There’s a point you reach with chronic illness, a point of proper, soul-deep exhaustion, where surrender feels like the only logical option. I was there in early 2023. The family unit I’d fought so hard to build had fractured, and the constant, grinding war with HS had left me feeling like a self-loathing, miserable wreck of a human. The water was cold, deep, and that “sink or swim” cliché felt terrifyingly real. It would have been so easy to just sink.
But at the same time, something else was stirring amidst the wreckage. A little internal fight. A flicker of the old Gareth. It was the start of what I came to call my “Warrior Plan”—a defiant, primal roar from the depths of my being that said, with an almost violent clarity, “Enough.” An attempt to build a strong HS warrior mindset.
The Spark: A Lesson from Lobsters (and a Bloke Named Peterson)
My mind was the first battlefield. For years, I had stopped seeing my mind and body as one unit; my body was the treacherous adversary, and my brain was just the exhausted passenger. I started listening to a lot of Jordan Peterson around then, and one idea lodged itself in my brain: the chuffing lobsters.
He talks about how when a lobster loses a fight, its brain basically dissolves. It then grows a new, subordinate brain more appropriate to its new, lowly position. It starts behaving like a loser. The winner, meanwhile, gets a serotonin boost and swaggers about. The lesson? Even crustaceans know that mindset matters. If you walk through the world like you’ve already lost, the chemicals in your brain will believe you. I had been a defeated lobster for a long, long time. I decided it was time to stand up straighter, to act like someone who deserved to win. I dragged my broken brain to the gym, kicking and screaming.
Lacing Up the Gloves: More Than Just a Fight
One night, I saw an advert for a charity white-collar boxing event. Something just clicked. Boxing. It felt like… fighting back. Literally. I signed up there and then, fuelled by defiance and a looming mid-life crisis. My mates thought I’d gone full retard. They were probably right. Boxing training is a checklist of HS triggers: friction, sweat, impact. It was potentially madness.
But this wasn’t just about getting fit; it was about reclaiming agency. It was a conscious choice to actively fight, instead of passively endure. The full, brutal story of this decision and the eight weeks of training that followed is a cornerstone of my memoir, “A 21st Century Boydult”, but the mission was simple: I wanted to raise awareness for HS, and I wanted to prove to myself that this bastard disease didn’t have the final say.
(For a more general look at HS and exercise, you can read my guide on Navigating a Bad GP Experience in the UK.)
The Real Victory: It Was Never About Winning
The training was brutal. But a strange thing happened. The discipline, the focus, the sheer, bloody-minded effort—it started to rebuild me from the inside out. I got fitter, stronger, and leaner than I’d been in two decades. But the real transformation was mental. The constant fog of depression began to lift. I started to look in the mirror and see not just the scars, but strength. I started to like myself again.
Fight night itself was a blur. I walked out to “Welcome to the Jungle,” in front of 800 people, and for three rounds, I wasn’t a patient. I was a boxer. I lost on points to a more experienced opponent, but I went the distance. And in that moment, it didn’t matter. The real victory had already been won. The victory wasn’t over my opponent; it was over the version of myself that had been ready to sink. I had chosen to fight, and in doing so, I had already won the war that truly mattered. As Sun Tzu said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Through boxing, I was finally getting to know myself again.
What’s been your “Warrior Plan”? What’s the one thing you’ve done to fight back against the mental toll of HS? Share it in the comments. Your story could be the spark for someone else.