A collection of my favourite places on Arran🌀
I have such an intense connection with Arran. The only thing I can compare it to is the feeling I have with Hoy, Orkney. In both places, unlike anywhere else I feel a deep sense of ease. Stepping off the ferry is like coming home.
My mums family originate from Arran. My gran and grandpa met on the island and I have spent a lot of my life hearing stories and connecting with different parts of the island. I had lots of camping trips with my mum and my dog Alf as a child, and returned for the first time as an adult with Vilius to run the half marathon in 2016…
TW: this story contains potentially triggering topics surrounding addiction, orthorexia and depression.
In 2018, I returned to Arran for the first time by myself. I was going through real emotional and mental pain at the time. It was during my first experience of depression, triggered from a severe running injury. This trip was before I moved to Orkney. Thinking back, I remember feeling like my body and brain was on fire - whilst also feeling like a huge dark cloud was raining above my head. Fire & water- seems contradictory but both feel like an accurate description of that time in my life.
I remember retuning to Arran during that time seeking a sense of peace. To feel reconnected and less alone. The first few days back on the island were rough. I’ve rarely spoken about those days. It was only when I was back in Arran last week that I began to reconnect with those days and truly remember what went on. The first memory came flooding back in as I ran through Brodick last week. I had a vivid flashback to four years ago; I seen myself walking with a bag of cider (if anyone remembers what I was like then, they would know that I was absolutely in the depths of orthorexia (an obsession with “clean eating” /toxic diet culture) cider would have been thee last thing I would drink).
I remember feeling like this was the only way I could numb the pain. Alcoholism runs deep in my family and up until that point I was very resistant to using alcohol to deal with emotional pain- rooted in the fear that I may become reliant. However, I truly felt like I had no other choice. I got back to the place I was staying and cracked open two bottles of cider. I had drank many many times before this, but I had never drank myself and I had never really drank with the intention to numb…
I was DEVASTATED to discover that it did nothing to dissolve or numb the pain - if anything it enhanced my feelings of shame and low self-worth.
That moment was not my rock bottom. In fact, it got a lot worse before it got better (but that’s for another time). The next few days went by in a blur ending in a very sad sad call to a very surprised Vilius who rushed to Arran with so much love and support.
Before that point, Vilius, my mum and everyone in my life didn’t realise how bad my mental health was. I was very sneaky, like my eating disorder experience, I was able to control how much I allowed people to see. I suffered in silence for a long time. Wrapped up in layers of shame around being vulnerable. I ran away to Arran to be alone, under the guise of “reconnecting with my roots” - telling everyone I was fine and that I just wanted a solo adventure.
The months that passed after this trip were full of raw pain and overwhelming emotion. That trip to Arran was the catalyst to my healing journey. It was the point where I had to do something to move through the pain I was feeling, it inevitably led me to moving to Orkney and beginning the journey of rediscovering myself & who I want to be…
Fast forward to last week and the run through Brodick forced me to re-live this vivid memory…I felt a wooooosh of all sorts of emotions well up inside me. I stopped on Brodick bay and began to cry. I felt deep sadness and immense gratitude at the same time. In that moment I recognised how much has shifted inside myself, how connected I am to myself, how vulnerable I am now able to be, how much healing and work I have done to let go, forgive and grow….
The reason I am sharing this is to say that cliché but true true statement “we do not need to suffer in silence”. I am speaking to everyone but especially women. I believe that women, often as natural empaths can often take on the weight of the world, we can feel so greatly for others that we push down our own pain. Reflection on the book ‘The body keeps the score’, there is only so long we can do this before we burnout physically and emotionally. We don’t need to hold things in under the guise of being stoic and strong. It’s not a burden to others to speak our truth and share how we feel - it does however become a burden to ourselves.
This story is a small but significant part of my life story and I believe it’s important to recognise that we are multifaceted beings. We don’t need to be defined or judged by one or two experiences. We are sooooo much more than one thing. I wasn’t really ready to share this story with myself until now, out of fear of what it might bring up. I wasn’t expecting to share it in a blog either, but now after reading it back, I think that it might provide some solace or comfort to even just one person who reads it.
Being vulnerable and sharing our pain is tough. But I hope as a society that we are done suffering in silence!!
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