Race Against Self-Hate

I ran my slowest 5K ever. I feel thankful, hopeful, proud, and inspired.

Just over a year ago, I had a couple of bad falls that changed everything. I had just leaned back on a harness — a swing, a traction contraption — and was swinging my legs up in the air to bring myself to a supported inversion, hanging upside down with the harness supporting my pelvis.

The harness broke. I was lucky not to be fully inverted. I was lucky not to break my neck. I fell hard on my left hip, and my initial thought was all too familiar:

Shit — I'm too heavy. I broke the equipment. I am so embarrassed. I'll need to buy a replacement and I don’t have any extra cash right now.

Someone from the office next door came by to check what happened. She asked if I was okay. Assuming I had disturbed her with the loud crash, I told her I was fine, too embarrassed to admit otherwise.

The fall created a ton of pain. When I'd get up in the morning, I wasn't sure if my leg would hold when I stood. I kept teaching yoga, working with clients, taking Advil, powering through. An X-ray showed nothing – I would eventually need an MRI. I got bodywork done, applied what I knew about pain, fascia, movement, and stability, and tended to my increasingly unhappy hip.

At this point, the universe had to step in and say: Are you fucking kidding me?

New to my eBike, I was still adapting to its weight and how it moves when I stop pedaling. I was also learning it's unwise to adjust items in my basket while riding. This begged the question: Why was I even riding an eBike with an injured hip? Because my car was at the mechanic, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Because I’m not interested in being limited. Because fuck it.

I shifted my weight to adjust a strap on a bag and rode my eBike straight into a basketball pole. I flipped over the bike and landed on a bed of stones, coming down on the same side — hip and ribs taking the brunt of it.

I know what broken ribs feel like; I've experienced them before. It hurt to breathe, to move, to cough, to laugh. Any movement hurt. I kept an eye on my pulse oximeter and continued on, even though I was certain my hip was fucked. I don't have sick leave. I didn't want to stop working. I needed the money.

In hindsight, I could have made things work financially. Writing it down now, I can see how crazy it sounds. Teaching a yoga class pays me less than I need to fill up my car’s gas tank.

I went back to the orthopedic surgeon. We scheduled an MRI. He called me the morning after, telling me to get off my leg immediately. “You have two fractures. If you don't get off your leg, this will be a life-altering event. You need to keep all weight off of it for six to eight weeks.” It would be life-altering no matter what.

I make my way up and down the stairs with crutches. I’m in a relationship with a good man, I have four young adult kids — I can make this work.

I cannot make this work.

The good man, David, calls me that day to let me know his house burned down. While that meant he would be living with me, he was overwhelmed and under-resourced with his own trauma to live in. And with my adult kids, I would need to ask them for help, and I didn't. I’m sure they offered to help and I told them I was fine. I preferred to feel sorry for myself that they weren't swinging by to do my laundry or make me meals.

It's so hard to write this. To look at how uncomfortable I was needing help. Asking for help. Prioritizing myself. Taking care of myself.

David found a lovely woman to come in and help me do everything. I was resentful at first and appreciative eventually. I also determined I no longer needed her help a week or two before I no longer needed her help. Even though David was paying for the help, it's expensive and I balked at spending that money to do things I should be capable of doing myself.

After six weeks, I started PT and did that for a while until the cost outweighed the benefit. As an independent contractor, I buy my insurance off the exchange, and even though my premiums are a lot. A ton. Somehow the PT was only partially covered.

One of the consequences of jamming my hip was a jammed-up and tight pelvic floor causing urgency, which is so damn demoralizing. Luckily, pelvic floor health is one of my areas of expertise. I knew I could create greater balance and reduce the urgency. But even so, there's nothing like peeing on myself on the way to the toilet to create even further contraction, imbalance and depression.

I started to understand something different about my body. That my job wasn't to force it to heal or power through. That blaming and shaming myself got me nothing. None of it served me or created healing. I had to slow down. I had to listen. I had to breathe and rest and consider how to nourish myself from every angle. I'm a flawed human being who will make so many mistakes. I find my boundaries by going past them — always have and always will. But maybe if I treated myself with respect, curiosity, humor, and compassion while challenging myself to move beyond my limitations, that could provide the opportunity to access healing.

Jane Alexander, Race Against Hate

I kept my body in movement, paying attention to what it had to say. I started riding a bike again this spring. And today, I ran in the Race Against Hate — a race started twenty-six years ago following the murder of a Black man by a white supremacist. I was slow, slower than I’ve ever been, but I finished.

Hate is toxic. It doesn't heal. Maybe I finished the run today because I finally stopped fighting the most persistent enemy I've ever had — myself — and tried to be a bit more kind.

Namaste, Jane