The Racehorse Brain

I have an over-active brain. Not that that shapes any notion of intelligence, not at all. It means it cannot just be still. From the moment I wake in the morning to the second I go to sleep at night- I think. I fret, I worry, I fear, I doom, I plan, I plot, I scheme, I work it all out, I solve, I dream, I equate, I get happy and I elate - all in my head and all of the time. I call it my Racehorse brain and sometime ago, I realised it needed to be trained.

The fact that my brain can just fire on every cylinder has its advantages. Multi-tasking became a skill I perfected so well that even I was convinced it was something I could do for ever. Breastfeeding one son, taking a business call, timing the pasta, checking the emails and wiping my elder son’s arse all at the same time were all in a days work. Thousands of women like me do it every day. And thousands of partners, bosses, mothers and lovers assume that is how it is. The magic fairy who gets it all done and still manages to remember to shove on a hair dye at 10.35pm to cover the inevitable onset of middle age. Smile. You are mummy. You are wifey. You are invincible. And then one day you are not.

Last year for no real reason - multi-tasking suddenly got hard, which sucked as it is all I knew. Everyone knew I could juggle. I was good at all that money, children, house, family, career thing– But somewhere down the line I forgot to turn the ‘off’ button on. I would stare enviously at my husband who could just sit and be. My Racehorse was kicking out – - feed me, exercise me, keep me entertained…I would phaff and tidy and preen and plump, and sort out the larder cupboard and check all of my emails. I would join the family to watch a film yet keep one eye out for something that needed my attention.. The wash. Instagram. The dishwasher. Facebook. The half-read books. The interior magazines reiterating that you too could have that season’s colours on your Christmas tree.

I realised not only could I not relax – in fact I don’t think I have ever relaxed, but this constant attention my Racehorse was needing was making me ill. My thinking became fretting, problem solving became worrying. Future plans were spoiled by doom. I was unable to relax around myself. I couldn’t remember a time I had just day-dreamed. My heart pounded and I felt sick 23 hours out of 24. Every Day. I would wake from vivid dreams even more knackered than I went to bed. I had a knot the size of a pumpkin in my chest. I was panicking over decisions in Supermarkets. Panicking over what to make for dinner. Panicking about the little, mundane decisions. Worrying about every cough, cold, scratch and sniff I had. And then I stumbled across something on Dr Google and self-diagnosed myself as having some kind of anxiety and in true Racehorse fashion gobbled up every article online.

The hardest thing through all of this is acknowledgement. There is no way that me and My Racehorse could suffer from anxiety. Isn’t that what you got when you had real problems, like real proper problems - something really big to worry about? Anxiety overtook me – it dominated every minute of every day.

Imagine a glass of beautiful clear sparkly water – calm and the water is pure, you can see little tiny bubbles which you can focus on. It is fresh and balanced and feels good to drink.However, if you start to shake it and swirl it around or someone comes and pours a load of stale drinking water into it, it becomes unstable and cloudy and you can’t focus on anything. All the bubbles go mad. You can still drink from the cup but really you are just plunging in and not actually focusing, just getting through., not enjoying it really. You know you need to drink the water to keep going, to stay alive, and you normally get through it OK, sometimes all the way to the bottom before it gets filled up again, sometimes it is too full, spilling over the sides but you still have to gulp it down with all the stale water and you feel bloaty and sick and really just want to stop.. but you can’t get away -- this is anxiety. Days, weeks and months of this, in fact looking back probably years.

And now I realise that is what it was, I can see a little tiny chink of light. If it is anxiety and the adrenaline produced these feelings, then there must be a way of counter balancing this. Rather than try and stop the feelings, I have been guided by a wonderful therapist who is teaching me to control them. Live with my Racehorse brain and train it to work with me not against me. I have given my Racehorse a name and I called her Tilly Fairfax. The Real Tilly Fairfax.

Early days still but I have now begun to let my brain have time off. Little by little since last year, I have given the Tilly grazing time. Treat a thoroughbred well and they win the race when needed. Over work and they end up in the knacker’s yard. I don’t want to lose the ability to multi task or organise or think but I am learning, slowly, to do things slowly, to be mindful, to seek the calm. To relax so others can relax around me. And I have started to meditate. The most difficult thing I can honestly say I have ever had to do (apart from probably give birth – which I couldn’t do in the end, so both boys greeted the world via the sunroof) was to sit, headphones on, and listen to an ex Buddhist Monk asking me to just be still for 10 minutes. 10 MINUTES. TEN MINUTES. Ten minutes without doing anything. Just being – letting thoughts pop in and out without jumping on them and solving them. Ten minutes of appreciating bird song.

And that is where I am now, learning to be me, appreciating and accepting that anxiety is just as much a part of me as my wrinkly skin, the mole on my right shoulder and my podgy tummy from housing two babies. Not pushing anxiety away but living with it is the biggest trick in the book. Learning to take each day at a time and realising it’s OK sometimes not to be OK.

Writing this down is helping me. I can see the funny side of some of my actions, past and present. I am amazed I managed to walk out of the house sometimes when I think about some of my ‘magical thinking’ coping strategies, and I would love to continue to share this with you in the hope that perhaps someone, somewhere will read it and learn to accept their Racehorse too.