out and was mostly successful. Did get a walk in on my commute, though, and did, in fact, make it through the day. I even ate a real meal when I got home.
Friday: Managed to get out of bed after snoozing only two times, and because the weather was nice, walked to the gym and worked out before coming home to train a virtual client. Went to an Al-Anon meeting. Went to work. Came home and yet again made myself an actual dinner. Officially survived the week!
Saturday: Mostly focused on recuperation. Had a few clients, which was a good start to the day. Came home and cleaned my bathroom—a huge accomplishment for a depressed person. Allowed myself to take an edible and read for the rest of the afternoon (highly recommend The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff, btw). Had a call with an Al-Anon friend in the evening. Went to sleep by 9:30 pm.
There were a lot of wins here: I moved my body every day, but I also didn’t push myself beyond my capacity. I met my obligations to my clients and my employers (and training clients always makes me feel better, so that’s a win within a win). I ate three meals every day, even if some of them were cereal, and fed myself something more nutritious when I had the bandwidth. I used gentleness rather than shame to achieve my self-care goals. Most importantly, I took it one day at a time and kept it very, very simple. While this might sound like bragging, it’s literally just me itemizing evidence against the judgmental, defeatist asshole that lives in my depressed brain and tells me that I’m lazy and nothing I do is good enough.
At the same time, I do possess some advantages that not everyone does: I work at a gym, so I have a reason to get myself there regardless of how much I may not want to work out. I don’t have children or a spouse, so whatever energy I muster can be devoted to caring for myself. I live in a walkable city that makes it easy to get exercise and fresh air. I can afford insurance that covers therapy and medication. And my mental illness is no longer debilitating in the way it was even five years ago. Partly (and paradoxically) this is because years of cultivating healthy habits has resulted in these habits becoming ingrained enough that I can keep going on autopilot. I don’t have to think nearly as much about doing things to take care of myself because I’ve been practicing so long. But it’s also because of dumb luck: my depression isn’t treatment-resistant. While exercise can also help those with more severe mental illness, it isn’t going to yield the same results for them as it does for me.
It took me almost two weeks to write this. I went back and forth on whether I should publish it at all. The last thing I want is to make it seem like I’ve conquered my depression, or that I’m trying to tell anyone what to do. And it also feels vulnerable to talk explicitly about this stuff; although I’ve done a lot of work around the shame I feel about having mental illness, it still comes for me sometimes, and it can make me feel exposed. But I decided to share this, not for sympathy or to position myself as an expert, but because I thought some of you might see yourselves reflected here and find relief in the idea that you can take a measured, gentle approach to doing hard things. Self-care is a long game. It’s about the accumulation of small actions over time. Some of the most important things we can do for ourselves are also very simple: drink water, eat regular meals, get enough sleep. But we have to give ourselves credit for these kind and loving acts every time we do them. They always count. And the more credit we give ourselves, the more we can see how badass and radical it is not to punish ourselves for being human. At least, that’s how it works for me.
Thanks for reading! I’m so grateful for your support. Please consider a paid subscription if you like what you’ve found here. If you’re in Chicago and would like to train with me, you can reach my by email at tylrflry at gmail.com or DM me on Instagram @counterculturefit.
