Rehab, like hiking, can also make you angry. Furious. You think you are finally figuring things out. You’ve felt the feelings. You’ve felt the loss and the grief and the shame. You’re still feeling it, and it hurts, but it’s not as scary. You can breathe a little.
And then you get angry. At the tree branches that snag your backpack. At the root that catches your toe and either makes you wince in pain, stumble, or fall rather ungracefully on your ass. You get angry at the wind. At the rain. At the clouds. At the mud. At the relentless uphills and downhills. And the rocks. The fucking New Hampshire rocks. You’re sure they were all put there just to terrorize and antagonize you. Just to make your life more difficult.
At rehab, the anger comes out of nowhere. Or out of a place that feels all too familiar. The sheer rage that rises up out of you is sudden, and intense. People ask you what is beneath it, what other emotion your anger is keeping you from feeling. You tell them they are being ridiculous. I’m angry. I’m frustrated. There are no other emotions. I’m angry at nature, and angry for what it is doing to me.
Seriously? Am I really important enough that nature is out to get me? The nature that you love, that you adore, that you feel at peace in? That nature?
I’m angry. At the people here who don’t smoke fast enough. Or who smoke too often. Or who talk to me when I’m trying to smoke. How dare they try to be social with me? Don’t they understand I don’t LIKE to talk? I’m angry at the girl across from me who is so caught up in the fact that she is a nurse that she won’t shut up about it. Let’s face it – she won’t shut up about anything. She talks to hear herself talk. She talks while the group leader is talking. She talks to the people sitting next to her. During group. WTF. How is it you think you are so important that we all want to hear what you think?
So, I’m angry. Furious. I want to strangle everyone and everything. I don’t want to rehab anymore. I don’t want to hike anymore. I’m too fucking angry.
Wait.
Did I really say that? Did I really just say that I don’t want to hike anymore? I’m full of shit. Sure, I’m angry. But is it possible I’m scared? Is it possible I’m scared that I can’t do this? Do I really have what it takes to climb this mountain? What do I do when I leave here and these feelings are still here and I can’t stop crying but there’s no one around who understands why I’m crying and the pain is too big and I want to turn around, get off this trail and go home?
You cry. And you talk to someone who has been there. You talk to someone who knows what it’s like to cry as if your heart is broken, until it feels like you can’t cry anymore. And then you cry some more. And they know. They’ve been there. And they tell you it’s okay and that it feels awful and that it feels like it will break you. But they also tell you that it eases.
And you have no choice but to believe them. So, for just a moment, you do. And you keep hiking.