{"id":1170,"date":"2016-10-13T06:40:59","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T11:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gilcanrun.com\/?p=1170"},"modified":"2016-10-13T06:40:59","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T11:40:59","slug":"still-recovering-feeling-weak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gilcanrun.com\/?p=1170","title":{"rendered":"Still recovering, feeling weak"},"content":{"rendered":"

I did run yesterday<\/a>, but without real Internet again, writing is difficult. Then I went out for some more today<\/a>, and I was much slower. Well, I felt slower and more labored. Remember, you’re not actually clear of your cold or whatever malady, until your mucus is clear. Yeah, I said it! Yellow and brown this morning, but only from my sinuses, which is good. As an asthmatic I don’t want any sort of chest infection. I really hate being sick, because I know it takes longer to recover than a couple days really.<\/p>\n

But I will get through. All we can do is our best every day. That’s where I’m at. Some days my best is going to be something incredible and some days my best is going to be a giant pile of shit. Possibly, literally. Not just with running, with everything in life.<\/p>\n

I talk a lot about keeping positive and doing positive things to get results, t make changes. I want to take a minute to say that I in no way ignore, nor diminish, those who can’t just \u00a0“change their attitude”. There are illnesses out there like depression, anxiety, and a whole host of others that get in people’s way. Sometimes they are temporary, sometimes they are permanent. But they’re sicknesses too. We need to treat them as such and we need to respect them.<\/p>\n

If someone had a broken arm, and you wanted to play basketball, and they said, “I can’t, my arm is broken.” would your response be, “well, just think positive and have your arm be unbroken, I’ll pick you up in 5?” No, that’s absurd. Why do we do it with mental illness? I’m not talking about being sad, or worried, I’m talking about chemical imbalances causing debilitating illness. If your friend had pneumonia, you’d take them to the doctor, you wouldn’t make fun of them for having pneumonia, you wouldn’t tell them to snap out of it.<\/p>\n

We have to start looking at mental illness the way we look at all illnesses. We have to stop using th e qualifier mental too. It’s an illness, end of. We don’t say I have a lung illness when you have pneumonia, we don’t say we have a stomach illness when we have the flu. We’re sick, we’re ill, no qualifier needed unless someone asks specifics. And we don’t make fun of the physically ill and infirmed, so maybe we should lay off the mentally ill. It shouldn’t be a taboo, I shouldn’t be a stigma, and it damned well shouldn’t be a punchline.<\/p>\n