MENTAL ENERGY Although mature beyond his years, Olly admits that having a good mental attitude is something he has had to learn. “Everyone has those moments and thoughts where even if it’s the slightest flare-up you think, ‘I don’t really want to be dealing with this around his village but also travels to again right now.’ It puts your mood nearby Lincoln to meet others who down without you realising it.” have the parkour bug. He says his mates have noticed Despite injuring his ankle last year, when this dark cloud descends. “I have he’s back on his feet and can do back, had my friends from school notice a front, side and wall flips. “I taught personality change in me,” he adds. “But I’ve got much better at controlling myself to do a cork before I did my ankle in, which was quite good fun. that recently. I’ve learned that UC is It’s kind of like a back flip but you go something I am going to have, it’s off of one leg and then sort of go something I’ve got and I just take each horizontal in the air and then do a 360 day as it comes. If I have a flare-up I spin in the air, while doing a flip.” feel better about it these days because For Olly, the appeal is the challenge. it’s just a reminder that I need to keep “There’s nothing better than on top of everything and stay in being able to do something,” the position I am.” LIVING he says. “It’s not just getting As well as carefully WITH IBD from one place to another, monitoring what he eats, Looking for some it’s not just getting over Olly is able to use his great tips? See physical obstacles, it’s exercise regime as a way crohnsandcolitis. getting over mental ones of destressing. org.uk/ because a lot of the time it’s “When I first got into livingwithibd your head that stops what parkour I spent three years your body can do. Which I sort of or so watching videos online proved to myself when I found and teaching myself how to do stuff in parkour, when I did the back flip. It my garden and in the park in my village [in the Lincolnshire Wolds] … I looks bonkers and you don’t think you’ll ever be able to do it and the one thought I’d like to teach myself a back flip. So I went to the park, spent weeks thing that’s stopping you is your head.” He attributes parkour to helping trying to figure out how to do it, to get him cope with his condition. “I myself ready mentally,” he says. genuinely think parkour is the main Eventually he succeeded and that was thing that’s helped me be in such a it, he was hooked. “I fell in love with positive position about my Colitis. You everything to do with parkour.” can’t sit and mope all day – especially Now, partly thanks to passing his about my Colitis, which flares far more driving test, he’s not just leaping
PARKOUR HELPED ME BE POSITIVE ABOUT MY COLITIS
Managing stress through parkour helps Olly to feel upbeat
18 • SUMMER 2018 • CONNECT
HOW TO TACKLE STRESS We all have to deal with a certain amount of stress in our lives but exams, upcoming events and life changes can all make it worse. Here are some tips for decreasing the amount of stress in your life:
Olly has been inspired by hearing how others living with IBD cope with their condition
with stress. If you sit down and stress all day you are just going to make yourself stressed and what do you expect other than more symptoms? So you go out, enjoy yourself, prove to yourself you can be normal and enjoy life, and do what you can.” Olly says he feels blessed to have such a strong support network. His family – mother Sarah, father Michael and sister Caitlin – have been “unbelievably great”. Although he could have moved to a hospital closer to home, his parents are still happy to accompany him to see specialists at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham – and they help him keep his feet firmly on the ground. His friends reacted with typical teenage jocularity at first, joking about “the Robocop instrument” that did his endoscopy. “But I think the more I live with it,” says Olly, “they have got used to it and realised what it sort of means to me. So they have become a lot more supportive in the sense that if I am feeling a bit low and I say, ‘It’s down to my Colitis,’ they’ll say, ‘Well, if you need anything, let me know.’” He says he doesn’t shy away from
I PREFER TO FEEL LIKE I’M WINNING. POSITIVITY IS KEY explaining his illness to those who ask. “I explain what it is and that I’ve got it and there’s not much I can do other than deal with it. I try my best to show it is something you’re stuck with but in a way that doesn’t lead to people feeling sorry for me. I prefer feeling like I’m winning. Positivity is key.” Once his A levels are out of the way, Olly aims to study psychology at Lincoln University, with the end goal of becoming a mental health counsellor. He says he chose this route after watching a close friend being diagnosed with depression. “He was always the mad, crazy kid, the source of laughter … the nicest guy I have ever met and probably ever will meet, and he just completely flipped. He became the polar opposite and it was weird adjusting. I have been trying my best to help him as much as I can because obviously people like me and
his other friends – we can only ever do so much. But he’s improving, which is really nice to see. But that kind of inspired me to try to get out there and try to do my part for people with mental health issues.” Olly says his own health journey has made him more self-aware too. “I’ve had times that I’ve thought it’s a possibility my condition could get worse. But I don’t want to spend my life worrying about something that could happen when it might not.” A Crohn’s and Colitis UK member and supporter (he raised around £200 for the charity by running the Lincoln 10K last year), Olly says hearing about other people’s health journeys helps. “I’ve read about people where [their IBD] has progressed a lot more and they’ve had surgery, and there are a lot of stories of people coming out 10 times stronger. It’s beautiful to read. People are doing amazingly and they show so much courage. “I think those stories need to be told – it lowers the worry level. If it does happen to me, which hopefully it won’t, then I know these people have managed it, and why can’t I?”
l Learn to say no without feeling guilty l Build in some time to relax every day – deep breathing, a bath, yoga or simply listening to music can help l Find an exercise you enjoy and schedule it into your week l Talk to a friend, a family member or someone you trust l Write a journal or find likeminded people on well-established online forums to chat with l Take breaks such as days out, short holidays or even just an hour away from the demands of your day l Speak to your GP or health professional if you feel things are getting on top of you l Make sure you get enough sleep l Avoid too much caffeine in your diet
